Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #105: Best Workout, Northern Lights 3, Snowpocalypse, etc.

1. I ended up being right. Where I am on Cape Cod got between 3-4” of heavy wet snow that was like cement. I didn’t feel like going to the gym, so I took this as an opportunity to burn some calories by shoveling the driveway. I made sure to turn on my Fitbit for a workout before starting. It turns out shoveling the snow was my best workout all week. I burned 440 calories in 40 minutes while shoveling. I was totally wiped out after. In all honesty, I probably didn’t need to shovel. It got up to 36 degrees, and the sun poked out, so we got a bit of melting. Still, I loved being able to get a great cardio and strength workout without having to go to the gym.


2. For the third time in 15 months, I was able to see and photograph the Aurora Borealis on Cape Cod. It started off cloudy. I wasn’t feeling good about seeing anything, so I decided to go out early, about an hour after sunset. Checking the radar, I saw clouds moving east, so I drove west. I got to Barnstable and found a great location called Scudder’s Landing. What made it great, besides the fact that nobody else was there, was the fact that there was no lighting to ruin the photos. I immediately got several amazing photos and was able to get creative with the shots since there was nobody around.

I will never get tired of this.

3. Since I was already out and about for the Northern Lights, I mapped out a few locations I wanted to shoot. One was the popular Sandwich Boardwalk. I hadn’t been there in several years, since a disastrous first date that we will move on from. I got there, and it was dark and cold, but the wind had picked up. I was using my selfie stick as a tripod, which works great when there is little to no wind. In the breeze, though, it made it almost impossible to get any good photos that weren’t blurry. I did my best. The highlight, or lowlight, was a group of several people who sounded like they were around 60. As I was staging photos, I could hear one of the men whining about the temperature and asking why they ‘don’t have Northern Lights in the summer.’ I would have mentioned that the Aurora happens all the time regardless of the season, but this guy sounded like he has enough trouble with 2+2 being 4, so I packed up my gear and moved to another location.

More muted colors at the boardwalk.

4. When is the right time to take down your Christmas decorations? I know some people have everything down by sunset on Christmas Day. Then others keep everything up until their tree begins to decompose. We are currently a month out from Christmas, and my decorations are still up. I don’t plan on having people over to judge me if my decorations stay up well into February, but there has to be a cutoff date, right? I mean, I don’t want to be tripping over Christmas stuff when putting my A/C unit in. Then again, my Halloween pumpkin is still going strong 3 months after I got it, so I might not have the best judgment when it comes to moving on. By the way, the pumpkin will likely survive well into spring and then be destroyed in spectacular fashion. Stay tuned for that.


5. In classic fashion, it is time for another New England winter storm in time for the weekend. I say ‘classic fashion’ because, as of several days out, it was reported that we on Cape Cod could get anywhere from a few inches to well over a foot. Not only that, but depending on where you went for your forecast, the amounts shifted drastically. The Accuweather app said 3-6”, which is no big deal. Weather Underground said 12”, which is a much different story. The snow won’t hit us until this blog has been posted, so I guess this is an unintentional teaser for next week’s blog. How much snow will we get, and how many calories will I burn shoveling? Stay tuned.


6. I’ve been through tons of major snowstorms in my life growing up in New England. One thing I’ve never understood is the ‘essentials’ that people are supposed to get at the store in anticipation. Bread I get, but eggs and milk? If power goes out, what the hell is the point of having eggs? You gonna eat them raw like Rocky did? Anytime I anticipate being stuck inside for an extended period, I look at getting water, bread, peanut butter, and jelly, maybe single-serve protein shakes. Things that don’t need power to be consumed. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. How many of you out there rush to the store for eggs before a snowstorm? I have never done it and am pretty sure I never will.


7. Maybe I’m now officially the old man, but I feel like a big reason why people seem disconnected these days is the fact that everyone wears headphones everywhere they go. I see way too many people inside stores with earbuds in. It’s your life, do what you want, but the fact that people go out into public and just have others tuned out is kind of stupid. What if some sweet old lady needed help getting something off a shelf, but you don’t hear because you can’t disconnect from your headphones for two friggin’ seconds? This week, I saw a scummy-looking kid walking down the aisles at a supermarket, earbuds in, singing a foul-mouthed song. There could be little kids around, and they have to hear that crap from some dirtbag? Like I said, maybe I’m the old man now, but it’s just a bad sign of society. Oh, and it’s not all young people, I see people older than me doing the same thing, so it’s everybody.


8. It’s amazing the things you remember from your childhood. There are certain phrases, lyrics, or orders of words that are embedded in your brain. Sometimes you have no idea what they are, what they mean, or even how they got there. Quick story time. I have a vague memory from the bygone days of the mid-1980s. It revolves around two children’s songs back to back, Bingo and Little Dutch Girl. One I know, the other song I have no idea how I know. For some reason, when I think of Bingo, Little Dutch Girl follows close behind. I figured it had to be from a commercial I had seen when I was a kid. While stuck inside during the winter storm, I decided to do a little internet detective work. I quite literally typed in ‘Bingo, Little Dutch Girl, children’s songs, commercial.’ Lo and behold, I found the answer to my 40-year-old earworm. It is an album called Children’s Favorites, released in 1978 and recorded by some group called The Jingleheimers. I found the commercial, and when I watched it felt like an old door was being unlocked in my memory. No, I’m not going to order that album for my collection, although it says there’s an 8-track which might be cool. I do enjoy the fact that even all of these years later, I can solve mysteries that my memory has been hiding for 40 years.




9. When I am not at my day job, on the clock getting paid, I do not think about it. I have many other projects that take up much of my free time. I am also not a paramedic, or some other job where I am on call sometimes 24/7. That means if I am not inside the walls of my job, therefore not getting paid by it, I don’t want to be sent work-related messages. It’s a boundary I need to set and enforce in 2026. Seriously, my free time is mine, not an opportunity to have some unimportant work stuff sent to me.


10. We had the coldest day in a few years this week. The wind chill was down around -15 on Cape Cod, and even lower off-Cape. I stayed inside as long as possible. Eventually, I got the courage to venture out. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. The wind died out, and so the 16 degrees felt downright balmy compared to what I was expecting. I went on the hunt for slush waves, which happen at the ocean when it’s been particularly cold. Sadly, I guess it hadn’t been cold long enough because the ocean was just as it always was. I was actually a bit disappointed. Then I saw that the temperatures are going to be at or below freezing for the next few weeks. I feel like I’ll have slush wave overload by the time February is over.


11. The flakes started flying by 10am on Sunday as the biggest snowstorm in 4 years hit New England. It was too cold to go for a morning walk before the snow started, so I hit the gym. Unfortunately for me, so did everyone else within a 10-mile radius. The gym was set to close at 11am, so everyone got in their workouts. It was so cold, about 20 degrees, that I wore track pants to the gym instead of shorts. That’s a rarer occurrence than seeing a four-leaf clover. 


12. The New England Patriots are going back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 2018. They beat the Denver Broncos in a wild AFC Championship Game 10-7. Drake Maye actually did something Tom Brady never did, and that was win a playoff game in Denver. The weather was crazy. Sunny to start and then a blizzard by the end. The snow was so bad that the announcers weren’t even sure where the ball was on the field. The Patriots’ white uniforms might have actually helped them since Jarrett Stidham, Denver’s quarterback (their backup), threw an interception late, and who knows if he could even see the defense. Now we wait to see if it’s the Los Angeles Rams or the Seattle Seahawks. Ironically, the Patriots have beaten both teams in the Super Bowl, so either team would be looking for some revenge. Either way, this feels like the beginning of another long run of high-level play from the Patriots after a few years of retooling.




13. I’m finishing this blog at 7pm on Sunday night so I can get it up for my usual Monday morning. As we speak, there is likely about 8-9” of snow on the ground. I was out helping do a little preventative maintenance shoveling at 5pm, and we had close to 6” then. Luckily, it was light and fluffy, but I still burned 100 calories in 15 minutes of shoveling. Cape Cod is supposed to get a mix with rain overnight, meaning the snow will get heavy and wet. Shoveling will be a load of fun on my back. I have already been given a snow day at work since I have a sedan with front-wheel drive. I love my car, but it doesn’t do well in more than 3” of snow. 53 more days until spring.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #77: Foolish Furniture Store, Reading Labels, Mousy People, etc.

1. There is a furniture/home décor store that recently opened in my town. It took over the building from another furniture store. I’m guessing the new business wanted to make a big splash upon opening. Their solution to get eyes and ears on their store has been to blast music super loud from speakers in their parking lot. It is a little bit smart and a lot more ridiculous. I mean, let’s be real, you’re a furniture store. I’d expect that kind of obnoxious music blasting on loudspeakers outside from an amusement center, a restaurant, or, you know, a music store. It’s like the excitement of the loud music would be followed immediately by disappointment when you go inside and it’s desks and lamps, and tables. Wooo exciting.

2. This is the time of the year when I begin to plan my vacation. It occurs pretty much the same time every year, the last week of August. I have some good stuff planned already. It’s basically going to be a 3-4 day road trip through Northern New England. The irony is that even though a vacation is meant to be relaxing and a way to recharge I feel pressure. I feel pressure to pack my days with as much stuff to see to make it a trip worth remembering. I’m pretty sure I could go sit in a tent in Maine for 3 days and it would be awesome, but I’ll still be worrying for the next 6 weeks if I have enough to do on my itinerary.

Last time I was in Maine in 2019, those are my first 5 books.

3. It doesn’t take too long into summer for me to begin dreaming of my favorite season, that is fall. Warm weather and long days are all well and good, but with them comes loads of bugs and loads of low-intelligence people. I’m not sure which is worse. There are sprays to protect you from bugs. There are no sprays to protect you from idiots who drive while looking down at their phones repeatedly. It only gets worse when they begin swerving all over the road. Even after nearly hitting the sidewalk and a few oncoming vehicles, they went right back to checking their phone. I beeped to try to get them to smarten up and pay attention, but all they did was wave like a jackass. When I was finally able to pass them safely, I looked over and this guy looked like someone swept around a dumpster, poured it into a grungy tank top, and threw a few tattoos on it. Stay classy, white trashy.

4. In the building where I work, there are 3 other businesses besides my job. If a package is accidentally delivered next door, the people there will put a piece of paper in the window that says ‘UPS.’ Very nice of them. The only problem is when I go over there to get the package. I walk inside and down a short hallway, and I will knock politely on a door with a window. The woman who works at the front desk treats me like I am an ax murderer. She will crack the door open and speak with a trembling voice like she’s expecting me to whip out a machete and start carving her up. Maybe that’s just how she is. Maybe next time I should bang on the window and yell. She’d probably end up acting normally.

5. It might be time for me to get a new set of headphones. I have had a set of Mpow over-ear Bluetooth headphones that have lasted me close to 8 years. I had been used to having wired headphones last a few weeks or even less, so a pair that has made it years has been a privilege. That being said, I have noticed they are starting to wear out. The padding on the headband that connects the 2 ears has been gone for a few years. No big deal. But in the last several months I have noticed how difficult it is for me to get the headphones to charge. What I mean is that when I plug them into the charger, I have to wiggle and turn the USB in the headphones very specifically to get the charger light to turn on. It can be a 5-minute process to get the little red light to turn on, only for it to immediately turn back off. So yeah, maybe I have to get a new pair of headphones before I just take the old ones and bash them with a hammer.

6. There are days when I think I should buy a bucket, sponge, cloths, and soap, and do a full detailing of my car. Then I think about all of the time and effort it would take to make it look good. Plus there’s the fact that the trees and birds around my car like to use it as a toilet. Those are pretty strong deterrents. Why spend money and time to make my car look like new when it will likely be ruined by nature by the end of the same day? No thanks, I’ll just spray it with the hose each week, same thing.

I'd be better off washing my car with beer.

7. It will never not make me laugh and shake my head at the people who go to self-checkout in the grocery store and have no idea how to do it. There was a woman this week who was scanning items but decided to put her purse next to her shopping bag on the checkout counter. Naturally, the machine registered this and thought it was an unpaid item. The woman got mad at the machine because, of course, she can’t just admit she messed up. I felt bad for the employee who had to come reset the machine because they had to listen to this woman try to explain how it was the machine. I wanted to tell her next time, just go to a regular checkout line, but there’s no point in trying to help people like that.

8. I went to a baseball card shop for the first time in so many years. It was so that I could get a gift for my stepfather’s birthday. I forgot how much I loved looking at and collecting sports cards. The owners were great, and I intend on going back soon. They had a good mix of old packs of cards, new cards, and specialty stuff like autographed cards. I had a budget, and it was hard to keep to it. After seeing a Ken Griffey Jr. Donruss rookie card priced at $300, which I have, I am back to searching through my card collection to see if anything is valuable. Who knows, maybe this hobby will pay off. It has to be better than my Beanie Baby fail.

9. There is a great deal at a local dispensary called Haven in Brewster. You buy a 4-pack of THC seltzers and you get a 2nd 4-pack for $1. Awesome. This deal is on Saturdays during the summer for anyone who lives near Cape Cod. Anyway, I took advantage of it this week. For some reason, I figured that all of the seltzers had the same ingredients, even if the flavors were different. Boy, was I wrong. I thought Grape Soda flavor would be good, and it is. The problem is that it’s made like a regular soda. Don’t get me wrong, it was good, but it’s also 180 calories and loaded with sugar and carbs. My debate now is whether to drink all of them, or try to give the $1 4-pack away to others. Next time, I need to read labels.

Tastes great, loaded with sugar.

10. This summer has been a funny mix. So I always have some sort of work to do in writing, content, podcasting, etc. That’s in addition to my full-time day job. On my days off from the day job, I find myself spending 5-6 hours a day on content. I’ll get to a point where I need to pause my work and get outside and enjoy the summer weather. That is, until I actually get out on the road. Then I remember how incredibly overcrowded Cape Cod is in the summer. The roads are packed, beaches are packed, and stores are packed. After a few minutes I am ready to retreat back inside and wait until Labor Day. Sunny days are bad, rainy ones are worse. Then it’s like rushing outside to sit in traffic, even in my driveway.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #64: Flat Tires, Terrible Spring, A Hot Stove, etc.

1. I had a fun morning when I left to go to work one day. I had a mini heart attack when I noticed my back right tire was virtually flat. It was going to be a terrible inconvenience. I went over and pushed on the tire to see how flat it was. The tire felt firm. I decided to take a risk and drive to a Cumberland Farms on my way to work to put air in it. Then I’d let the chips fall where they may. I got to Cumby’s, pulled in front of the air pump, and stepped out. The tire was fully inflated. What? Well, it turned out that I had parked on a raised area of dirt that only made the tire look flat until I moved. Yes, I felt pretty dumb, but I’ll take dumb over yet another nail in one of my tires.


2. At my work, we got a new piece of equipment. It is called Emsella and it is for pelvic floor strengthening. Think about the muscles you need to hold in your pee. Anyway, it uses electromagnetic energy to contract those muscles rapidly and repeatedly. It is several thousand contractions in a half hour. Another great benefit is when you sit on the special chair is that it can work on other muscles. For me I have had what’s known as ‘glute amnesia’ on my right side for years since I got injured running. Emsella with its electromagnetic energy, immediately solved my glute amnesia. It was after only a couple of minutes my right glute was exhausted because it has trouble getting activated. This means that hopefully, with some more sessions, I’ll have strong glutes again that will get me closer to the runner I used to be.

3. A little old lady, someone that my sister Kate knows, made it a point to tell me how adorable I was at the gym the other day. Ego boosts are always welcome. Getting called adorable happens less and less often as you age, that is until you get up close to 90. Then you get called adorable as much as you did when you were a baby. Bonus points if you’re a married couple over 90, then the ‘adorables’ rain down on you like Niagara Falls.


4. There’s no better way to start the day than making a drink in a Blender Bottle, popping open my laptop, sitting down in my comfy chair, and immediately spilling said drink on my shirt. Helpful hint: make sure the top is *firmly* screwed on before taking a sip. 2 minutes into the day, nice. Oh well, on the bright side, it was laundry day so the shirt was going to be washed anyway.




5. I am torn. For so long, I would buy wired headphones to use at the gym or while running. These were usually cheapo ones since they’d break or short-circuit pretty quickly, almost routinely. Why waste money right? Flash forward. I bought a nice pair of over-ear headphones in 2018. I think they cost me $35, a big step up from the $6.99 ones I’d get at Marshall’s. These have worked great and are still functional. That being said, they are showing their signs of wear. The padding is stripping away, and parts are noticeably looser, but they still work. So my dilemma is do I chuck these even though they still work and get a new pair, or do I run them into the ground as they slowly get worn out? I’m hesitant because there’s no guarantee the next pair of headphones I get will work as well as my current ones.


6. Maybe it’s recency bias but it feels like this has been one of the worst starts to spring that I can remember. It has been cloudy, rainy, and/or foggy seemingly 90% of the time over the last 4-5 weeks. No wonder I don’t want to do anything but sit around. If it’s low 40’s and drizzle everyday there’s nothing else to do but stay inside and eat bad foods, which is another problem in and or itself.

How it's looked all spring

7. I am still trying to perfect being able to keep up the hustle and grinding away at my dreams while also having time to relax and enjoy life. I have been in this constant content creation loop since I quit alcohol 4 ½ years ago. I did it at first to keep my mind off of booze, but now it’s almost like a reflex. Part of me feels that if I keep pushing out new podcasts, videos, blogs, etc, that eventually it’ll pay off. But another part of me feels like if all I am doing is working nonstop on lockdown, I am letting life go by, and you don’t get the time back.


8. Even though we’re not quite a month into spring, my mind is on summer. I need to get on planning my vacation. On one hand, I’d love to go back to the amazing Pemi Cabins in northern New Hampshire. I’d also like to visit my friend Shayna in Central Maine. Then again, I want another chance to hike in the Hoosac Tunnel and get some sick long-exposure photos. Or maybe I go back in time and do a road trip race like the old days? I feel like I can probably do 2 of those 4 things but not all. Luckily, I plan on vacationing in late July or early August so I have time to think.

Do I go back to New Hampshire?

9. I know the stove is hot. I know touching it will lead to a burn. I know I should leave the stove alone, or at least shut it off. But part of me is curious if this time the stove won’t burn me, or maybe I’ve grown enough of a callous that it won’t hurt. In this case obviously, I’m not speaking of a stove; I’m speaking of a situation that I’ve seen play out enough but sadly, I am a hopeless optimist.


10. I am at the point in my life where I am there for anyone who needs me, family and friends. I am also at the point where if someone needs me, they have to reach out and ask. My days of being proactive are pretty much through. I used to feel guilty about not staying in touch or checking in on people. Then I realized that every phone number and email can work two ways, so everyone I feel guilty about also is not bothering to reach out to me.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #55: Being A Trainer, Goose Party, Sad Subs, etc.

 

1. My true passion in life is writing and creating things with my mind. However, in my daily life, I work as a personal trainer. I have been at it for nearly 10 years and I must know my stuff to still be employed doing it. I didn’t realize how much of an impact I’d had though. I had a person I’d trained for several years in their home reach out to me. They had a pretty bad injury and once cleared from PT they wanted to train with me again. I don’t do in-home training anymore though. They were perfectly happy to drive 20 miles from their home to my work if it meant I trained them. That really made my day to hear.

2. I have gotten to about a week of cutting my caffeine intake by roughly half. I can’t, and won’t, totally give up caffeine. That being said I do know that my intake level was way too high. I love energy drinks. I love pre-workout supplements and have for decades. My goal over the proceeding weeks is to get energy drinks back to a ‘few times a week’ deal rather than daily, or 2x daily. I ordered a nice stainless steel travel coffee mug so hopefully spending money on that will motivate me to drink more coffee.

3. I wasn’t paying attention at the gym. I went to get on a stationary bike for a few minutes of intense cardio. These bikes, especially the upright ones, typically have a pair of compartments to place a drink, towel, or phone. So I set up the seat and put my towel in the left side compartment. As I said I wasn’t paying attention so I went to put my phone in the right side compartment but instead my phone dropped onto the floor. My first thought was since I wasn’t paying attention I had placed my phone on the edge or something and it had fallen off. I put the phone back into the right side compartment and it dropped straight through to the floor. Why? Because there was no compartment, just a hole. I had to laugh at the foolishness of literally dropping my phone through that empty space twice before actually looking to see what was up.

4. An interesting event that keeps on occurring recently is the huge flocks of geese that fly past my window several times a day on most days. At first, I chalked it up to migration but it’s now the dead of winter. Usually, in the hour or so right before or after noon I’ll hear a flock of probably 20-40 geese honking as they fly by. Then it happens again. It’s typically 2-3 times if I’m sitting at my desk working. I wonder if I am in their typical flight pattern, or if they just think I enjoy hearing a chorus of geese honking several times in rapid succession.

Flock of seagulls this is not.

5. It was pretty funny to see an old man bargaining with an automatic door at a grocery store. He was pushing his cart toward the door to exit and obviously, the door should automatically swing open. It did not. If it was me I would have just pushed the cart into the door and forced it open. This old man decided to speak kindly to it as if that might make it reconsider not opening. Again, it did not. I am not sure if he had the strength to force the door open but he didn’t try. He ended up going out through the in door as that one was working without issue.

6. I had a hankering for a meatball sub. So I went to a nearby sub shop that I don’t typically visit. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if they were still in business. I stopped and the ‘open’ sign was lit. I opened the door and it was way too dark and quiet. I thought about turning around but a guy’s head popped up behind the counter. I placed my order and waited. I never heard a sound from the kitchen. No phone ringing, only the sound of the television playing. After 6-7 minutes he came back around with the sub wrapped. I felt a bit bad since he was seemingly all by himself so I left him a tip. He made sure to pick the tip jar up from under the counter before ringing me up. The sub was good though.

7. I’ve had the same pair of old-school over-ear wireless headphones for probably almost 7 years. For someone who used to break their headphones at the gym sometimes after only a few days it has been a luxury I’m not used to. However, it might be about time to put these out to pasture. The outlet to plug it in to charge is now so worn that I have to move the wire in a very specific way to get it to begin charging. I currently have the headphones plugged into my laptop with my mouse pad draped over the charging outlet as it’s the only way to get the dang headphones to keep charging. When you have to go through that much effort just to charge it might be time to 86 them.

8. The first real snowstorm of winter came this week on Cape Cod. We lucked out as we only ended up with 3-4” of heavy wet snow. The highlights were my Fitbit showing me in my heart rate zone for 35 minutes, meaning it was either really heavy snow or my cardio is terrible. The other highlight was me using the heavy wet snow as a makeshift car wash. I grabbed handfuls and rubbed it into dirty spots on my white car. Hey, it worked. Froze my hands a bit but saved the money it would cost at an actual car wash.

Real snow, but not a real lot of snow.

9. I’m addicted to the Playground feature on the new IOS update for my iPhone. It allows you to turn almost any photo into an AI-created animation. I spent way too much time going through my photos and having Playground turn people into animations. What I found particularly funny was that when I ran the program on several photos of me as a child they turned me into a girl. This wasn’t a one-off, no it was several different photos. I didn’t think my hair was that long when I was 4-5 years old, but I guess AI thought differently.

10. Although I didn’t have a favorite in Super Bowl 59 I will admit I was happy to see the Philadelphia Eagles crush the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22. I like the Chiefs. I like Mahomes, Kelce, Andy Reid, and yes Taylor Swift. The thing is though the more the Chiefs win the more they can start to lay claim as being as good or better than Tom Brady’s New England Patriots were. We can’t have that. So I am not big fans of either team that played, but in terms of helping the Patriots’ legacy the right team won the Super Bowl.