Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #78: Workaholic, Bag of Walnuts, Milk Bicep Curls, etc.

1. For the last 5 years, it feels like all I do is work. Even when I get caught up with my content work, I have trouble remembering how to relax. My mind typically goes to what other work I could do rather than allowing myself to slow down and rest. I also realize I need to get out more. I don’t go as many places as I used to pre-COVID. I know this by the fact that if I fill my gas tank, I can go 2-3 weeks before I have to fill it again. That was never the case before.


2. I can’t figure out which is worse, it taking me a few days to realize that a pre-stamped envelope can be mailed at any time, regardless of whether the post office is open. Or, going for a run, feeling pretty good about myself, and then throwing my back out bending over to look at sliced meats in the deli of the grocery store. These both happened within an hour of each other and, yeah, my brain and body are seemingly in a race to see which one will fail me the fastest.


3. We have an intern at my work. She’s going to school to be a chiropractor and is a lot of fun and very smart. She also unknowingly made me feel super old. She mentioned a friend who was a trainer at a gym where she was also working. Recognizing the last name, I asked if he had a sister, as a girl who was a year ahead of me in school had the same last name. She then crushed me by saying that the girl I thought I went to school with wasn’t this guy’s sister, no it was his aunt. I guess for a moment I had forgotten that the intern is 21 and I am 47, so most of her friends would be around that same age. My hair felt a little grayer for a while after that.


4. One of the funniest and most random events occurred at my day job. A new patient came in for their appointment. In their hands, they were carrying something odd. It turned out to be a dirty pair of white boxer shorts. They said that they found them outside and that even though they weren’t any of ours, they figured we didn’t want them to be seen by other patients. So this person picked up someone else’s dirty underwear with their bare hands and brought them into our office. To top it off, they then calmly placed them on the front desk next to our office manager. They didn’t even throw them away. They basically presented dirty underwear as a gift to signal their arrival in our office. Our office manager later said that she had to use another piece of trash from the can to sweep the underwear into the can. She then thoroughly sanitized the desk. The wild thing is that the new patient was really nice, and I truly think they believed they were doing something nice.

Like what was seen on the front desk at work, except those were dirty.

5. Continuing on the ‘throwing out my back’ story. I am lucky to work where I have access to chiropractic adjustments. With my back injured this week it was a perfect opportunity to take advantage of that fact. Typically, when my right hip gets adjusted, it sounds like a single knuckle crack or one walnut shell being cracked. This time, it sounded more like a bag of walnuts being stomped by an elephant. The relief came several hours later because at first it was painful. I guess that’s to be expected when you’ve got several joints and discs out of alignment, along with the muscles and ligaments that hold them being sore. The next day was spent relaxing, not because the adjustment didn’t work, but because I was worried I’d end up injuring something else immediately.

Pretty much how my back sounded

6. Oh, and for those of you keeping track. In the span of 7 weeks, I have injured my lower back twice. Once demonstrating a hex-bar deadlift, and the other, which I mentioned above. I have also sprained my left ankle playing basketball. And lastly, for now, I pancaked my right hand and almost broke it. I’d recommend anyone out there who is in the stock market to buy on bubble wrap because I’m likely going to need to start wrapping myself in it just to get by in my daily life.


7. It was a reunion more than 20 years in the making. I had so much fun getting to catch up with an old friend, Liam. We started our working lives together as prep boys in the restaurant industry in the early 1990s. Working in a restaurant was not exactly where I wanted to be, and I was lucky to have someone the same age to work side by side with. Literally, we are 6 days apart in age. We leaned on each other a lot to cope with the stresses of being teenagers working in what can be an unforgiving industry. He was on Cape Cod this week, visiting his family. I worried we might not be able to meet up, but on his last day here, we did. It was a lot of laughs about old times and catching up on where we’ve been since we last hung out over 20 years ago. These are the types of moments that mean so much the older I get.


8. I was out on a long walk on a morning with absolutely perfect weather. On my route, there is a now-abandoned road that connects a park to another road. It used to be the entrance long ago, but has since been blocked off. Anyway, the road is about 1,000 feet long and looks like something out of the apocalypse, all overgrown and such. On this walk, though, coming toward me was a man, 2 small dogs, and the cutest little girl who was probably 3. I noticed she was running toward me and waving her arms. I paused my music and took my headphones off. Her dad said she really wanted to meet me. It was every bit as cute as you’re thinking. I asked if she was going to play at the park, and she said yes. As with most small children, though, her attention span was short. She lost interest in me and wanted to keep going to the park. I told her it was nice to meet her and continued on my way.


9. One thing that was not cute and was a bit confusing happened during a trip to the supermarket. I was grabbing a few things quickly when I noticed a guy walking by me slowly. He looked to be early 20s. What made it confusing was that he was carrying a gallon of milk. Not just carrying it, but doing sets of bicep curls with it. I mean, it was not one or two, but full sets. He also then started doing what I could only describe as rows with the gallon of milk. I wasn’t sure if he was special needs or something, so I didn’t bother him. I guess as long as he actually buys the milk, he can do whatever he wants with it, but there is a gym at the other end of the same shopping center if he’s that hard up for exercise.

Good for drinking, or getting swole.

10. Each year, during the third week of July, we have a huge fundraising event on Cape Cod called Big Nick’s Ride For the Fallen. It includes hundreds of motorcycles riding a route in honor of a local man who was killed in action in Afghanistan. The event has grown each year since its beginning in 2017. The wild thing about this event is that the seemingly never-ending stream of motorcycles goes right by where I live. This means that we get to see all of the people participating. For the 2nd year in a row, I decided to gauge how big the event was by setting a stopwatch. I began it when I could see the first motorcycles coming down the road, and stopped it when the last one went by the house. How big was this year’s event? All I can say is that from beginning to end, it was a little over 10 straight minutes of bikes passing by. Amazing.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog - #27: Flamingo, Porta Potty Lawn Ornaments, Nostalgic Trespassing, etc

1. For the 2^nd time in a month a pink flamingo was photographed at a Cape Cod beach. First, it was Chapin in Dennis and then Bass Hole in Yarmouth. These are neighboring beaches so it seems this bird is sticking to a small area. Despite knowing that, I could go and patrol Chapin and Bass for hours, days, and weeks and never see the flamingo. I’d just end up losing what’s left of my mind. It’s much different from the snowy owls at West Dennis Beach. In winter those things practically have signs and autograph tables they’re so easy to find.

2. I now own a separate special beard shampoo. Exciting, right? For the last few years during winter, I have grown a full-on beard for months. It’s mostly white as I am now staring down 50 but I decided against coloring the hair as I did it once in my 20s and it looked so obvious because my beard was 3 shades darker than the hair on my head. Anyway, I now have a long mainly-white goatee and decided to go back to specialty beard shampoo. This means that not only is my beard all nice and clean, but I also can’t shave it until the shampoo runs out to justify spending $10 on it.

3. On Cape Cod in late July there’s a cool relatively new tradition. Big Nick’s Ride For the Fallen is essentially a motorcycle parade in honor of local war hero Nicholas Xiarhos who was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. The ride began that same year and has steadily grown to be a major event in the summer. The ride encompasses much of the Cape beginning at the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne. Interestingly where I live in Yarmouth is directly on the ride route, so each year the riders pass by. I was curious how big the event was. There are definitely over 1,000 motorcycles that participate. However to give you a better idea I set my timer on my phone. It began as soon as I saw the lead bike coming down the street. From that moment until the final bike passed by it was just a shade under 20 straight minutes of riders. You’re not wrong, that is in fact a lot of motorcycles.

4. During an afternoon walk through my favorite neighborhood near me I started noticing something. On one particular street, there were probably half a dozen porta potties in different people’s yards. It took me a minute to process as momentarily I thought it was some sort of new yard decorating craze. No, it was just everyone on that street having work done at the same time.

That might be too many porta potties

5. While standing in line at the supermarket I was behind a mother and father with their adorable little girl in the seat of the shopping cart. She was about 2 and just stared at me so I began flipping my sunglasses down from the top of my head over my eyes repeatedly. She in turn started playing peek-a-boo. It was so cute and so much fun that I apologized to her when I had to leave and go pay for my things at another self-checkout register.

6. The youngest client I have ever trained is 13. He plays a whole bunch of sports but is still learning the basics of exercise. His aunt signed him up for hour-long sessions with me. He really doesn’t need hours but that’s what was paid for so I’ll do it. Anyway, these sessions while a lot of fun pretty much always devolve into him asking me how to do (insert exercise) and me having to demonstrate it. I think I come out of these sessions having done more work than he does. I’m always sweaty and tired from doing nonstop deadlifts, pull-ups, push-ups, etc. Who’s training who?

7. Boston advertising legend and giant of philanthropy for decades Jack Connors died this week. In 2007 Jack purchased the Marshside Restaurant in Dennis on Cape Cod where I had been working for years. Out of respect for the job we did in the kitchen, he paid several of us full-time for 9 months while the building was completely rebuilt and opened into what people see today. He kept the restaurant going after my boss Marylou passed suddenly in 2010. He gave so much to us there and I stayed much longer than I ever intended due to the tremendous amount of loyalty I felt toward him. Jack was so much more than the owner of the Marshside. He was a good man that made you feel important whenever he spoke to you. I am very sad he is gone but so grateful for what he gave me and so many others that crossed paths with him. RIP sir, you lived a great life.

8. I saw the king of all parking lot jerks this week. I’ve seen people park halfway into a spot. I’ve seen people park inches away from the car next to them. Hell, I’ve even seen people take up 2 parking spots just because they’re entitled d-bags. Never have I seen a single vehicle take up 4 parking spots. I’m not talking about being at the very far end of a large empty lot. No, I’m talking about in the middle of a busy parking lot. Bow down to the king of entitled pricks.

9. I’m sure many of you have watched and laughed at the Planet Fitness fail videos. The ones where people do incredibly stupid things at the gym thinking they know fitness. Being a member of Planet Fitness I am here to tell you that they are all totally true. I see some of the most foolish things I could imagine by people with less than zero idea of how to exercise. Sadly at least at the locations I’ve been to they don’t hire real trainers to help these people before they get hurt, or at least go viral for a few days.

10. I took a detour on a run this week. I ended up venturing down to my former middle school. 35 years ago this fall I started 6^th grade at Mattacheese Middle School. 35 years, yikes. Anyway, it’s closed now and likely will be torn down in the coming years. There are still occasional town sports held in the gym. That was the case on this day. I was brave enough to enter and go a little way down a hall. I figured peeking into the gym might not be received well, and also taking a walk around the empty school (which has security cameras) might also not be wise. Maybe next time I’ll have more courage to fully trespass in my old school.

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