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 #71: Ultra-Stupid, Exploding Food, Old Man Woes, etc.

 

1. I guess I’ve crossed over officially into being old. While enjoying a perfect afternoon at the beach, I couldn’t help but be annoyed at these 4 high school kids. Maybe it was how loud and obnoxious they were. Maybe it was the fact that they referred to the geese and seagulls as the N-word repeatedly. Or it could be that these idiots are so dumb they thought penguins were at the beach, on Cape Cod. Wow, I’m sure their parents are so proud of them. I wonder what amazing contributions to the world these 4 foul-mouthed geniuses will make.

2. Something that likely only interests me. I love the Friday the 13^th franchise. It’s probably my favorite horror series. The random thing that popped into my head recently has to do with the timeline of the first 4 films. So the original happens, and Part 2 takes place 5 years later. Simple enough. The weird thing is that parts 2, 3, and 4, all take place within the same week. No big deal. That is until you see Jason Voorhees unmasked in each one. In Part 2 he’s a mountain man with long hair and a beard. The next day in Part 3, he’s bald and clean-shaven with a different freaky face. Then in Part 4, which happens right after Part 3 Jason looks like a wrinkly alien. So what did he shave and then take a super long bath to get wrinkly? Of course, I have visual aids.

3. I was playing basketball at a local park this week. A few hundred feet away a family of probably 6-8 people was having a cookout at one of the grills. All of a sudden the youngest son, who was probably 2 came wandering over to the court. His 2 brothers, who looked to be maybe 7 and 9, followed. The littlest one, I think his name was Nico, wanted to shoot hoops with me. None of the boys spoke English but it was so cute. Nico only had a diaper on and he was bouncing the ball and trying to shoot. It was a lot of fun. It only got funnier when the older boys tried getting Nico back to eat with the family. He came back twice, waddling the way toddlers do. Luckily, his sister who was probably 13 came and got him, and she spoke English. I told her he was no bother. Eventually, I took my ball and left, knowing that he’d keep running back over if I stayed.

4. Something that is not so fun is exploding food in the microwave. That’s an obvious statement. I was heating up a bowl of clam chowder covered in plastic wrap. With about 30 seconds left in its cooking time, there was a bang. I could see by the light inside that the bowl was tipped on its side. This was not good. When I opened the microwave, it looked like I had taken a can of soup and just heaved it all over. I was able to save about half of it. The next few minutes consisted of me yelling and swearing while scooping some chowder up with a paper plate and pouring it back into the bowl. The rest was soaked up with paper towels and thrown out. At least the microwave is clean inside, stupid exploding chowder.

5. I always wear my Fitbit, except when going to bed. That being said, sometimes I forget I’m wearing it. This all came to a head after a workout. I put on a long-sleeved windbreaker and headed off to the store. I was still a bit sweaty after the workout, not to pat myself on the back. Anyway, instead of wiping my eyes with my right arm I used my left. The long sleeves made my Fitbit almost invisible. So the end result was me basically punching myself in the left eye with my Fitbit as I walked into the store. That’s a good way to make an entrance. Everything was alright, though I did debate starting to wear eye black under that eye like Left Eye used to in TLC.

6. Going back to my basketball escapades. Both of my hips were tight and sore after playing, as they tend to be. Hey, I’m not 16 and on the school team anymore. Luckily, my boss is a chiropractor, among other skills. I needed an adjustment badly, even before my work day started. Then I had to demonstrate a hex bar/trap bar deadlift for a client. For those who don’t know, a hex bar is a piece of equipment with 6 sides and it allows you to stand inside of it to make a deadlift easier and safer for your back and shoulders. It was meant to be a bodyweight lift; the client was 180 lbs, so I loaded the bar. Not wanting him to feel awkward, I demonstrated the lift first. As soon as I straightened up both hips and my low back locked. I couldn’t sell pain because the client would never attempt the lift. I had to wait until the end of the day with my body trashed for my boss to adjust both of hips. They felt better almost instantly but I have a few muscles I need to strengthen if I want to keep playing basketball.

7. On the lighter side of my basketball shenanigans. To me now in my late 40s, playing basketball reminds me of when I used to frequent Taco Bell in my early 20s. I should just leave it at that random comparison, but I’ll explain. I know when I play basketball now that I am going to have some degree of soreness and/or pain for the next day or so, but it won’t stop me from playing again. When I used to go to Taco Bell, I’d eat a lot, and love it, but let’s just say my stomach was very angry for the next few days. As soon as it felt better, though, I’d go back to Taco Bell like I thought maybe this time would be different. So yeah, basketball is like Taco Bell, fits perfectly for my random life.

Yeah, same thing...

8. I mentioned that I needed to strengthen a few muscles to help me in running and basketball. One is the adductor(groin) muscle. There is a machine at the gym where you have pads against your inner thighs, and you then bring them together using whatever resistance you want to develop the adductors. I was told that since you don’t run, or play basketball seated with your knees bent, why would you train the adductors that way? My bright idea at home was to take a thicker loop band, tie it off, and wrap it around my leg up closer to my hip. Then I would step wide and bring my feet together, thereby strengthening the adductor muscle. Well, I got way too into it and began stepping wide, coming together, and taking another step out. I must have forgotten that a band can only stretch so far because after a few rounds of this movement, the band gave way. It snapped and gave me a good slap across the thigh. Luckily, it was not a little further up because I don’t want to know how a thick rubber band slapping me in the nuts feels.

9. It’s amazing to look back almost 5 years when I had a kernel of an idea about creating a podcast. It honestly began as a way to keep my mind occupied while I adapted to a new life alcohol-free. All of the research, recording, and marketing helped to keep my mind of drinking, which had been a major issue in my life for the preceding few years. Now here I am about to record my 200^th episode, and I also just passed 25,000 downloads. It’s amazing, and I am so grateful to everyone who chooses to listen to my Gen-X nostalgia show. There’s so much still to come but I am very grateful for all of the support.

10. This always seems to be the case but there are certain days if I’m out for a walk that I don’t want to be bothered. I’m not rude, I’ll smile and nod, but no stopping to chat. These are typically the days that every person under the sun with a dog is near me. The dogs always look at me like they’re shocked I don’t want to pet them. Then there is the opposite. These are the days when I’m all in my feels and want to pet every dog within a mile radius. Of course, these days are when any dog I see reacts to me like I'm the dog catcher. Do they still have dog catchers? I had one such day of each this week.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #63: Clearance Items, Seltzer Excitement, Pizza Woes, etc.

1. I am a sucker for clearance items. I am especially a sucker for grocery store clearance items. Not things that are set to expire immediately. I’m talking about products being phased out because they’re not selling. If I see the red sticker that says ‘clearance’ you’ve got my attention. I now find myself buying things I likely don’t need mainly because they’re 50% off. I’m not saying I needed 2 different types of BBQ sauce, but the red sticker was too much for me to pass up. The funny thing is that sometimes I find something I like on clearance, and of course, it’s then sold out forever, and I have to go try to find it somewhere else, for full price, booo.

2. April Fool’s Day was this week. I have had many years where I post something outlandish as a joke. This year I decided against it mainly because I felt that if I posted something about moving somewhere or getting a new job, I’d have people immediately jumping to conclusions. Then I’d end up losing my job or having to move from where I live because people thought my April Fool’s joke was real. Maybe I’m just old and not funny anymore. There’s a joke, the not-funny part. I definitely am old-ish now.

3. As a trainer, I take great pride in constructing workouts to challenge and help any client I have. I consider myself flexible as well. If someone comes in with low back pain, I am going to scrap any exercises that might inflame that issue. So I do get bristly when I have a new client basically acting like a coach trying to make me run their plays. I had a lady come in and start listing what she wanted to do. It was a lot of ‘shouldn’t I do this instead?’ or ‘I want to do this.’ It’s like, if you’re so knowledgeable why did you come to me? It’s rare to have a client who is rude, bossy, and dismissive of my efforts. I was literally counting down the seconds until her session was over. Then to top it off, she stayed in the gym late, trying to milk extra time. Sorry lady, I had another client waiting who I actually enjoyed working with.

4. Sad news about the death of Val Kilmer at 65 from pneumonia. He had a lot of great roles, from Top Gun to Tombstone to Batman Forever and more. To me though the lasting memory of Val Kilmer is his 1984 underrated comedy movie Top Secret. I think it's because its cheesy spoof humor appealed to me when I first saw it at age 11. If you haven’t seen it, you should. I’ll be watching it again this week for some good old-fashioned nostalgia. Rest in peace, Val Kilmer.

My favorite Val Kilmer movie.

5. Happier news is the incredible recovery of my Uncle Bob. He suffered a pair of severe strokes late last summer. For a time, it looked like he would not survive. It has been a slow, difficult journey spent in a rehab center near Boston. There have been times where the news was slow coming and I had no idea where he was at. Then suddenly this week, he is back online commenting on a post I shared about my Nana, his mom. He says he hopes to be home soon and it will be so good to get to see him. It’s honestly close to a miracle he pulled through when I think of how my last interaction was with him in the ICU. Such great news.

6. That post about my Nana that I mentioned above? Well I had a new client sign up to start training with me this week. It turns out that she used to work with my Nana at the electric company in the 1980s. My Nana has been gone for 15 years. Hearing about her from a stranger’s perspective is very rare. It was so thrilling and a bit emotional to hear this woman gush about my Nana. It was like she was still alive which really made my day.

7. I freely admit I get way too excited for the new seasonal seltzers from Polar. It’s summer and winter flavors. They usually keep a few the same but try new ones. I am currently drinking Poolside Grape Pops and love it. This won’t be a weekly review thing where I try a new flavor but honestly, I wouldn’t mind it. If 20-year-old me knew that one day I’d be waking up before 7am on days off, loving dollar stores, and geeking out over seltzer flavors he’d probably have just moved to the mountains and waited for the bears to finish him.

Yes, I love the Polar seasonal seltzers.

8. Some people lead very sad lives. It says a lot about a person when I post a photo or video of a sunset and they feel the need to complain that it’s going to rain, or is too cold, or the sunset will soon be ruined by bugs, or tourists. I mean good lord, these people are literal black clouds. Your bitterness doesn’t need to be in my comments. Just go back to looking at your high school yearbook and wondering where it all went wrong.

9. 2 things. 1. the Domino’s Pizza parmesan-stuffed crust is awesome. 2. I can’t eat things like that ever again. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it tasted great, but man, my stomach was angry almost immediately. I wanted a cheat meal and didn’t realize that my body has gotten used to eating relatively healthy. I guess that’s a good thing. Next time I want a cheat meal, maybe I’ll get a box of cereal.

It was both good and bad...

10. Honestly, I can say that I get as much of a good feeling from popping an edible, sitting in my chair, and watching YouTube videos as I used to going out to a bar and drinking. It’s not as loud. I don’t have to worry about driving. I don’t have a hangover. I don’t have to worry about waking up next to a wildebeest. It’s likely just me getting old and boring but still, I don’t miss alcohol or the surrounding shenanigans one bit. 

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #62: Blank Pages, Elder Squirrels, Pumpkin Smashing, etc.

 

1. We’re talking genius levels of stupid for this entry. I downloaded this writing software I’m currently using writing this, LibreOffice, for my work computer. It’s free and it’s very much like Microsoft Word. It’s a great program; that’s not the stupid part. No, that comes next. I needed to print something out. I sent the file off to the printer, and when I went to grab it, the pages were blank. I figured there was a glitch with the printer. Nope. It turns out I had the LibreOffice program set to dark mode. This meant that to see what I was typing, I had to change the font color to white. Do you see where this is going? I printed my file out that had white letters, on white paper. Yes, once I figured it out and admitted my foolish mistake, things were fine. But seriously? How did I not figure it out before printing what I thought were blank pages?

2. After the amount of fun and new experiences I had last week on a movie set, it was a bit of a hangover this week. Part of me feels like you do after having gone on an amazing vacation and then having to go back to your same old daily routine. You have this drop in energy and interest, at least for a little while, and you get used to being back at the grind. Another part of me feels like last week shined a light on what I really want to do, my passions. I felt so alive and excited being on a movie set and shooting content for my YouTube channel. It just makes my day job seem so uninspiring and boring. It is not my passion. So now the next step is how I get more of that passion in my life and let go of that which doesn’t fan the flames of those passions.

3. Not sure who was at fault here. I came to a 4-way intersection. I was turning right. In the other lane of the road I was taking, I see an SUV flicking their lights from normal to high repeatedly at the truck ahead of them at the intersection. In response, the truck slams it into reverse and goes back a few feet. They weren’t that close to hitting but it was obviously a stupid and aggressive move. I made my turn but slowed and rolled my window down to ask the driver of the truck what his problem was. He blamed the people in the SUV. Me? It was late, and I didn’t feel like eventually being interviewed by the cops, so I moved on. Before I got far, the truck peeled out and turned left. The SUV quickly followed. I will keep checking police reports as the days go by.

4. I find that no matter how old I get, anytime I see a plain all-white van, I immediately think the driver is some crazed lunatic on the prowl for unsuspecting victims. I am pretty sure that the companies that create these types of vans didn’t anticipate them being the preferred mode of transportation for serial killers and kidnappers, but here we are. Also, I don’t think they should lean into it and create some kind of ad campaign saying 8 out of 10 serial killers prefer X brand white vans for all of their murderous needs. That might not cause sales to increase, but what do I know?

Sure! I'll be right over, and never return.

5. I have signed up on a voice acting website. I figure, why not look for some potential voice-over work in addition to potential on-screen acting roles? The funny thing is when you do your on-boarding you have to list any accents you can feasibly do. I can put together a few words in Irish, English, Italian, Portuguese, and maybe French accents. I didn’t think I was skilled enough to do real voice acting in any of those accents. I panicked, though because you had to choose at least one. Then I scrolled down and saw North American(general), meaning my normal voice. I never thought to look for my own accent, oh well. I can do a sarcastic accent if that helps?

6. It’s spring again. Cue the rampant number of squirrels being flattened by passing vehicles. I have to wonder, if squirrels can figure out how to get into relatively sophisticated feeders, why have they not figured out that the giant things 100x their size should be avoided? Seriously, are there no elder statesman squirrels to share stories of the giant machines on the asphalt? “Back in my day, sonny I nearly was squished by the metal giant, but luckily I survived to share my story with you!”

Things you'd never see.

7. I have finally broken down and bought a mini-blender. This will be used to make breakfast smoothies. I am hoping it saves some money and also works to keep me on my diet. I am trying to be very regimented when it comes to counting calories. This means I have to measure everything I eat. Nothing wakes you up faster than pouring almond milk into a measuring cup and nearly spilling it all over the floor. The first smoothie I made was good but took way longer than I’d hoped to make. I’d say over time I’ll become a smoothie king, but there are already several smoothie chains, so I’ll just stick to making them for myself.

8. I went to the beach as I often do, to enjoy the scenery and listen to a podcast. The lot was mostly empty, and the day was gray and foggy. It made it easier to notice a car with its hazard lights on doing laps around the parking lot. I noticed it do probably 4-5 laps before finally leaving. That was weird. Then, a few minutes later, it happened again. No, not the same car. This was a totally different car driving laps around the parking lot with its hazard lights on. This car did close to 10 laps and was still doing them when I finally decided to leave. It was just an odd occurrence to happen twice back to back.

9. A tradition I have now is doing a video showing me destroying my Halloween pumpkin. I am always surprised at how long a pumpkin I bought in October survives. This year I had a vision in mind of the current pumpkin being tricked into believing it was going to visit its brothers at college. The idea concludes with me backing my car over the pumpkin. The only issue is how wacky it looks setting up the camera and doing dialogue talking to my pumpkin. I had to find a secluded area to pull it off and then hope nobody, especially the police, came by while filming. Not that pumpkin smashing is illegal, it’s just how do I explain what I am doing, especially as a man in his late 40s.

10. If you had told me when I was in my 20s, hell, even 6 years ago, that I’d be waking up voluntarily at 7am on my days off, I’d have wondered what happened to me. Part of it is that when I stopped drinking, I had no real reasons to be out super late so it became easier to wake up at 7, or sometimes earlier. I do wonder though if it is just something that happens as you age. Sure, I could fight it and stay up on nights off until midnight, but my mind goes to tasks I have to do in the morning and I end up in bed by 10:30. At this rate I’ll be waking up at 4am in a few years, and then comes dinner time at 4:30pm. Yikes.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #57: Bloody Good, Diet Woes, Don't Call Me Sir, etc.

1. At my work we have something called compression therapy. You get wrapped up in these pads that squeeze your body stimulating the lymphatic system to get moving. It is great for your overall health. When you do this therapy it is 30 minutes you relax and then when the session is done someone comes in and unwraps you. If somebody has done the compression therapy enough they might feel comfortable enough to start unwrapping themselves to help. A person was doing that before I got in the room to assist them. It all seemed fine until I went back in to clean off the pads. It was then that I noticed the splatters of blood on different parts of the various pads. It looked like a crime scene. The worst part was there was another person set to use the compression therapy and as I wrapped them in the pads I kept noticing other drops of blood I had missed. I had no poker face and was horrified.

2. The only thing that could possibly rival the bloody good story above at work this week was the following. My boss got a great deal on a used mannequin. He intends to use it to display clothing featuring the business logo on it. Makes sense. The funny part was how it arrived. It was in pieces. So bringing in the top half and the arms was fine. However, nothing could prepare me for the sight of my boss walking in with this naked ass mannequin bottom up near his face. I couldn’t have written it any better. We ended up stashing it for a while in the compression therapy room but kept the door closed since it looked like we had killed and dismembered someone in there.

3. Only I could vacuum a room for several minutes not realizing the hose wasn’t attached. Granted I wondered why the vacuum had such terrible suction but it wasn’t until I turned around and saw the disconnected hose on the floor that it all made sense. I have said it a million times, I was born blond so don’t be shocked at stories like these.

4. I spent an evening tearing up an old carpet and then slicing it into strips with a box cutter. I was so focused on getting it done right after work that I didn’t bother to put any sort of mask on to protect me from dust. Eventually, I brought several contractor bags of rolled-up carpet slices outside. My body was exhausted from the workout. Then later on while relaxing not wearing a mask came back to haunt me as I got a major bloody nose from inhaling all of that dust and whatever else was underneath the carpet. Oh well, at least it got done.

Yeah, it was a little like this.

5. In the coming weeks I am shooting the scenes for my first acting gig. It’s funny because I made tons of skits as a kid with my camcorder and craft scripts for my podcast weekly yet trying to get lines I didn’t write memorized is really tough. I printed out all of my scenes and have had trouble getting the lines down. One solution I had was to print them out again, only in a much bigger font. It’s like speaking to a dog, and then saying the words again slower like that will suddenly make the dog understand you.

6. I could be on the strictest of diets but will never not be a sucker for a new flavor of Doritos. I have loved them since I was a kid and any time they release a new flavor I will try it. The latest proof of that is the Late Night Sizzlin’ Cheeseburger flavor. I definitely enjoy them. Every now and then some Doritos are okay, but when I see there are more flavors in this Late Night series that’s when the ominous music starts to play and I feel my pants begin to get tighter. Oh well, six-pack abs are overrated anyway, right?

Dangerously good.

7. Did my first real interior paint job this week. A subtle gray paint on half of my apartment. Luckily I wore clothes I was cool with throwing out because to no one’s surprise, I got paint all over me. Also, put in new flooring in the form of carpeted tiles. That was fun as well but hell on the knees. The room does look a lot better but my body needed a day to recover for sure.

8. I was under the impression on Instagram that once things you post on your story are gone (after 24 hours) nobody can see them except you in your own archives. This week I had some random person like a story of mine from 5 ½ years ago. Not sure how they got to see it. It was very creepy and suspicious that I immediately blocked them just to stop any weirdness before it really gets going. I mean you need to be a special kind of weirdo to deep dive someone’s IG story back more than 5 years.

9. This winter has been one long hibernation. It’s like I’ve done a lot of work, content-wise, but I feel like I’ve been holed up. I don’t know if it’s the cold. I don’t know if it’s being busy with work. I don’t know if I need a change physically to gain energy. Maybe it’s my diet being bad and my body doesn’t produce the energy from bad foods. One or all of these things need to change soon. This blah chapter feels like it’s run its course.

10. Being called ‘sir’ by someone much younger is still a very weird thing. I don’t feel that old (most days) so I definitely don’t feel like being called ‘sir’ is warranted. But I’m also not going to be some mid-life crisis guy who corrects someone young who calls me sir. It actually shows respect for your *ugh* elders. I mean I call people much older than me sir. Wait, so I guess I’m much older than these people? Man, it’s time for a nap followed by dinner at 4pm.

I'm not this guy...yet.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog: #50 - My Nana, Middle-Aged Teen, Getting Mad Cash, etc.

1. My Nana passed away 15 years ago this week. I still miss her like she died just yesterday. Despite that, I do feel at peace knowing that I spent so much time with her while she was alive. Of course, I’d always want one more get-together but I’m blessed to have thousands of memories of her. That being said I do get sentimental on certain days. Her birthday, Christmas Eve, and her death date. I still remember it like it was yesterday. She had died late the previous night so I found out early the next morning. I remember feeling numb. I found it interesting that only moments after finding out Nana had died I spotted 3 crows on the roof of the house next door. They represent death and the afterlife so it was very appropriate.

2. My favorite Chinese food spot on Cape Cod is Sun On in Dennis. It has been for loads of years. To me, the food is always great. However, one thing I really like about them is that they remember you. The man who I think is either the owner or manager always remembers my name. In fact, I went in this week and saw him for the first time in probably a couple of years. He immediately smiled and said hello and remembered my name. Yes, that earned a little cash tip in the jar.

3. I am going into 2025 with more of a clean slate than usual. Sure I have things I am working on, or working toward, but I am also feeling like I need to leave a lot more open. This will allow things to come into my life that I might normally miss. I don’t have any books I’m working on. I don’t even have any book events scheduled. These are typically the times that unforeseen things show up. I’m cautiously excited to see where things will be at the end of 2025.

4. I had a very low-key New Year’s Eve. I definitely don’t miss those days of staying out until after midnight and drinking. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of funny stories from years past. More funny because I survived. This included a year, probably 2013 when I drove home from a favorite restaurant/bar close to 1am. My drive home included blinding snow, a curvy road, and a good buzz. Like I said I can laugh now but that easily could have been how my story ended.

5. At a small local convenience store I was gifted a huge pleasant surprise. No, not a winning lottery ticket. This store carries the 16oz 5-Hour Energy drinks that I love but rarely can find. The last time I had one was when I was up in Brattleboro, Vermont in August. I bought a few and now know I can get them whenever I want. The store itself is a bit sketchy but that just means I need to get in and out fast with my haul.

6. I was faced with a sad reality on New Year’s morning. I got up *relatively* early to go to the gym to kind of kick 2025 off right. I wasn’t up that early but I rolled into the gym at 9am. It was a good workout and the gym really wasn’t crowded. It wasn’t until I was finishing up by walking a bit on a treadmill that I noticed something. Easily 95% of the people in there were older than me, and older by a lot. I wasn’t the youngest in the gym but I had to be close. It made me realize that my ‘out late partying’ days are really over. Well, honestly they were never that crazy anyway, but even if I wanted to start being a party guy it’s way too late.

7. The good news: my blog, this blog, recently passed 450K total views. The bad news: I’ve been running this blog since 2008. We’ll keep that second part quiet. I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 blog posts dating back to my debut post on October 25, 2008. Did you know that you can make money on these blogs through ad clicks? There is a $100 minimum threshold for payout though. Would you like to know when the last time was that I got a payout on my blog? February 21, 2014. So going on 9 years. I’m not saying that blogging doesn’t pay off. I’m just saying that you need to have other side hustles or try out different subjects to write about. But oh man I’m getting close to that next $100 payout. I can’t wait to use it on groceries for the week.

8. From the ‘Everything Is Coming Up Milhouse’ department: I was at a grocery store paying at the self-checkout. I had cash but the total included 1 cent. The question came up, do I break a bill and get 99 cents back? Or do I use my debit card to avoid getting back that change? Well, the grocery gods were smiling on me as I looked on the ground beside me and saw a penny on the floor. No this wasn’t like finding a winning lottery ticket on the floor but I guess it was the next best thing. Maybe not the next best. More like the 100^th next best but still, exact change is a fun accomplishment.

9. After many years I finally have a really good writing station. I bought a comfy office chair, an actual desk, and a plastic floor cover so my chair doesn’t tear up the carpet. Within a few minutes of sitting down at this desk, I found myself working on several projects at once. Having a different setting for work is indeed a big key for creativity. So far it’s only been writing and editing, no recording but as of now, I am thrilled with this setup. Plus I put everything together myself so I feel a bit handy as well.

10. Here is what is likely the most appropriate shopping trip for me. I bought myself a basketball. I haven’t owned a basketball since high school and I want to start playing again as the weather gets better. It’ll be an easy way to trick myself into exercising. However, I also bought myself a pill organizer. You know the one with the days listed and their own individual containers? I keep forgetting to take my vitamins so I got that as a reminder. It’s like teenage me and middle-aged me are being melded together into one. 

Middle-Aged Teen Playset

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog: #43 - Early Birthday Gift, Owl Chats, Free Food, etc.

 

1. One of my oldest friends Hasan came down to Cape Cod from up near Boston with his son for a visit. I’ve known him since 1989, so yeah a long time. What was really neat is that he wanted to see my mother in addition to wanting to see me. It was a great reflection on what he thought of her and what our family meant to him growing up. We got to sit and talk for a good 90 minutes in my mom’s living room and it felt like it was back in the 90s again. It was a perfect early birthday present for my mother who hadn’t seen Hasan since we graduated high school in 1996.

2. Piggybacking on that last one. I took a quick detour into the basement storage area at my mom’s and found an audio cassette Hasan and I recorded probably back in late 1990, or early 1991. My plan is to try to get myself a cassette-to-computer USB adapter to try to get that audio saved. I feel like a 34-year-old cassette might only have 1 play left in it so I have to make it count.

It likely has 1 play left in it.

3. What’s with people who wear sunglasses indoors? Is it supposed to be a fashion statement? It’s one thing if it’s those transition lenses that change from inside to outside. But really, it doesn’t make you look cool with your shades on looking at cereals in a supermarket. Although I will admit that I felt kind of cool during Covid when masks were mandatory and I’d go into a supermarket with a mask, sunglasses, and a hoodie. At any other point in time, I’d have been the sketchiest guy ever, but in 2020 I was being safe.

4. Living across the street from a small plot of conservation land I am used to brushes with nature. From coyotes to turkeys and loads of rabbits, I see animals all the time. One night this week while getting ready to brush my teeth I could hear loudly outside a pair of owls engrossed in conversation. They were so loud I could hear them through closed windows. I quietly opened a window and recorded them chatting. In the end, they must have been hooting loudly outside for at least 20 minutes. At one point I wanted to tell them that was enough I got the point, but I don’t speak owl.

5. “Beards are like sweatpants for your face. It doesn’t matter how chubby you’re getting when wearing one.” – Chad Daniels

I love that quote from comedian Chad Daniels. It does hit a bit close to home though this week. I’ve been growing a pretty impressive long mostly white goatee for about 7 months. At this point though I am torn. I like it, but it is also kind of emblematic of not caring or taking care of myself. Not shaving leads to not doing other things at least for me. Slacking on the gym, slacking on eating right, or taking my daily vitamins. There are times when I am deep into beard life that I think I need to get rid of it to spark a wave of energy. So maybe that’s coming, but it’s also getting colder…

6. Maybe a little TMI but it’s funny. At work in our public bathroom, we have a thing called Air Scense. If you don’t know it’s a deodorizing spray for when someone drops a bomb in the bathroom. There’s the TMI. The funny part is the fact that the citrus-scented spray bottle we have has basically been empty for close to a year. Yet every time we think it’s done it has more sprays left. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode when Kramer test drives the car and wants to see how far past ‘E’ the needle can go before running out of gas. It’s like we can buy more stinky bathroom spray but we’re finding it more fun to see how long it can last us.

Nothing lasts forever, except maybe one of these.

7. My new obsession is chili mango chicken drumsticks. They sell them, fully cooked, at the Shaw’s near me. Not only are they good, but they’re cheap. This is naturally a bad combo for me since it makes it easy for me to buy way too much for not a lot of money. At first, I thought there must be a catch as to why they’re cheap, so far I haven’t gotten sick, or grown an extra limb. Granted there is still time for that, or to just gain loads of weight. We’ll see.

8. A recurring statement I have made on social media is a U2 lyric. ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.’ That pops up in my Facebook memories every now and then with the oldest one I’ve seen being 2008. I still stand by the statement that I haven’t found what I am looking for in life. On one hand, it’s hilarious that I still haven’t found whatever it is for going on 17 years. On the other hand, it’s pretty depressing that I’m wandering down this road searching for something that I can’t quite put my finger on. Is it success? Is it happiness? Is it stability? Is it love? I still don’t know.

9. I ordered food through the McDonald’s app this week. Yes, don’t judge, stress eating is an issue I am trying to deal with. Also, have you seen the deals you can get on that app? It’s dangerous. Anyway, I placed my order and got the receipt via email on my phone. I went inside and waited for close to 25 minutes before asking if they’d received my order. I showed them the receipt and they made my food. The woman said the app was having issues and that I wasn’t the only one. Flash forward a few hours later and I got a follow-up email from McDonald’s telling me that due to the problem with the app, my payment was being refunded. So not only did get some good (but bad for me) food, I also ended up getting it for free. Double win, and maybe soon a double chin.

10. There are few things more demoralizing than going out for your longest walk in over a month and ending up injured. It is my right plantar fascia (arch) and I honestly have no idea how it happened. My days of running are likely done to a degree, but walking? I’m just trying to get back close to the shape I was in before Covid and it’s like roadblocks just keep landing in my way. I feel like saying ‘ok universe, I give up’ and getting one of those motorized scooters. 

Maybe I should give up and just become this guy.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog: #42 - Daylight Savings, Hornet Ambush, Who Are You?, etc.

1. Why do we still have Daylight Savings Time? The first day of ‘falling back’ left us with a sunset time at 4:34pm. Combine that with the temperature in the low 40s and it’s like a highway to depression. I was doing some content work when I looked at the time. It was after 3:30pm and I realized I had an hour of sunlight left. I had to rush outside to enjoy some cold and windy sun just so I didn’t feel like I was missing out. I wish it was just 75 degrees all the time with a sunset of around 7pm. That would be my ideal setup. By the way, the next time the sun sets at 5pm is February 4, 2025. Only 4 months away.

2. Whatever happened to Quiznos? 15 years ago they were everywhere. I remember making it a point to visit the Hyannis location near me probably weekly. The Baja Chicken and the prime rib steak subs were legendary. Then again I was far less healthy when I visited them frequently. It was like in a flash both Cape Cod locations were gone. I went on a major road trip 5 years ago all around the eastern U.S. and one of my most important stops was at the nearest Quiznos to me located in Orange, CT. Out of curiosity I just checked and that location is now gone. In fact, the closest Quiznos to me currently is over 6 ½ hours away in Montreal. I’d love a Baja Chicken but not if I need a passport to get it.

My last visit to Quiznos in Orange, CT in 2019

3. Driving home from work one night this week, naturally it was after dark. This was a main road so I have rarely if ever seen animals crossing due to the higher volume of traffic. What I saw that night was scarier than coming upon a deer. At a pretty windy, blind curve there in the middle of the road was a woman standing there. She was barely visible, luckily I wasn’t going fast and had time to slow and swerve. It was crazy. She didn’t even flinch as I approached. I didn’t see anything about an accident in that area on the night so I’m hopeful that she wasn’t hit by someone else.

4. A strange phenomenon I found recently was in my Facebook Messenger app. I found that people I wasn’t friends with, that I might have had 1 conversation with many years ago, were popping up as ‘online’ and ahead of many actual friends. I had a few times looking at names and wondering who the hell they were. Only when I finally clicked on one did I see our chat history. There were a few from 2016/2017. Like why do they get priority over actual friends & family? I ended up restricting these accounts so I wouldn't see them anymore. Sorry to any of them but not really.

5. A few weeks ago I mentioned how I end up with tons of yellow jackets on my car on some warm days at work. I think it’s the trees dumping pollen on it and the bees use my car as a buffet. Luckily they are no bother. Fast forward to this week and I was finishing a walk on a warm afternoon. When I got back to my car I did not see loads of yellow jackets, not even one. What I did see though was a massive Bald-Face Hornet. It is probably the size of 3 yellow jackets. But it was wandering around on the hood of my car and up along the driver’s side door. Again it was pretty chill so I didn’t worry about being stung. That was until a minute later. You see, I uploaded a video of the hornet to social media while standing on the other side of my car. By the time I got back to the driver’s side, the hornet was gone. Being a nice day I had my windows cracked open. My first thought was that it had crawled into my car. I didn’t see it despite looking for a few minutes. That being said I’d be lying if I wasn’t expecting it to ambush me while driving and I’d end up flipped over in a ditch.

Bald-Faced Hornet on my car

6. One morning driving to work I decided to stop off to shoot the sunrise at the beach. It was peaceful and beautiful and also came at about 6:20am. I took my time to enjoy it but this also left me behind when it came to getting to work. So I was flying down the road and making up time. When I got to a back road I was still going pretty fast. Up ahead a majestic scene was unfolding as a deer gracefully stepped out onto the road from some reeds. That is until it saw me coming and it basically dove back through the reeds like something out of a cartoon. I then finally slowed down wondering if I might see another deer but no such luck. I did get to work on time though so it was a half-win.

7. There’s nothing better than being in a nice deep sleep and your left calf deciding it’s time to explode. Yeah, getting a random calf cramp at 5am will end your dreams really fast. Does anyone else get those? I don’t get calf cramps at night often but any cramp I get is that same spot. Oh well, it beats when I was working in restaurants and I had bad Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Back then my right hand would ball into a fist and go numb while I slept. Then if I rolled over and opened my hand I’d get those terrible ‘pins & needles’ that would wake me up. It got so bad that I either had to sleep with my right arm hanging off of the side of the bed, or worse, I had to wear a winter glove to stop my hand from balling up. Good times.

Not the way to awaken from a dream.

8. Change what you can change. Control what you can control. That doesn’t mean don’t worry about those things you can’t change, or are out of your control. It just means to focus on the good things you have because those things you can’t control are going to happen regardless. Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react to it.

9. I went to help take an aluminum dock out of a lake this week. It’s something my buddy Steve and I do in the spring and fall for a nice couple from New York. I’ve been helping for 3 years now. It’s relatively short work and good money. Sometimes the dock feels like it weighs 1,000 lbs. Other times it’s cold, or wet. This time the weather was decent and we did it toward sunset. It was a pretty smooth removal of the dock and we had a good time chatting with the couple before we left. Of course, as I age I realize that just because something was pain-free at the time doesn’t mean it truly was. I got up the next morning and both of my elbows were tight and sore. Steve and I joked that we might eventually need to recruit people to help us as our bodies are falling apart.

10. When I get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom I typically try to leave the lights off. I know my surroundings so I can navigate my way without incident. Plus if the lights are turned on my brain immediately thinks it’s time to wake up. Just remember if you’re making your way to the bathroom at night with the lights off to check if the toilet seat is down. It’s way safer (and cleaner) to pee that way in the dark rather than hoping you find the bowl and instead make a mess on the floor. Anyway, the seat wasn’t down and well you know the rest. Luckily the rest of my overnight jaunt to and from the bathroom was without incident.