Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #87: Dumpster Transformer, Memory Full, Surreal Validation, etc.

1. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I’m not a fan of people who have Bluetooth headphones hooked up to their phone and then walk around loudly talking. It is one of the most obnoxious things possible. The only thing that makes these types of events worse is when the person talking loudly has a voice that makes your ears bleed. I heard this woman shouting in the aisles of a supermarket, having a conversation. Her voice was one of those nasally, ditsy, Valley Girl voices. Then I saw her and she looked like a Transformer but instead of being some kind of cool machine, she was a dirty old dumpster that also became a human. I couldn’t unsee, or unhear, that.


2. This week, I got an email reminder that my Audible subscription was renewing in a few days. That sounds like a mundane line until I tell you that I totally had no idea I was paying for an Audible subscription. I had likely been getting these payment reminders all along, but the one thing I wasn’t paying was attention. It turns out that what I thought was a free-tier membership, where I got 1 free credit toward an audiobook per month, was actually $14.95 per month. Oh, and it gets better, or worse for me, as this membership has been going on for nearly 2 years. You can do the math. I immediately canceled the membership so I’m in the clear now, but man, that was like a long, drawn-out setup for a joke that wasn’t funny. Oh well, at least I can keep the audiobooks that I got when I thought I was on a free tier. Wicked smart.


3. Getting older means things that were simple when you were younger can now turn into secret injuries. Several weeks ago, I was walking the beach at low tide with some friends. Not wanting to get my shoes wet, I jumped over a little inlet of water still flowing out. I cleared it and felt accomplished, but knew I’d landed a bit awkwardly on my left leg. Flash forward to this week and my hips and lower back were hurting. While getting adjusted by my boss, I mentioned an exercise I did this week that might have caused the pain. He said the issue was likely something from a little while back and we’d just reached the tipping point. That’s when it clicked. Jumping that little stream turned into me needing my left hip to get adjusted. The problem is my mind still thinks I’m 17, or 27, or 37. I feel like I need to forget everything I knew about fitness and diet, while we’re at it, and learn all new stuff. Or just buy clothes made of bubble wrap so I can safely navigate through life.


4. Speaking of getting older. There are times I feel like I have reached the tipping point with the amount of knowledge my brain can hold. I feel at times like a pitcher filling with water, and now any new info is just water flowing out of the pitcher into the sink. Where I notice it the most is at my training job. I have worked with enough different people there that I now can’t remember every detail about each client. This means equipment they might have at home, specific exercises that we have or haven’t done, things like that. On the other hand, I can still remember in great detail a lot of random music and pop culture items from the 1980s and 1990s. So maybe at this point in life, my brain is prioritizing certain knowledge and memories over others. Yes, that random nugget of wisdom about a random song in 1987 gets saved, but whether a client has an injury doesn’t. I’m kidding, by the way, I would remember injuries, just not my own, as seen in the last post.


5. I am used to there being some sort of ambient noise when I record my podcasts. When the weather is nice I have my window open, which is only a few feet from my desk, where I record. Countless vehicles are going by, and way too many large trucks for the road I live on. This week took the cake as far as noises I will need to edit out of the final product. There was a steady barrage of angry blue jays squawking at each other in the trees just outside. It got so bad that I had to mention it on the show in case people hear them, and I can’t edit them all out. The only way I got them to briefly stop was to find hawk calls on YouTube and play them out my window. Sadly, that only got them to go away for a few minutes before it was angry blue jay party time again. Foolish birds.

6. It’s a strange feeling that the Boston Red Sox are likely going to make the playoffs for the first time since 2021 but I really have no interest in it. In fact, this year feels like the least interest I’ve had in sports in general in my lifetime. I’m not sure why that is. It may be because I am always so busy with work that I just don’t have time to become invested in sports. With the Red Sox, I’ve been off the bandwagon with them ever since they traded Mookie Betts to the Dodgers after the 2019 season. The Bruins, I have no interest in, as I really don’t watch hockey. The Patriots have struggled since Tom Brady left, but I do keep my eyes on them from afar. I think the local team I’ve been most invested in over the last 5 years is the Celtics. Basketball was a sport I played growing up in school, so that makes sense. Part of it is that for nearly 20 years, New England had a string of champions, and now all of the teams are mediocre so I feel like I was spoiled for all of those years. It’s kind of like the 1990s all over again, except I’m way past high school age.


7. Provincetown is the only place on Cape Cod where, when I go there, I feel like a tourist. Maybe it’s because it’s an hour drive so I don’t get out there more than a few times a year? I was up there for a wedding this past weekend and took more photos of the scenery than of the event itself. I love my time in Ptown. It’s sort of like visiting Nantucket but without having to get on a boat. It’s interesting how I think of distance. Like I said, it’s an hour to drive to Provincetown, but I’m still on Cape Cod. In less than an hour in the other direction, I can drive to Plymouth, Bridgewater, Fall River, and nearly to Scituate and the Rhode Island border. Yet, all of those places feel so much farther away when I think about it.

Commercial Street, Provincetown

8. Speaking of that wedding, it was for the son of the Lady of the Dunes and his longtime girlfriend. It felt like the cherry on top, completing my story arc in a wild true crime story. The ceremony was at a church at one end of the narrow, busy Commercial Street, and the reception was at a resort hotel on the other end. Lucky for me, the hotel was right next to a parking lot. On a Saturday afternoon, even on the last weekend of summer, that lot was packed. I felt like I was going to end up having to park a few extra hundred yards away, which would mean I’d need to rush to walk to the reception, which was nearly a mile away. I still drove all the way to the end of the parking lot, which was next to the hotel. I was pleasantly surprised to find one open spot right on the road. It was as if I was meant to be there. Oh, and at the end of my time there, when I went to pay to leave, it turned out I had been parked for 2 hours and 56 minutes. Another 4 minutes would have cost me an extra $3. I guess you could say everything was coming up Milhouse, if you get that Simpsons reference.


9. Beyond the parking victory, the wedding was a validating yet surreal experience. I grew up with the mystery of the Lady of the Dunes. It was a story I knew well. If you had told me when I was young that someday the Lady would be identified, I’d have said that’s great, she and her family deserve the closure. If you had told me that I’d be involved in the case in a small way, I’d have said that sounds like it could be a possibility. If you would have told me that I’d be involved in the resolution of the case, her identity as Ruth Marie Terry, oh and that she had a son, oh and you will meet him, get to know him, he will invite you to his wedding, and tell you that your book about his mother’s case was very meaningful and important to the case’s resolution? (Catches breath) I’d have said it sounds like something I’d have written, but was highly unlikely. Yet there I was, sitting among family and friends, at a small, intimate wedding. It was in the front of my mind the entire time I was there, just how surreal and yet fulfilling and validating the experience was.

The church where the wedding ceremony was held.

10. The only downside to the wedding day in Provincetown was my Fitbit being skimpy on calories burned. I don’t know why but I thought that walking 4 miles throughout the afternoon would have earned me a few hundred extra calories burned for food. Nope, not a single one. I love my Fitbit Charge 6, but at times it feels inconsistent. It will register steps when I am sitting and moving my arm, yet its distance calculator will typically be less than what my running app will say if they are both going at once. It does a lot of calorie calculating based on heart rate. I figured I’d have gotten my heart rate up, especially when hustling a mile to get to the wedding ceremony. Oh well, even if the Fitbit didn’t give them to me, I know I burned enough calories to earn that pumpkin cake square. Yes, that was what I wanted to use the extra calories on.


11. For me, I don’t understand how in this day and age people walk on regular roads with their dogs off leash. I saw two on a walk this week. One got leashed once the owner saw me coming, which I appreciated. The other was actually off-leash while its owner was walking along with another dog that was leashed. I have no idea. When it comes to unleashed dogs, first off, you don’t know if someone is going to be driving poorly, and your dog could wander into the road and get hit. Secondly, there is the fact that your dog could get spooked, or just be a menace, and go running after a person, or someone on a bike. Unleashed dogs are every bit as dangerous as distracted drivers. They’re both unpredictable. I’ve had several experiences on bike trails on a run or ride, and some idiot has their dog unleashed, and it either jumps at me or wanders in front of me. I like dogs, I don’t love dogs. But of course, I’ve said it before in this blog, many dog owners are simply selfish and entitled, and believe your world revolves around their dog.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #74: Injury Woes, Dirty Adventures, Bologna Drama, etc.

1. You’ll recall last week that I had a close encounter with a train. I had to scurry down a rocky embankment as it approached while I was on the tracks uploading a video I had just shot. It ended up being a fun video with the train passing almost right overhead but there was a price to pay. I aggravated my sprained left ankle, which is no good. I sprained it a week and a half ago playing basketball. It was pretty stiff and swollen. Now it is almost back at square one thanks to diving down the rocks. I had to pull out of a race I had signed up for. Luckily, they were understanding and refunded my money. Honestly, though, I have no clue when I will even try to run again. Walking is fine unless I do several miles and then it gets uncomfortable. Not sure if this ends my race comeback but I feel like I am going to be spending most of the summer working on strengthening my lower body and not running.

2. I will tell you something. I was out for a walk on the bike trail and stopped to use a porta-potty. I had to wait for someone to get finished inside. The guy who stepped out looked like a backpacking hippie from the 1960s. It was confirmed when I walked into the porta potty and the smell of B.O. was stronger than the literal crap inside. It was like the Seinfeld episode when the valet driver had such bad B.O. that it stayed in the car after he left. Not sure if the guy heard my gagging but I did try to make it loud enough to be heard.

3. In the grocery store, I passed a very short woman. I am by no means tall, so my calling her short should tell you that she was sub-5-foot. Anyway, she calls to me and asks me to get her a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke off of the shelf. I grabbed one of the dozens there and handed it to her. The first thing she did was ask me to show her where it said that it was Diet Coke. Rather than ask her if she knew how to read I simply pointed to the large letters on the bottle. Satisfied that I had chosen the right product for her she turned and walked away. No thank you, no nothing. Fine. The next aisle over, we passed each other. I smiled at her. She, in return, scowled at me. Wait, what? I help you out, and you look at me like I kicked you in the back of the knee? Idiot.

4. This is the point in the year, late June, where it is a game of chicken between me and my air conditioner. This is where the weather jumps into the hot and humid stage. Granted it’s not every day, but once you feel 85 and high humidity, you don’t want to feel it again. I try to wait as long as I can to put the A/C in. Mainly, it’s because my apartment has two windows, and blocking one cuts off airflow. Also, there are plenty of days where it’s cooler and the A/C isn’t needed but I’m not going to take it out and put it back in repeatedly. That’s a recipe for a back injury. So here we are. Last year I held out until after the Fourth of July. How long will I go this year?

5. Going into my 3rd week of nursing a sprained ankle. I can walk pretty well but no running. Naturally, I saw a super cute yellow lab on the bike trail being walked the opposite way from me. This meant I needed to catch up so I could pet the dog. I ran a few hundred feet but the dog and owner turned off down a pathway. I didn’t want to chase them into the woods so I stopped. Of course a few hours later my ankle was sore and I didn’t even get to pet the dog. Double boo.

6. While out for a long 7-mile walk, I went down a section of the Cape Cod Rail Trail that goes through a golf course. I saw 4 early 20s preppy-looking guys driving by in a pair of carts. They look exactly how you’d expect them to look. I had to laugh to myself though, because I am pretty sure I burned more calories during my walk than all 4 of those guys combined during their golf game. Sorry for the hot take but I think golf is only a sport if you walk with your bag. If you drive a cart around, step out, swing a club, and drive again you’re not an athlete.

7. There is a new extension being constructed for the bike trail I mentioned, taking it from Yarmouth into neighboring Hyannis. It is only a few miles from where I live so I took it upon myself to check the extension out. It has been cleared of trees so I was able to start walking the dirt path. It was hot and dry so the dirt was kicking up. I ended up taking a shortcut that led me to mounds of dirt 30 feet tall. Too bad with my ankle I didn’t dare climb. Instead I went around the bottom of the dirt pile. There was no path, only thorns, loose sticks, and rocks. I shredded my left calf up pretty good. I made it to the point in the extension where a bridge will have to be built to carry riders over a particularly busy street. It was a fun summer adventure that brought back memories of my teenage years. Those feelings don’t come around too often anymore. Here is a short video of my adventure: https://youtube.com/shorts/h6gNbM4UWIc?feature=share

8. Late in the evening, I was listening to the birds outside. I always hear cardinals and blue jays. On this evening, I heard a bird making a squeaking call every few seconds. I thought it was weird. Blue jays make some sounds that are like a rusty swing set, so I figured it was just a blue jay. It took me way too long to figure out the squeak call was not a blue jay, or any bird at all. No, it was from my oscillating fan. Each time it got to a certain point, it squeaked. Wicked smart.

They sound the same, right?

9. Something I don’t think I’ve mentioned in this blog since its return in February 2024. As you know, I am dealing with a sprained ankle, which is really hindering what I can do physically. Back in 2011, I got back into running after not doing anything of the sort since middle school. In those early days of my running return I got injured frequently, probably as much as I did over the last several years as well. The difference is that now I work as a personal trainer, which means that any sort of ache or pain I take very seriously. If I injure a body part and I cannot demonstrate exercises then what good am I as a trainer? Back in 2011 I worked as a cook and didn’t care about pushing through injuries because as long as my arms worked, I could cook. The ultimate irony is the unequivocal fact that I was in better shape when I was cooking than I am as a trainer. It’s like if you work a certain job the last thing you want to do in your free time is that same job. I hated cooking at home when I was a cook. I’m not saying I hate going to the gym, but it just takes way more effort to get me out the door than it did 10 years ago.

10. I was sitting at the beach just enjoying a nice summer afternoon. A tow truck pulled up behind an SUV, probably 6 spots away. The driver began hooking the SUV up to be removed. I have no idea what the deal was with the vehicle. Anyway, some random fool drove by and yelled something at the tow truck driver who was just doing his job. The driver stopped what he was doing and climbed up onto the flatbed of the truck and lifted his arms like he was calling the other person back. Of course, the other person was a coward and just drove away. It’s like what are you mad that the guy was doing his job? Or did you have to turn slightly more to one side to avoid the tow truck? Phony outrage and phony tough guys are the worst. It was like social media was happening in real life in front of me.

11. Speaking of phony outrage. While in the deli section of a grocery store, an old man with a big white beard and a straw hat on was asking about getting some bologna sliced. The employee was explaining the differences between types of bologna and for some reason, this triggered this old man. He started yelling about how not all bologna is the same. To his credit, the employee stayed calm. When the old man said he didn’t know anything, the employee calmly shot back and said he must know something since he’d been working at the same place for 19 years. The angry old man walked away. Another customer made it a point to sympathize with the deli employee and said some things loud enough that the angry old man could hear. I stayed nearby for a few moments just in case there was a second act to the bologna drama.