Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #122: Record Temperatures, Dogs In Golf Carts, Nice Parking, etc.

1. Well, that escalated quickly. We graduated from a typical Cape Cod spring, meaning low 50s with loads of clouds, fog, and drizzle. In a snap, it was record-high temperatures. We hit right around 80 degrees with low humidity and tons of sun. I had a great time going for a morning walk in the perfect weather. I enjoyed it so much that I created a short video of my walking route. Granted, the record highs didn’t last. We dropped to more normal, but still nice, temperatures in the low to mid 60s. It was perfect for mid to late May. Much like the first snow of the season, the first hot day of the season is fun, but as it becomes more common, it gets less appealing. To me, perfect weather is low humidity, partly cloudy, temperatures in the low to mid 70s. If I could bottle that, I would. Now it is the race to see how long it is until I have to put in my air conditioner. Last year, it was early, maybe the third week of June. I am hoping to hold off until after the 4th of July, as I typically do, but I can’t control the weather.


2. The sirens wailed as I walked to my car one morning this week. I was headed to work. I hear sirens almost daily, police and fire. I see the vehicles go by the house every so often. On this day, one fire truck flew by, then another. I had to wait as a third flew by. I wondered where they were headed. It didn’t take long to find out. After not even a minute of driving, I saw the huge plumes of black smoke billowing up from the trees. It wasn’t a forest fire, though. Near the end of the road I live on, I saw the fire trucks congregated. There it was. A shed, a boat that was probably 20-feet long, and a back fence were engulfed in flames. The next-door neighbor was dousing their side of the fence with a hose to try to hold off the fire. Cars slowed but didn’t stop. I wondered all day about the fate of that house. On the way home in the evening, I slowed down by that house. The fence looked like it survived. The shed had a massive hole in its roof. I saw the front half of the boat, but I don’t know if the back end was a loss. Thankfully, the house looked fine, and I can only assume all of the people were okay. Cheers to the Yarmouth Fire Department for getting there so fast and getting the fire out.


3. Aging is a weird thing. It’s like mentally I feel like I am still 18, but that was 30 years ago. Certain songs or foods can immediately bring my mind back to how I felt as a teenager. Even when I look in the mirror, I don’t feel like I have aged badly. Yes, I have more gray than I’d like, but I have a full head of hair. Between 40-53% of men in their 40s are going bald, or are bald. That jumps to 50-85% of men in their 50s. Granted, I could start going bald in 11 years and still be in my 50s, but I have good genes. Physically, though, is where the differences are piling up. It wasn’t when I turned 40 that things started changing. It was actually after turning 42 in 2019. I had a bad hip injury from running, and also battled Covid and lived through it like we all did. Those things all seemed to turn the tide in a way I haven’t been able to come back from. I do well for a few months and lose 10-15 pounds, but then my energy and willpower just get sapped, and I fall off. I think recognizing it is a benefit, though. Every new day, you can try again to get it right. Is that a stricter diet? Lowering my caffeine intake? Reducing my workload so I can go to the gym more? A little of all of them? I have no idea. All I know is that, going back to those good genes, I am likely going to be lucky enough to reach my 90s, as many in my family tree have. That means I have 40-something years left. I can either keep working hard and have more healthy years ahead. Or I can just give up and have decades of a downhill trend. The choice is mine.


4. The heat wave in May in New England broke in spectacular fashion. It was as hot as 88 degrees with a real feel of 101. I decided to make the most of it by going for a walk in the afternoon when I got out of work. I was on the bike trail. It was not as bad in the shade, not very humid. I saw in the sky the thunderclouds billowing above the trees. I knew it wasn’t long until the rains would arrive. I walked 3.5 miles, so it took me an hour. When I parked my car at the bike trail, my car’s thermometer read 84 degrees. When I got back an hour later, it was 74. Dropping 10 degrees in an hour is pretty wild. In fact, the longer I walked, the more I could actually feel the heat breaking. It took a couple of hours, but the heavy rain and a few thunderstorms arrived. It was the ultimate example of ‘if you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait 5 minutes.’ We went from a real feel of 101 one day to low temperatures dropping into the upper 40s the next night. It feels like it might be a wacky, unpredictable summer weather-wise.


5. I don’t know what to say. I guess wild animals trust me. That is my thought process after this week. I was out for a run when I was passing a golf course and noticed a pair of cute little chipmunks running and playing near an open gate. One was lagging behind, and I got the sense that it might end up coming around the corner of the gate when I was walking by. Instinctively, I grabbed my phone in the hopes of getting a photo of one of them. The curious chipmunk not only came out from the fence, but it literally walked right up and sniffed my sneakers. I was able to get a few seconds of video of this tiny chipmunk by my feet before it ran off with its friend. Now, couple this with the foxes last week that seemed all too comfortable with me hanging around. Then go back a couple of years to a little bunny that wandered out from the bushes at a beach and literally climbed on my shoe and tried to eat my laces. I’m not saying I can go sit under a tree, and birds are going to land on my shoulders like pets, but I’ve had more wild animals get close to me recently than I’d expect. Soon, I will have amassed an army of creatures. Too bad it’s all bunnies, chipmunks, and baby foxes.



6. One day each week, I either wait with my youngest niece, Sylvie, for the bus or go with her to get dropped off at school. I look forward to it every time. She is so sweet and kind and always looks to give me something of hers. I have been finding new ways to ‘forget’ and leave them behind. Usually, when she gets dropped off, I get out of the back of the van and move up front, so her mom doesn’t feel like she is a taxi driver. Sylvie has explained to me before how to close the sliding side door properly. You tug the handle once, and it automatically slides closed. As she was getting out, she did that, and I couldn’t stop the door. Only when there were a few inches to go did the door stop. Then it began setting off a beeping to warn you that the door was open. We had to drive to a parking spot so I could get the door closed once the automatic function was turned off. I laughed because I said Sylvie told me how to do it right, but obviously, I am old, and technology will now be my enemy, I guess.


7. My Fitbit has a few times it will buzz to let me know of achievements. They usually have to do with heart rate zones. It also buzzes when I hit 150 exercise minutes per week, or 10,000 steps in a day. Whenever I hit those milestones, it’s a good feeling that I am being active and healthy. The only problem is that Fitbit has a tendency to track steps using arm swinging motions as much as actual foot movement. This came through one day this week when I was sitting at my desk recording my podcast, and my Fitbit started buzzing. I looked and saw I had passed 10,000 steps. But how? I mean, I was pretty close to 10K anyway, so it wasn’t a major glitch like I magically got 10K steps while sitting. No, I think I was gesturing too demonstratively with my hands while recording, and the Fitbit took that as steps. Despite sitting still, I somehow kept adding steps. I guess now I know that if I’m close to 10K but don’t feel like going for a walk, and can just wiggle my arm a whole bunch and get there anyway.


8. I never know what interesting things I am going to see when out for a walk/run. At this point, there really isn’t anything that could shock me. For example, one day this week, I went walking to a little neighborhood located right on Bass River near me. It’s one of those semi-private neighborhoods, not quite gated, with a sign at the entrance with some fancy name to it. This neighborhood is very relaxed; the only vehicles driving through it tend to be those who live there. Those who do live there venture around the roads not in their cars or trucks, but many of them drive golf carts. It is pretty unique. I was walking through the neighborhood and saw a golf cart coming around a corner. It was driven by a girl who couldn’t have been more than eleven. Her passenger was an adorable golden retriever. Just a young girl, her dog, and a golf cart. I just smiled and thought it was par for the course as far as things I see on my walks. Yes, the pun was intended.

Like this, but even cuter

9. Sometimes the stereotype fits. I drove to the Three Sisters Lighthouses in Eastham. There is a small dirt parking lot that can only fit a handful of cars. I pull in. There is a car parked normally, and next to it, some jerk parked diagonally, taking up 2 spaces. When there are dozens of spots, and you park diagonally, you’re a jerk, but it’s not as egregious. When there are like 5 spots, and you do it, you’re an inconsiderate prick. I looked at the New York license plate. My first thought was ‘typical New Yorker.’ I know not all people from New York are pricks, but you do see a lot of them. This jackass wasn’t even at the lighthouses. I am pretty sure he parked there and walked the ¼ mile down to Nauset Light Beach so he wouldn’t have to pay. I got some photos and videos, and when walking back to my car, I saw this idiot and his equally stupid wife getting into the car. A guy had to wait for this moron to back out and leave before he could pull in. Of course, the smug jerk couldn’t even look at any of us watching him leave. It took all of my composure not to just yell at him. The person pulling in asked if I could believe that guy. Needing to vent my anger, I said the guy was a ‘f*cking prick.’ Then I saw his young son getting out of the truck. I quickly apologized for my language, but he was cool. We laughed, and I left. Moral of the story: Whether you’re from New York, Massachusetts, or anywhere, just don’t be a jerk. It’s really not that hard...for most people.


10. For 5 years, I had been running my Facebook business/fan page entirely dedicated to my podcast. I finally realized recently that I was selling myself short. I spend so much time creating that it’s basically a second full-time job. One that I get paid considerably less for currently, but I’m working on that. The fact that I was only promoting my podcast on that page when I also have books, blogs, videos, photos, and film projects, was definitely downplaying all of the hard work I do. This week, I chose to revamp that page from being only about my podcast to everything I do. Fittingly, I renamed it The World of Christopher Setterlund. My plan is to post several times a day there, featuring not only current things I’ve finished, but also shining a light on some of my archived projects. I have a tendency to finish something, share it a few times, and relegate it to a metaphorical box in the back of my closet. I need to promote older stuff much more. The fact that I literally have thousands of pieces of content in various forms that I can pull from means that my back catalog feels totally fresh again. This will be a fun new way to share all of my creative work.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #118: Gurnet Trip, City Goose, Watch Your Ears, etc.

1. It’s probably been a year since I went on a true photo trip. Ironically, it started in the exact same way. My buddy Steve’s family has a summer cottage out on The Gurnet in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It has been in their family for over 130 years. The Gurnet is a private community and also a four-mile drive down Duxbury Beach. In the spring, Steve likes to bring some belongings up to the cottage as they prepare to open it up. I tend to tag along, as it is a perfect excuse for a photo trip. It also allows me access to Gurnet Lighthouse, which is at the point. I have been out there probably close to 10 times now, and every time I go, I get the same photo of the lighthouse looking back toward Duxbury Beach from atop an earthen fort. As much as I like trying to find different angles of photos, this one, for some reason, speaks to me.



2. The trip didn’t begin too early. I got up at 6am like I would on any workday. I made sure everything I needed was packed the night before, since it’s my thousandth photo trip or something like that. Of course, it wouldn’t be a normal trip without me forgetting something on my end. This time is was forgetting to charge my camera battery. You can’t blame me, though, as I hadn’t touched my camera since November when I shot my nephew’s Senior photos. Since then, it’s been in its bag collecting dust. It didn’t end up affecting the trip much though, since I was fully prepared to use my phone and selfie stick.


3. Speaking of that selfie stick, I put it to good use while driving the four miles out to The Gurnet. I rolled down the window and filmed much of the ride out. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary except for the other vehicle that came flying up behind us. I am sure they were either curious or irritated by me, who must have looked like some vlogger or influencer recording the drive out. Hey, I’m not famous, but I’m not above trying to get some good footage to try to go viral. I half expected them to follow us up to Steve’s cottage to yell at us for not going faster on the winding, holey, dirt road.


4. A usual spot we hit on the annual Gurnet trip is Gunther Tooties. It is a small bagel and coffee shop with five locations, typically located inside gas station markets. They have a bunch of different bagel types and cream cheese flavors. Each time I go in, I have no idea what I want. It’s like I need to learn what a bagel is or something. The toughest choice was the flavor of cream cheese. The girl at the register told me where the flavors were listed on the board. I saw chocolate chip and said I wanted that. Unfortunately, that was a bagel flavor as I was not reading the right list. Feeling a bit dumb, I think the girl could tell, and so she recommended honey walnut cream cheese to go with my French toast bagel. I agreed. As we drove off, it dawned on me that I believe that I get the same order every time, yet I go in the next time like it’s my first time. It’s like the mind eraser from Men in Black is located in the door as I exit.

The Plymouth location

5. I have wanted to go to Gooseberry Island in Westport, Massachusetts, for years. The main reason is a concrete observation tower from World War II. The island itself is 73 acres and has more than just the tower and the other smaller tower near it. However, I had tunnel vision and could not have cared less about the ocean scenery on either side of the walk out. The towers didn’t disappoint, despite being coated in graffiti. There were no secret entrances to either tower, although I might have been able to squeeze sideways into a narrow opening in the smaller tower. The piles of trash inside though, stopped any foolish ideas. It was while we were out at the towers that we noticed dark clouds increasing. As the sprinkles began to fall, I hesitated, hurrying back to the truck since there was an outside chance of a rainbow appearing. That became a running theme of the rest of the photo trip: hoping for a rainbow as it rained. There never was one.



6. Much like not being able to read the flavored cream cheeses at Gunther Tooties earlier, I had another ‘eyes playing tricks on me’ moment while leaving Gooseberry Island. I walked past a gray SUV that was covered in bumper stickers. I spotted one with a weird message in cursive on it. Now, after the fact, I realized that the sticker said ‘Kinda Sweet. Kinda Savage.’ What did I think it said? Kinda Sweet. Kindness Sausage.’ Is this the same as mishearing lyrics in a song? Someone needs to make that bumper sticker now. I had to laugh and then had a whale of a time explaining to Steve why I was laughing. Hey, they have ‘kindness rocks,’ why not kindness sausage?


7. One thing that you notice right away when driving around certain parts of the south coast of Massachusetts is that there is a lot of farmland. Like you wouldn’t expect that much. There are urban areas like New Bedford and Fall River, sure, but then there are stretches where it's wide open areas with cattle and rock walls. Towns like Westport, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, and Middleboro have a mix of both. You drive and see barns, silos, animals, and then a few minutes later, you’re on a main road littered with fast food and strip malls. Even on Cape Cod, we don’t have that much wide open space. Any farm down here is like pocket-sized. Don’t even get me started about how much different Western Mass is compared to the east. That’s mostly due to the Berkshire Mountains. The south coast of Massachusetts makes for a scenic, if not unexpectedly so, photography trip.


8. I love road trips. That being said, I also unfortunately get terrible car sickness. The same goes for boats. So, as much as I loved the idea of Steve driving the 200+ miles we ended up doing on the photo trip, there was also lingering dread in the back of my head. Would I get carsick? I always take Dramamine about an hour before being the passenger in someone else’s car. Sometimes it works great, other times not so much. The irony is that I feel fine when I drive. I have learned it’s because my brain is in control of anything from movement to acceleration, etc. That’s not the case when a passenger. We were out from just before 8am until close to 5pm on that trip, and I did well. Granted, I had my Dramamine, a few ibuprofen during the trip, and an extra hit of caffeine to stave off any nausea. I wasn’t taking any chances. I’d much rather just sit and be the passenger on any road trip, but due to motion sickness, I tend to be the driver the majority of the time. At least my car is great on gas.


9. Visiting Gooseberry Island was out of order for our itinerary. We had anticipated stopping first at Parsons Reserve in Dartmouth. It is a walking trail known for its incredible field of daffodils in the middle. I had ideas for photos and videos that were dancing in my head. Unfortunately, with it being school vacation week, loads of families had the same idea. We drove past the main parking lot. It was full, and they had security directing people. So we drove a few hundred feet to the backup lot. It was also full. That’s why we ended up at Gooseberry Island. Once we finished there, we headed back toward Parsons Reserve as the rain began to steadily fall. It was touch and go as far as bringing our cameras out there, but I said, since we were there, why not just give it a try? It wasn’t like we could just go back the next day since it’s about an hour drive for us. We wandered about ¼ mile to get to the daffodil field. Signs were telling you no professional photo shoots and no equipment. Little did they know my selfie stick was also a tripod, so joke’s on them. Even in the rain, there were probably 15-20 people wandering the rows of 27 different varieties of daffodils. Signs were telling you which direction to go, including one-way signs. Dogs and screaming kids were there as well, but I can always use editing techniques to get rid of those sounds when making videos. The rain fell throughout the time there, but it made for some cool ASMR videos. It is recommended to visit Parsons Reserve and the daffodils during the spring. If you’re going in the off-season, it’s not going to be anything special since the daffodils are the main attraction.



10. Fort Rodman and Fort Taber in New Bedford make up a historic site that I have been to many times. Rodman is a granite structure, while Taber is an earthen fort that is pretty creepy and also grimy when you step inside. Years ago, when I went there were holes smashed out of some of the lower-floor granite of Fort Rodman, which allowed you to see inside to an overgrown, creepy courtyard. Now those have all been sealed over. Still, there is a hole in the front wooden doors, so you still get a little bit of a view. I wanted a video walking through Fort Taber. Even though it’s a public area and the fort itself isn’t as big as it seems, I still made sure to wait to make sure a couple of people I saw weren’t going to follow me inside. I like the historic site, but some places in New Bedford are sketchy to say the least. This part of the photo trip ended with me walking a long concrete walkway to get a close-up photo of Butler Flats Lighthouse, located a half-mile or so offshore. Unfortunately, while standing all the way out there, I realized I needed to pee. It was doubly unfortunate because no bathrooms were open on the grounds. I briefly debated the pros and cons of peeing over the side into the ocean, but remembered the entire property was under video surveillance. That’s not the type of thing you want to be known for. I wisely held it in.

Looking toward Fort Rodman from atop Fort Taber

11. My saving grace was a Wendy’s in New Bedford. Steve wanted a quick bite. I needed a bathroom badly, and we both won. The standout moment from this part of the trip was not the fact that I resisted a spicy chicken sandwich and fries. No, it was a lone goose just relaxing in a small grassy area right off a busy street at the edge of the parking lot. Mind you, this is a highly developed section of New Bedford. There were no ponds nearby, hardly any trees. It was all busy streets and shopping plazas. This one goose was lying down, seemingly undisturbed by the number of cars, people, and overall noise. I thought about going over to try to get an up close photo of the city goose, but I figured it might end one of two ways. Either the goose gets mad and comes at me and I have to run away. Or the goose gets scared and flies into traffic and gets turned into a piñata for cars. That second one would, of course, lead to people looking at me for scaring an innocent goose. I decided to just let it be.


12. I created a retrospective video about the 6 weeks or so that the north side of Cape Cod was choked with ice back in winter. The irony is that I was holding off to make sure we had no chance of getting any more snow. I didn’t want to release it on YouTube and then have a freak snowstorm happen. I figured it would look like I jinxed us. Well, we didn’t get a snowstorm, but we did get a brief but intense hailstorm one day this week. The hail was smaller than peas, but it fell so intensely for 10-15 minutes that it made the ground white. So it might not have been a snowstorm, but it was close. Now I think we should be safe from freak spring snow (knocks wood).



13. Sometimes I have to stop and really appreciate how lucky I am. This is a two-part story. First, I was lucky that this week I got to spend some time hanging out and having fun with my 7-year-old niece, Sylvie. She is a bundle of energy and is already very sporty. So she wanted to be out in the yard kicking a soccer ball around. That’s easy enough for me. While running around and kicking, I stopped paying attention to my surroundings. That came back to bite me as I went running for the ball too close to a bush. In a one-in-a-million shot, one of the branches literally went right into my ear canal, slamming into my eardrum. It was a shocking pain, and I immediately grabbed for my ear. I was terrified that I had done permanent damage. The first thing I did was start snapping my fingers next to my ear to make sure I hadn’t lost my hearing. That was the other lucky part. I have no clue how close I came to bursting my eardrum and suddenly being partially deaf. All the while, I had to not let my niece see how much pain I was in. I just kept playing with her all the while checking my ear for any damage.


14. Humbled and grateful are the words I would use to describe my feelings after my first author event of the year. It was held at the West Dennis Library, not too far a drive for me. I was speaking about Cape Cod history and specifically my 10th book, In Their Footsteps: The Interesting People, Places, and Events of Cape Cod History. There has been loads of construction going on in West Dennis, and once I pulled into the library parking lot and saw that there was half of the parking lot was surrounded by a chain link fence, I didn’t have a good feeling about turnout. I was wrong. People filed in, and kept filing in. The staff had to grab several more chairs to fit the 30 or so people who came to hear me speak. The event went great, even if my voice started getting raspy. The fact that so many people came out to see me is something I will never take for granted. It still surprises me that I have people willing to take time out of their day to come to an event of mine. I do my best to make it fun, engaging, and interesting. I also sold a whole bunch of books, nearly my whole stock. It was a wonderful time, and I hope I can do many more of them this year and next.


15. Having worked as a trainer for 10 years and watched my overall health for a lot longer, I have tried everything. Any exercise, any class, any type of cardio, any diet, any supplement. You name it, I have tried it. I wish I could sit back and tell people, whether clients or just friends and family, that I had a cheat code for them to get in better shape (whatever that might be). The bottom line is that there is no cheat code. It comes down to consistency. It comes down to discipline. It comes down to diet. That doesn’t mean you need to eat 1,000 calories a day, do an hour of cardio, and lift for another hour 6 days a week. No, consistency means making a plan and sticking to it until it becomes a habit. One healthy meal doesn’t make you healthy. One lifting session doesn’t make you strong. One walk doesn’t give you S-tier cardio levels. I get it that getting into shape is hard, especially if you’ve been on the other side of that equation for a long time. I tell people to break it down into small, manageable goals. Eat well for a day, then another day, etc. Find 30 minutes to do some sort of exercise one day, then another day, etc. My only frustration comes when people ask me for advice, and I give it, and they ignore it because it’s not ‘oh snap your fingers and you’ll be where you want to be.’ Once you get people asking you for advice constantly for months, and you find yourself repeating the exact same stuff, it gets to the point where I just want to tell them, ‘you obviously don’t really want to get healthy, so go do whatever you think is right and stop wasting my time.’

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #109: Brainless, Scratch Tickets, Blizzard Time, etc.

1. I never realized how many people either don’t pay attention or don’t know how to read. I have been posting tons of the Cape Cod ice floes videos for nearly a month on social media. Each one is from a different north-facing beach. Each one is time-stamped, and its location is shared so that viewers get an idea of when and where I shot it. I even make sure to give a good description of each one so that there is literally no possible way someone with an IQ above 10 can be confused. Yet with every post I share, I inevitably get handfuls of people either asking where it was filmed or telling me to stay off the ice since it’s not safe. These low-intelligence people seem to think that if they watch a video of mine at midnight on a Tuesday, that somehow I am magically out there on a sunny beach at that very moment. I gave up trying to explain to these fools that the videos are not happening in real-time and that I actually am not living out on the ice waiting for people to comment. It’s like, use some common sense before trying to fulfill your desperate need to feel important. I guess this is a side effect of gaining tons of new followers. The more people come in, the higher the likelihood that a few idiots wander in like raccoons looking for trash.


2. A goal for 2026 is to get back to my prime running weight. I don’t know if I can ever run like I did at my peak in 2014-15, but I do know that the running I have been doing over the last several years has been at a weight 25-30 pounds above where I was back then. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I say I can’t run like I used to, but trying to run at a far heavier weight is naturally going to make running harder on my body. So, in trying to drop weight, I have become far more focused on my diet. This has got me down 10-11 pounds since Christmas, which is not bad. It’s still a way to go to my goal, but if I go slow and steady, it should be a success. Also, I have to try to run more as the weight comes off. My stamina hasn’t been the same since Covid, but in the past week, I managed three separate hour-long treadmill sessions of mostly running. After the third day, my body was so wiped out that all of my plans for content work went out the window. All I could do was sit back and watch cartoons while my body melted into my chair. The hope is that maybe in another month I’ll be down another 5-6 pounds, which gets me a little more than halfway to my goal. Just keep moving forward.


3. In the continuing saga of frozen Cape Cod, we have a new chapter. The ice floes that have clogged up the north side beaches for nearly the last month have begun melting. What’s left? Oh, nothing, just gigantic ice and snow chunks. By gigantic, I mean 7 feet tall and 10-15 feet across. There are legit hundreds of them stretching from Dennis to Orleans. It makes the tidal flats look like another planet yet again. I was able to go one evening after work down to a nearby beach at low tide. There was a layer of ice and snow about 20 feet across at the very edge of the shore. Once you got past that, it was a quick hop down onto the sandy tidal flats. There, you could fully explore the enormous ice blocks scattered as far as the eye could see. In the past month, we’ve had the slush wave phase, the entire north side is a sheet of ice phase, and now the dump truck-sized ice blocks phase. I’m sure it’ll all melt and be over soon, but I do wonder if there’s a 4th even crazier phase to this winter.



4. I’m not against scratch tickets. If people want to spend money they have for a very, very slim chance of winning a lot more money, go ahead, it’s your choice. It is kind of sad when you see people digging through trash to find losing tickets in the, again, very, very slim chance that the person who bought the ticket didn’t realize they had won. This week, I saw perhaps the topper of all wishful thinking. On a pretty rainy afternoon, I was headed into the supermarket. A woman was walking with what had to be her son. She spotted 3 or 4 discarded tickets lying on the soaking wet asphalt. She went over and scooped those dirty, wet tickets up in that 1 in 1,000,000 chance that there might be a winner. There wasn’t, and she seemed surprised. She did carry the trash in and throw it away, which was nice, so I hope her next scratch ticket wins her something.


5. I swear that spam emailers count on people being either stupid or blown away by fake praise that they will fall into their trap. I had a ‘person’ email me raving about my latest book, In Their Footsteps: The Interesting People, Places, and Events of Cape Cod History. If you couldn’t tell by the title, it’s a book about Cape Cod history. It’s an anthology of 40 stories in chronological order. This idiot, who is naturally selling their services in marketing, tells me they sat down to read my book, thinking it was going to be a ‘dystopian thriller.’ What? But then they were pleasantly surprised by the ‘complex narrative to the story.’ Again, what? They said my book wasn’t reaching a large enough audience, fine. I’m sure you read more than just the cover on Amazon. By the 3rd paragraph in this insanely long email, I figured out it was a scam, and I sent it to my spam folder. I do wonder if any other authors received similar emails and didn’t read them, but only saw the heaps of fake praise and quickly entered their debit card numbers. Luckily, being a Gen-Xer, I am always skeptical of even the most sincere praise, and that has served me well most times.

My 'dystopian thriller' according to the scammer.

6. At my work, we have an overwhelmingly positive clientele. I enjoy interacting with 99% of those who come in. That being said, it makes those in the 1% far more noticeable. We have one such lady who, sadly, has become a regular. She routinely comes in for our pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. It is great for healing and recharging your body at the cellular level. This lady was high maintenance from the jump. Having questions about the therapy you're doing is fine, actually encouraged. However, she went from asking questions to treating us like we were her servants and that she ran the place. She brought a negative vibe to a usually pleasant work environment. The biggest issue came with her demands that we turn the music off in the therapy room. We have office music, and I have music at my desk. Since they weren’t the same music, she flipped and asked us to turn one of them off. Incredibly rude. Then, another time she was in, she made the same complaint, but this time about my music in the gym while I was training a client. She made someone close the gym door. We like to leave it open so people can come in and see what we do, or so the boss has easy access to it. The best part of her time at my work is when the door closes behind her as she’s leaving. Just awful.


7. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: New England is in line for yet another huge snowstorm. I feel like we’re at the point in the winter where it’s like Jason popping up one more time just when you think he’s dead. Literally, this weekend, we had nearly all of the snow and ice melted away on Cape Cod. Now, it is predicted that we’re going to get a foot or more of fresh snow to replace it on Monday. The National Weather Service predicts 11”, so we’ll see. Plus, to top it off, we’re not getting the cold blast afterward, so whatever snow we have is going to be the heavy, wet, back-breaking kind. I had a blast shooting the photos and videos of the Cape Cod ice floes, but man, enough is enough. Spring can’t come soon enough.

I enjoyed it for a while but we need spring now please.

8. I have to laugh when some rando on social media tries to educate me about Cape Cod. I’ve had 2 such experiences in the past week. One was innocent. A guy wanted to drive down to the Cape to experience the ice floes. I said they were melting and might not be worth an hour-plus drive. He told me that Grok (the stupid Twitter AI bot) told him that the ice was still good down on Cape Cod. I was nice and just told me that I live on Cape Cod, Grok doesn’t. The other was some dumbass lady who tried to explain to me where Eastham was. She claimed it was in the middle of the Cape. Nope, it’s the Outer Cape; Yarmouth and Hyannis are in the middle of the Cape. I told her I was 12th generation, and she should probably stick to things she actually knows, like cigarettes and cheap vodka. Normally, I just ignore social media fools, but she caught me at a bad time and had to get put on blast.


9. While watching the Stephen King series 11.22.63, I developed a bit of a celebrity crush on Sarah Gadon, who plays the character Sadie Dunhill. She’s an award-winning Canadian actress who got a lot of notoriety acting in David Cronenberg films in the 2010s. It got to the point in the series that I cared less about the plot of the show, which was trying to prevent the assassination of JFK, and I cared more about Sadie and the main character, Jake, living happily ever after. The next series I began binging after finishing 11.22.63 was another Stephen King series, Castle Rock. It’s a great show, but you could imagine my thrill when, suddenly, in Season 2, Sarah Gadon shows up as a side character. She’s only in it for two episodes, but that was enough to take Castle Rock up a level. I won’t spoil anything for those who haven’t seen either show, but all I’ll say is that her characters have nearly the same fate in each. Pretty wild. She’s also starring in the new Netflix series Wayward, so I might have to just make that next up on my binge list.

Sarah Gadon in 11.22.63

10. We end this blog and this weekend off playing the waiting game for the blizzard. Every time the forecast is updated, it seems to get worse. The snow is one thing, but the wind and flooding are another. I slowly prepped over a few days to make sure that everything is good to go, whatever happens. I fully expect to lose power for a time. How long is another question. I went earlier this week to Crosby Beach in Brewster earlier this week and got some fun footage of hundreds of ice blocks all over the tidal flats. When I went back on Sunday, they were all gone. So the irony is that we’ve gotten rid of most of the snow from the previous storm a month ago, just in time for an even bigger storm to hit us. The only silver lining to this winter is that it’s been the coldest and snowiest on Cape Cod in over 20 years. Hopefully, it’ll be a few years before it’s as bad as it’s been this year.

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 226: 1996 Year In Music Part 1, 1960s Advertising Mascots, 1990s Fitness Fad Fails(1-7-2026)

 

Order a copy of my debut film, Cape Cod Cthulhu!

Happy New Year!

The first podcast of 2026 is filled with all of the GenX nostalgia and pop culture you could want!

Episode 226 kicks off with a look at 1990s fitness fad fails. Common New Year's Resolutions revolve around health, fitness, and weight loss. We will look at some products, diets, and exercise equipment that were marketed to those looking to achieve a healthier life. Unfortunately, not all of them were successes; some were downright dangerous. 

A new year means a new look back 30 years into the world of music. This week, we look at 1996, the year in music, focusing on January through June. News, songs, albums, and general thoughts about the music scene are here in this segment. 

The first Top 5 of 2026 goes back to the first golden age of television commercials. We look at the most fondly remembered product advertising mascots of the 1960s. Many of these still exist to this day. How many do you remember?

There is a new This Week In History and Time Capsule looking back to the creation of FM radio.

Happy New Year to all of my listeners!

You can support my work by becoming a member on Patreon. 

Or you can Buy Me A Coffee!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• Buy My New Book, In Their Footsteps!
• Searching For the Lady of the Dunes True Crime Book
• Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
• Subscribe on YouTube!
• Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog
• CJSetterlundPhotos on Etsy

Listen to Episode 225 here

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #96: Injury Soap Opera, Mystery Box, Hungry Birds, etc.

1. As the Back Injury Turns: My low back injury is slowly, very slowly, getting better. It’s taken ample use of the PEMF (pulsed electromagnetic field) machine at my work, loads of ibuprofen, Icy Hot patches, and a portable TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) unit. Despite all of these weapons in the battle to feel normal again, it’s still been the worst back injury I’ve had yet. Getting out of bed, out of my car, or bending to pick something up, or putting on my socks and shoes, is no picnic. One good thing to come from the injury is that I feel even more empathy for those who deal with debilitating back pain for long periods of time. Hopefully, before this blog has even been posted, I’ll be back to the gym so that I can get started on the next injury in the long line of them that has summed up my 2025.

2. I had a few things I wanted to get from Amazon this week. One issue was the fact that I didn’t qualify for free shipping. I was literally only ten cents away from qualifying. So what did I do? I went to their dollar bin to find something inexpensive to add to it. Sure, it was something I didn’t need, but, ironically, I’d end up saving money by getting that something extra. So what did I end up getting? A little travel-sized deodorant. Hey, it was a dollar. The best part is that I guarantee when the package arrives, I’ll have forgotten I ordered it and wonder what it’s doing in there.


3. This week in 2019, I went on an amazing 6-day, 2100-mile road trip across much of the Eastern United States. To celebrate, I created videos of each day using the photos and videos I took from that time. The videos are such a fun reminder of what is still my greatest adventure to date in my life. However, there isn’t a happy ending. Fun fact: a few months after I finished that road trip, I had a hard drive crash and lost about 80% of the photos and videos I took on that trip. I was only left with what I had already uploaded onto social media. Those are what I used for the videos. So as happy as the videos make me, they barely scratch the surface of what could have been. But it’s not over. I kept that ruined laptop. My plan is to try one last-ditch effort to remove the hard drive and try to find those ‘lost’ files. Maybe I’ll find them, likely I won’t, but either way, come next week, that old laptop will probably be smashed and thrown in a dumpster somewhere.


4. This is at the same time the best and worst time of year. I love all of the holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, but they also make it nearly impossible to keep your diet in check. It’s even worse when you’re looking to drop weight. I feel like I’m punting on the last 6 weeks of the year when it comes to health. I’ll get on a streak of a few days of good eating, but then I’ll be like, ‘hey it’s the holiday season and you should just enjoy yourself.’ Then wham New Year’s comes and I’m staring at 10 extra pounds to lose, on top of what I already wanted to lose. Oh well, it’s not my fault I love food. I just seem to love the bad ones more and more as I age.

How I will likely look come spring.

5. For those looking for a new show to binge, I highly recommend Welcome To Derry. This is the prequel show to the IT movie franchise. Stephen King raves about the show, which is a good sign. As of this blog, I have watched the first four episodes. There are eight in total. It is beautifully shot. You will feel like you are in the early 1960s when the show is set. I don’t want to spoil much for those who might be interested in watching. Yes, there are familiar characters, or at least their relatives. Yes, Pennywise does appear. Yes, there have been some gory moments and good jump scares. If you like any of the IT movies, I recommend watching Welcome to Derry on HBO Max.


6. A fun little moment on a walk this week. The Beatles Anthology 4 was released on November 21st. It included remixed versions of the two new songs they put out in the mid-1990s, Free As A Bird and Real Love. These used the advanced audio technology that Peter Jackson used in his Beatles Get Back documentary, which he released in 2021. The big thing it does is it can isolate vocals in a song. This worked wonders for the poor quality John Lennon demos that were used in the *new* Anthology songs. It was first used on the 2023 Now and Then, which was promoted as the final new Beatles song. I had already heard and loved the remixed Free As A Bird, where Lennon’s voice sounded like he was in the studio with the other Beatles. I intentionally waited until I was out on my walk to listen to the remixed Real Love. I went and sat by the river and played it and just soaked in the scenery and the new sound. I highly recommend listening to both of the 1990s versions of those songs and then the new ones so you can fully appreciate the improvements in technology.

7. My YouTube channel suggestion this week is Vampire Robot. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s actually a great slice of nostalgia. The channel is filled with hundreds of videos inside different classic stores over the decades, mostly the 1970s through 1990s. It seems to be all old news b-roll footage. There is no narration; instead, it's just uncut video of people shopping in old mall stores and the like. I find it easy to click on any video and feel like I’m transported back to that time. There are other slices of life videos as well. I recommend the channel to anyone who likes nostalgia or who wants to relive their childhood.


8. Where I have my desk is right beside a window. I’m sitting there now, looking slightly to my right. On this day, it has been raining. No big deal. That is, except for some reason, the rain has made the area around the window a hotbed for bird action. No, not birds in the nearby trees singing. For some reason, the rain has apparently made the shingles and roof extra tasty. I have had to repeatedly go and bang on the window or the wall, as I keep hearing the sounds of little feet and beaks trying to tear into the shingles. It’s your standard blue jays, woodpeckers, nuthatches, and chickadees trying to make a meal out of the soaked wood. If it were summer, I’d have the window open and I might try to grab a few photos of these foolish birds, but it’s winter, so I can only bang on the glass and shout like an angry old man.

Stop eating my shingles!

9. This week is the birthday of my sister Kate. As I like to do with a lot of family and friends, I put together a little video featuring photos of us as kids way back in the far-off land of the 1980s. This year, more than any other, while looking at these old photos, I could see the resemblance between my sister and me and other family members. I could see nieces and nephews of the same ages, I could even see one of my uncles in my face. Obviously, we’re all related, but it sometimes comes as a surprise just how much we can look like each other. It became a game to see who I might look like in the photos. Although nothing beats the photo I found of my family back around 1910. In that photo, I could see several living family members who resembled people from 3 or 4 generations ago. Pretty wild stuff.


10. I don’t think I am alone when I say that what I do for work, I don’t usually want to do after work. Like when I worked in cooking, I didn’t want to cook at home. This meant loads of microwaved stuff, which I still enjoy. The thing is, working as a personal trainer for 10 years has left me less than enthused to go to the gym during my downtime. I find it a chore to go now. So much so that I’d rather layer up and go for a walk outside with temperatures in the high 30s instead of spending an hour in a warm, but crowded gym. It has become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy where I go to the gym less, feel bad about myself, and that makes me not want to go and be seen at the gym by people who remembered me when I was in great shape. Things could be worse, though. Despite not wanting to go to the gym much anymore, I am still relatively healthy when compared to others my age. I still hold on to the belief that if I truly wanted to, I could snap myself out of it and be back to being in pretty good shape in short order. Sadly, I might be one of those ‘new year, new you’ fitness people in 2026.