Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #65: Dock Installing, ChatCBD, Tick Stowaway, etc.

 

1. Twice a year my buddy Steve and I help a couple install and remove their lakeside dock at their property. It is good money for a short amount of time. Typically it takes us 20 minutes to get the 3 pieces of aluminum dock either down into the lake or up the stairs from the lake. It is a relatively fun time as the couple from New York are super nice and very appreciative. I will say though that it gets harder carrying the dock up and down the steps each time I do it. My elbows, shoulders, and low back are tight but getting a fistful of cash always makes the pain go away. That and ibuprofen, lots of ibuprofen.

2. I saw that Alice In Chains is on tour and is coming to Mohegan Sun in a few weeks. Man, 17-year-old me would have killed to see them, even without Layne Staley. Sadly being an adult makes spontaneous concert trips less likely. Oh I could swing the tickets and a hotel room but my mind goes to taking the day off of work and canceling clients, etc. 17-year-old me would probably slap the hell out of me if he heard that but it is what it is. Maybe if the show was a few months away I’d go. Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last concert I went to period. Boy, that’s sad. I’ll have to change that in the near future.

3. It can get frustrating when your brain and your body don’t match up. I remember all of my running feats, personal bests, etc. However since my hip injury in 2017-18 I can only match those efforts in short bursts. I get down on myself but then it dawns on me. Who am I trying to impress? Honestly, who cares if I can run a 5:30-minute mile ever again? Maybe in time I can get closer to who I used to be but for now I need to be happy with being able to just be out on the road or bike trail or wherever I go.

4. Leaving things left unsaid is the worst pain. Finding a letter you meant to send to someone very special for their birthday 20 years ago stings bad. On one hand it reinforces the feelings I had for a girl that changed my life forever. Now, 20 years on, it makes me feel a bit empty. For one I have no way to get in touch with her today which means words left unsaid will remain unsaid. Also I know she has a totally full life that I’d never want to disrupt. I’m not saying that if I sent that birthday letter back in 2005 that she and I would be together now but leaving the words unsaid means I’ll likely never know what difference those words might have meant.

5. I am a big fan of ChatGPT. I use it to help me organize my podcast notes, to brainstorm ideas for future YouTube videos. I also enjoy Bing AI to craft realistic images of things I can’t capture with my camera. Perhaps the best new offshoot of these sites is the Sora image tech that’s a part of ChatGPT. You can upload your own photos and remix them into something else. For example, a goal of mine is to take a photo of me in high school and a photo of me present day and mix them together where we’re shaking hands with a caption, “Become the person your younger self would be proud to meet.” Or something similar to that. I had to laugh, though at this idea. I took an old photo of when I discovered a secret solitary grave deep in the woods of Truro, MA. I took a photo of myself hugging it in celebration. The remixed photo shows the spirit of the man buried there embarrassed by my emotional outburst. It’s pretty funny if I do say so myself.

6. This is the longest my hair has been in a lot of years. I used to buzz it to the skin almost weekly for close to 14 years. I am having to get used to having hair but it’s not so bad. That being said I did go on a photography adventure in the woods and ended up with a tick in my hair. I didn’t notice it for a few hours because it was bushwhacking through my hair. Luckily, I found it and dispatched of it. Just to be safe I did take a shower and scald myself in search of any others.

7. That photo adventure was a trip through the overgrown brush to the remains of the West Barnstable Brick Factory. A century ago it was a thriving business on Cape Cod making tens of millions of bricks annually. They dug a hole to measure how much clay they had left to make bricks. In doing so they struck water, flooded the clay pits, and went out of business shortly thereafter. It’s wild to stand before the crumbling facade and other remnants of a once mighty business. It’s also a difficult place to get to, especially during the warmer months. There’s water everywhere, greenhead flies everywhere, and no real trail to the factory. Anyone who attempts to visit should be prepared to get muddy, wet, chewed up, sliced by thorns, jabbed by branches, and of course attacked by ticks.

8. Easter Sunday was so much fun. Food, family, loads of laughs. I had to make sure that I held back a little when it came to eating. On Thanksgiving, I ate so much that I ended up having to go home early because I was filled to the max. I was smart but I still had a good amount of ham, pot roast, mashed potatoes, and a wealth of desserts. It made me very glad that I went for a run in the morning.

My running route on Easter Sunday.

9. A highlight of Easter was the moneymaking idea my niece Emma and I came up with. In the spirit of ChatGPT, we decided to invent ChatCBD. It would be an AI product that reads your stress level and releases the appropriate amount of CBD needed for you to feel better. I have no clue how the product would get made, I’m just the idea man.

10. Easter was also April 20^th, 4/20. Naturally, I celebrated with a little edible fun in the evening. I had to look it up and find out why 4/20 is the code for weed. Credit goes to five high school students in San Rafael, California, who in 1971 used "4:20" as a code to designate their meeting time to search for an abandoned cannabis crop, referring to it as "4:20 Louis.” So there you go, the more you know.

Initial Impressions 2.0 #9: Thank You, Supermarket Matchmaking, Missing Socks, etc

#9: Thank You

1. The highlight of a trip to the grocery store came down to two people. First was this woman who was walking down an aisle and felt the need to burst into the Rice a Roni jingle when she saw the product. Second was the little boy who said ‘thank you’ to the automatic door when it slid open for him. So it’s a toss-up between funny and heartwarming. I’ll say it’s a tie.

2. I have always been one that enjoys my alone time. For a good 15 years, I have always seemed to be working on one project or another chasing my dreams of writing/content creation as a full-time gig. The Covid pandemic 4 years ago forced me to stay isolated even more than normal. Ironically I almost feel like I am stuck in that loop and don’t remember how to socialize anymore. Not sure if this is more common or if it is just me but I’ve been even more of an introvert since the pandemic.

3. With my local Planet Fitness it’s like you take what you can get. Last week they got a half-dozen all-new stability balls(the large balls you can use for ab crunches, etc). They must have gotten their annual equipment budget. So they got the new balls yay, but all of them are severely underinflated boo. It’s like trying to do crunches on a bean bag chair. Really good for your back, yay.

4. I don’t know if I heard it right but as I was leaving the grocery store I sure thought I heard a woman outside on the phone. She was sitting with an employee of the store, and the woman was trying to set up the employee with whoever was on the phone. I thought she said ‘I’m sitting with her now if you want to come meet her.’ Matchmaking skills.

5. Ordered a refresh of my CBD and they were nice enough to include a free bonus gift. It is a shot drink called Euphora, think of it as 5-Hour Energy but for mood. I have no idea how it will make me feel so I’m waiting until I have a day off to see. So the results will be in next week’s blog.

Will it deliver on its promise?

6. If I didn’t have to worry about anything my ultimate dream would be to embark on a never-ending road trip around the country. I would record podcasts from the road, write articles about places I visit, and take thousands of photos to share everywhere. Talk about scratching every creative itch I have in one fell swoop. Maybe someday.

7. I am not shocked that there is a sequel to the fever dream horror movie that is Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. What is shocking is that the sequel has actually gotten positive reviews. The first movie is 3% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes. The sequel? 63% Fresh. I guess people like seeing Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Owl murder dozens of people in increasingly graphic ways.

Yes, this is real.

8. I have only just become acquainted with the Winnebago Man. For those unaware of who or what that is, it’s an old viral YouTube video of outtakes of an RV salesman from Iowa in 1989 going crazy and swearing and losing his mind during a day of shooting a commercial. The man, Jack Rebney, became a viral sensation and even had a documentary made about him. Here’s the link so you can see the outtake video, highly recommended. Winnebago Man - Jack Rebney

9. From the Missing Sock Files: I was missing a sock for weeks and honestly had no idea where it could have possibly been. I went into my closet and grabbed a shirt off a hanger and suddenly there was the missing sock. It must have been stuck in the sleeve of the shirt and since I hadn’t worn the shirt in weeks it just stayed there hung up in my closet. That’s definitely a unique missing sock story.

10. 40 years ago this week the freighter Eldia ran aground in a storm at Nauset Beach in Orleans, Massachusetts. It was an unusual tourist attraction in the early spring while crews worked to dislodge it from the sand. For 6-year-old me it’s one of the first truly vivid memories I have. I remember trudging across the nearly half-mile of sand dunes to get a closer look at the nearly 500-foot-long behemoth. For those who might not remember, or have never heard of it, or want a refresher, here is my video on the event. The Wreck of the Eldia - 40 Years Later

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