Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #89: Cart Crunch, I Knew It, Annoying Subway, etc.

1. Who’s at fault? I watched an old man driving a pickup truck that’s way too big for him. He was pulling into a handicapped parking spot. Either he didn’t see or didn’t care that there was a shopping cart sitting up against the curb. I saw it coming and waved my arms, but it was too late. The crunch was super loud as he sandwiched the cart against the curb. His bumper didn’t fall off, but it was definitely damaged. A mother and daughter got out of another car and pulled the cart away when he backed up. Of course, the man blamed whoever left the cart there for being lazy. So again, who is at fault? The lazy person who left their cart in a handicapped spot? Or the man who just plowed into it? I’d say maybe the guy should buy a smaller car so he can see, but what do I know?


2. I don’t know about you, but I find it disgusting when someone blows a snot rocket in a public place. I also find it disgusting when a woman does it. So when I stepped outside of the gym and saw a woman blowing a snot rocket on the sidewalk, you might say it was the worst of both worlds. Don’t worry, there will be no graphic details. I’ll leave that up to your imagination. All I’ll say is that when she turned around, she definitely looked like the type of person who would do such a thing. Just low class, no regard for others. It’s like, at least go behind the building to do that, since I’m sure you’re used to hiding behind buildings to do things anyway.


3. So I did a thing this week. I published my 10th book. In Their Footsteps: The Interesting People, Places, and Events of Cape Cod History. It is obviously a history anthology. It features 40 stories in chronological order. I had been working on this for many months in addition to several other projects. I even crafted a simple landing page for people to get more information and to order the book in either paperback or ebook form. I self-published it mostly because I didn’t want to wait 18 months for it to be published traditionally when all of the materials were done. That’s like making a fancy dinner but not being able to serve it for months. If people enjoy this book, I have enough material to make two more volumes, but I’ll have to wait a few months to see if the interest is there. I am stretched pretty thin as it is so I need to be certain before I spend another big chunk of time on a project. Here is the landing page, by the way: In Their Footsteps Book


4. Typically, when I drive to Walmart, it is low-hanging fruit as far as content for this blog. I tend to see several people or incidents that immediately get made into a note in my phone. You can imagine my disappointment when I drove nearly an hour to Walmart only to have *gasp* a normal experience. I even did 2 full laps around the entire store just in case I’d missed something. Nope. It was all normal. Now granted, there was a lady who had a giant labradoodle in the store for some reason. There was also a guy older than me with a bright purplish/blue haircut, but these are not the types of craziness I was hoping for. I wanted people rolling on the floor fighting over the last box of Velveeta, not people happily shopping and getting along. Weak.

So disappointed....

5. While driving back in sadness from my Walmart trip, I stopped at a place I hadn’t visited in over 10 years. The Waquoit Bay Reserve is in East Falmouth. It overlooks the bay, naturally, and has loads of scenic trails, a cool cemetery, and the visitors center is filled with educational material. I did a walk on my own and decided to take a few minutes to sit at a picnic table and enjoy the moment. While I was there, a group of people came out of the visitors center with an employee giving them some historical information. Once they went walking on the trails, the employee stopped and we chatted for a while. He used to work at Plimoth Plantation, so he had loads of info about the Pilgrims, etc, which I enjoyed. I also particularly enjoyed when he’d slip into Olde English to talk about certain topics from the 1600s. What I thought would be a quick hello ended up being closer to a half hour, and I loved every second. It was fitting and funny that when he was going back inside to close up, he said, ‘Sorry, as you can tell I hate talking about history.’ I smiled and said back, ‘And you can tell I obviously hate hearing about it.’ He gave me some stories that might make good future blog posts, but I need to research them first.

The boat house at Waquoit Bay

6. There’s nothing quite like the mini heart attack you get when you’re sound asleep and you hear a crashing sound in your room. I woke up and looked around in the dark and saw nothing. I figured it must have been a dream that was too real. Then it happened 2 more times. Finally, at 4am I got out of bed and stood in the dark in the middle of my room waiting for the sound again so I could figure out what it was. It turned out that the wind had picked up so much during the night that it was blowing my blinds, which then would crash into the window frame. At that point, I just closed my window and went back to bed. Of course, I was so wired from the noise that it took me forever to go back to sleep. I’d have almost been better off just staying up. Oh well, at least it wasn’t a killer waiting to jump me in my closet.


7. There was a bit of an ‘I knew it,’ moment when I went to get my haircut this week. I always go to the same place. The person who I prefer to cut my hair is someone I’ve known for years and who always does an excellent job. However, because he is so good at his job, you need to book an appointment, and he is often booked out for weeks. The last time I had no choice but to do a walk-in and have one of the others on staff do the cutting. This guy talks way too much, bragging about how good he is going to make you look. It’s off-putting. During the haircut, he left to go into the backroom a few times and seemed to not be paying as much attention as he should to a paying customer whose hair he was cutting. I left there feeling like I got ripped off. It wasn’t short enough, and it looked uneven in a few places. Flash forward to this week, and I was right. The barber told me he needed to even things out because it was a bit of a mess. It’s all fixed now and looks great, but that other guy is a big mouth hack, which is why I’m not giving names here.


8. In the weekly cuteness alert, I mentioned last week that my youngest niece, Sylvie, gave me a blade of grass to keep when I was waiting for her school bus. This week I got another gift. It was a random stick that she wanted me to keep. Knowing that she’s smart and will call me out on it if I say I kept it but threw it away, I brought it with me on my walk. I was 2 miles into my walk when I shot a quick video for social media showing me with the stick by the water. So I had proof I kept it...for a while. Once the video was over, I left the stick on a bench. Luckily, she won’t know about that until she reads this blog in the future. But who knows, I might be long dead by then, so I won’t have to feel bad.


9. This weekend, I took a drive out to an area of beach that we plan on using to shoot the short film called When Henry Met Henry, my directorial debut. It was location scouting so that the rest of the crew could get a feel for where we’d be without having to actually drive there. I lauded this beach for being very secluded during the off-season. I walked about 1/3 mile to the specific spot where we will film, which is a beautiful trail over the dunes that leads into the woods. There was nobody around, well, except for one couple. Do you want to guess where they ended up going? Yup, right up the same path where I was going. Out of the miles of open beach, the only other people I saw went to the exact same place as me. I ended up having to wait by the water until I figured they were deep into the woods. I still got the video I wanted, but I had to shake my head. We’ll be filming early in the morning, so hopefully there won’t be any onlookers. With my luck, there will end up being a crowd just in that one spot.


10. For me, having lived on Cape Cod for so long, it’s incredibly rare to find an area that I am not familiar with. As luck would have it, the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary was one such place. Now, I have been there before, once, over 10 years ago. However, when I was there, I didn’t do much walking. I just found the first clearing I could and got a photo of the sunset. This time, I hiked nearly a mile out to the ocean. It was incredibly isolated. Loads of chipmunks and squirrels couldn’t have cared less about me walking by. I made it out to a boardwalk for sunset photography. It was well worth the walk. The part that made perfect sense for my life was that as I was approaching the ocean, I spotted a couple coming my way, headed back to the parking lot. The woman was a patient at my job. So I only saw two people my entire time at this spot, and one of them knew me. For anyone else, it would seem like a wild coincidence. For me, it was like ‘of course.’

The sunset at Wellfleet Bay.

11. I don’t know why this irks me so much, but it does. I created an account for Subway a long, long time ago. I do enjoy me some Subway. The info I entered as a profile is all the same as today, except for the fact that I had an AOL email address because it was like 15 years ago. For the last however many years, I haven’t used that AOL email; I use a Gmail account. I changed my account info on every single site I had a profile with to reflect the change of email. Subway will not allow you to change your email. These people will let me change my actual name and my phone number, but not my email. Their stupid app says your email is ‘how we know it’s you.’ How do you know it’s me? How about my friggin’ name and phone number? When I try to sign in, they send a confirmation code to my AOL email. The issue is I never use that email, so when I go there AOL then sends me a confirmation code to my Gmail. It’s so stupid. I have never heard of a company not allowing you to change your email. Well, I did what I had to do and deleted my account and then created a new one using the Gmail address, so the joke's on them. Or it’s on me since I went through all of this trouble for a sub shop.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #75: Hand Sandwich, Sleeping Bees, Ruined Trampoline, etc.

1. My sprained ankle happened 3 weeks ago and is getting closer to being healed. Of course, that meant it was time for me to inflict another injury on myself. This time I decided to create a hand sandwich and use the steel of the reverse hyper machine at work as the bread. In trying to adjust the flat pad for a future client, I mistook where my hand was. Instead of having it braced with my left hand, I had nothing. When the arm let go it pancaked my right hand between two steel bars. I had a client on the treadmill and was doing this while she walked to save time. I gasped but didn’t scream. My boss walked in a minute later, and I was basically hyperventilating. I was sure my hand was broken. Luckily, there was a less than one-inch gap between the steel bars so my hand wasn’t completely crushed, just mostly. There was lots of ice, lots of ibuprofen, and lots of bruising and swelling. Oh, and also it was a Monday, and I had a super busy day training clients, so it was a bundle of laughs.

Right after the damage was done, it got a lot worse.

2. Cape Cod and much of the country got its first major heat wave this week. We had several days of weather in the high 80s and low 90s. I finally broke down and put in my A/C. This was also the day of my hand injury so trying to put in the A/C was a battle as I tried to gently put it in the window sill while making sure my injured hand didn’t give way. Then the A/C would have fallen onto the cars in the driveway. It would have been like a sitcom with way less laughing from me. Not to worry though the A/C went in and is working fine, just in time for temperatures to drop at the end of the week, making the A/C not necessary, thanks.


3. In continuing with the healing of my right hand I put some pain-relieving gel on it one afternoon. The stuff works well. After work I went out for a short walk with a little running on one of the hottest days in a few years on Cape Cod. It was only when I got back to my car that I noticed my right hand was on fire. Not literally but the combination of the gel, my profuse sweating, and the heat of the day made the perfect mix. My hand was burning until I could get home and take a shower. I still recommend the pain-relieving gel though.


4. One more thing about that hot afternoon of walking and running. First, when I parked at a small lot along the bike trail, I spotted several crows in a tree. They all had their head back and their mouths wide open. It was so odd and creepy but I later found out that they do this on hot days to keep cool since they cannot sweat. Second, while walking the trail, I had 2 different chipmunks I passed that didn’t run away. These chipmunks were sitting beside the trail in the grass too hot to run or care that I was there. I literally could have reached down and picked one up. When the ‘real feel’ is 105 at 6pm, I guess I can’t blame them.


5. When leaving the house one *much* cooler afternoon this week, I spotted a bumblebee sprawled out on top of some blue hydrangea flowers. It was just lying there so I got out my phone and grabbed an up-close video and photo. It wiggled its antennae a bit and when I blew on it to see if it was ok it did move its legs a little. I read that bees sometimes sleep on or in flowers. I also read that they do something similar when they are near the end of their life. When I got home later the bee was gone, so I don’t know if it flew away or if it was picked off as an easy meal.

Was it just sleeping?

6. One thing I am trying to figure out. Is it common for people who own Jeeps to line their dash with rubber toys and other assorted toys? Is this something new? I have seen way more such Jeeps over the last few months than I’d expect. Maybe I am seeing the same few Jeeps repeatedly, but I don’t think so. These Jeeps tend to have a handful to more than a dozen toys on their dash. It’s interesting. I’m curious, but not curious enough to take time out to Google it.


7. I saw on Instagram last week a story featuring a handful of girls running to and jumping on a trampoline located in the dunes of a beach somewhere on Cape Cod. I thought it would be a fun adventure to find and get some photos and videos of to share on social media. Of course, because we’re not allowed to have nice things as soon as I started researching it I found that it had already been ruined. I went out to where it was located and sure enough, some piece of garbage had sliced the trampoline open, making it useless for anyone who might want to go have a little summer fun. Can you imagine being that much of a sad loser that you see something that you know makes others happy and you feel you have to destroy it? Absolute scum. The rumor is it might get replaced with a new one so I have made it a point not to share where it is just in case.

People suck

8. For those who don’t know this summer marks the returns of the cicadas for their visit that occurs once every 17 years. On Cape Cod it has been interesting. We have them but they have not ventured all the way down Cape. Where I live we don’t have any cicadas. I want to try to get a few photos of them since if I don’t I’ll have to wait until 2042. I had to drive about 20-25 minutes west to get to where they have been routinely spotted. I stopped at a marina and could hear their hum so I knew I was in the right area. The problem was that I didn’t know where to stop to try to look for them. Plus it was a gray and drizzly afternoon. I ended up not getting any photos. The best I got was seeing a few in the road but I wasn’t going to stop my car and get out to take photos of a cicada. Oh well there still is plenty of time left in the summer.


9. It is still weird for me to be back in the routine of getting regular haircuts. I had been shaving my head pretty routinely for about 14 years. Long story short I have not been a fan of my hair as it doesn’t grow straight or curly. It grows somewhere in between. I started growing it out in November as a sort of birthday gift to my mother, who has hated my shaved head intensely. With the return of hair meant the return of haircuts. I now keep the top longer and the sides and back short and faded. It doesn’t look bad, and I’m actually enjoying it. This week it was time for a haircut. I have been going to the same barber shop for over 25 years, when I have hair to cut that is. The barber who cut my hair I had never been to. I gave him my haircut instructions and let him have at it. All in all it looks great but I did have a mini heart attack when he wet my hair to trim the top. When he was done he showed me how it looked and he had parted my hair much in the same way it used to be parted when I was like 10 years old. Once I messed it back up it was good, but I worried I was going to be stuck looking like the kid in my old school picture there.

For a moment this guy came back, though much older

10. Even though summer is only a little over a week old it’s time for me to start planning my annual end of the summer vacation. I take my week’s paid vacation the week before Labor Day. It ends up being somewhere around 11 straight days off from work which is always good. Last year I took a 3 day road trip to northern New England, specifically northern New Hampshire into Vermont and then back home through the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. I am thinking this year should be another 3 day road trip but concentrated in Maine. I haven’t been to Maine since 2019 so it’ll all be fresh again. Time to get to planning.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #36: Haircut Savings, Dryer Sheets, Astro What?, etc

 

1. I have noticed that the cost of a regular haircut at most of the chain stores (Supercuts, Great Clips, Procuts, etc) is in the neighborhood of $23 and up. I had to figure this out. So since 2010, I have used my own pair of clippers to buzz my head weekly. I’m just not a fan of my own hair. Anyway, in the last 14 years, I have bought 2 sets of clippers, both from Walmart, and likely totaling $45. Now, how much money have I saved if the average person gets a haircut every 6-12 weeks, maybe 4-8 times per year? At $23 a pop if you get a haircut every 12 weeks in the last 14 years you’d have spent nearly $1,400. Every 6 weeks? It’s nearly $2,800. That’s a lot of cash to save. Now I’m not saying everyone should buzz their own hair like me, but hey at least my odds of screwing it up are slim, plus that extra money would come in handy.

2. It’s amazing how weird it is for me to see that the Tupperware company has filed for bankruptcy. Their food storage products have been a huge part of my life all throughout growing up. Honestly, I think the quality of the product might have been their undoing. Think about it. Their name is literally synonymous with the product they made. The product was of such high quality that they last seemingly forever unless you drive over it like Kip in Napoleon Dynamite. So in the end the consumer ended up buying fewer Tupperware products because they lasted so long. I don’t know if this bankruptcy spells the final end for Tupperware, hopefully not, but their products will still be in use long after they’re gone.

3. I know they are just doing their job, but sometimes it gets a bit obnoxious how quickly salespeople run up to you when you walk into a store. I went to get a new wireless mouse for my laptop at Staples and you would have thought I was some kind of celebrity with how fast the person nearest to me came flying over. They asked if I was looking at computer accessories and I tried to be as polite as I could when I said ‘No, I’m just looking around.’ They left me alone after that but I bet if I had glanced for more than a second in their direction they’d have been running like a dog wanting a treat.

4. Boy summer decided to get out of here fast in New England. The last week before fall started was filled with tons of rain wind and chilly temperatures. Fall is my favorite season but I do like to ease into the change. This was like an anvil on the head. We ended up getting somewhere between 6-9” of rain over 3 days. Of course, you do know soon is the point in the year where you think summer is dead but like Michael Myers, it will rise again and, uh, strangle you with warmth, and stab you with sunshine.

Summer's final scare,

5. I am blessed that as I get into my late 40s my eyesight is still really good. That being said I do have a tendency to misread things, at least initially when I look at something quickly. The latest addition of this had to do with an energy drink. While in Market Basket I was looking at energy drinks and I saw a new flavor of the Celsius drinks. The flavor is Astro Vibe and I guess it’s a sort of raspberry. When I first saw the can I thought it said it was Astro Glide. That is definitely not an energy drink and is a far different product. I don’t recommend trying to drink Astro Glide if you had any desire.

It's Astro VIBE

6. The nearest Market Basket to me is a little over 20 minutes away and that’s over the highway. I don’t go often and this week I chose the perfect time to go. I say that sarcastically. I guess they were doing inventory during the evening. I thought they announced it was the annual inventory but I might be wrong. All I know is that there were dozens of employees there, it was like every person who worked there had been called in, and then they called all Market Basket employees from nearby locations and brought them in as well.

7. Do you ever think you’ve found all of the dryer sheets as you’re folding your clothes only to have one sneak into one of your pant legs? This foolish occurrence happens every so often to me. It’s typically pant legs, although sometimes it’s in long-sleeved pullovers as well. One time I pulled a dryer sheet out of my sleeve inside of a store but luckily nobody saw. That sort of event would have been horrifying while in school. I’d have been known as Dryer-Sheet Boy forever after that.

8. I bumped into a woman at the beach who had a dog that reminded me of the dog the family had when I was growing up. Patty was a yellow lab, the quintessential ‘good dog.’ One that you could take for a walk off-leash and never have to worry about her running away, or attacking someone. This dog I saw was an older yellow lab, not quite as heavy as Patty was though. In her last years, she looked very much like a Twinkie with a head. This yellow lab at the beach was named Chelsea and had her own step to help her get up into the back of the woman’s SUV. It brought back lots of good memories.

A reasonable facsimile of a good memory.

9. I saw 2 guys in the supermarket. 1 was normal, and the other was wearing the following: shorts, flip-flops, and a gigantic oversized blue trench coat with large gold buttons. This coat had obvious stiff shoulder pads and was a XXL when this guy needed a medium or large at most. It looked like something that a Disney character would have worn in the 1950s. I quite literally did the shocked double-take that you see done on TV shows.

10. I had a day this week that began with a horrible migraine headache. I did not want to go to the gym. After getting angry at myself, and having a good dose of caffeine and ibuprofen, I dragged myself out for a 4-mile walk. I have been listening to the audiobook of David Goggins Can’t Hurt Me. His life story is incredible and highly recommended for inspiration. I was at the point in the book where he lost over 100 pounds in 3 months, yes for real. I willed myself through my walk after that because if Goggins could drop all of that weight for a chance to be a Navy Seal surely I could do a leisurely walk along a bike trail. They’re equally challenging, right?