Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #44: Hydraulic Press, Bird’s Nest Hair, Bot Fights, etc.

 

1. Social media learns your interests and crafts your algorithm to show you more of that stuff. I don’t know how it happened but my Facebook Reels suggestions for several weeks have been nothing but a hydraulic press crushing various objects. I’ve seen bowling balls, candles, wood, action figures, and more get flattened. I find it fun and satisfying, and obviously, as I keep watching them the algorithm will keep showing me more but I still don’t know how it started.

2. It was the tale of 2 cute kids at the supermarket one night this week. One little girl, probably 3, was running up and down all of the aisles with her mother trying to keep up with her. I found myself playing traffic cop once, alerting the mother of where her child had gone. The other little girl, probably also 3, was so excited to help her grandmother scan items at the self-checkout that she caused the machine to shut down several times. The attendant had to repeatedly come over to reset the machine. I thought both were cute, the adults watching these kids were not as amused as me though.

3. So often over the last several years I feel in my life that I have totally lost the road. It is as if I am crossing a rickety bridge in the fog and I am not even sure what’s on the other side. I’m just hoping that whatever it is it’s worth moving toward. There are plenty of times I feel I need to stop moving and take a serious look at my surroundings, but then the fear of wasting more time overtakes me and I start sprinting in the darkness. I don’t know if this is how my mid-life crisis is manifesting itself. What I do know is that I’ll keep moving forward until I find whatever I’m chasing or until I collapse.

How life feels at times.

4. A really fun thing to have happen is to pull into a parking space after dark. Then you open your car door to step out and on the ground is a mass of god knows what. Some was liquid, some was mushy, and all of it was gross. To top it off I had to do a kind of ballet dance to get around it. Not sure if I totally missed stepping in it. That was not a good time.

5. On the roads to some beaches on Cape Cod, and I’m sure other places, some signs show you how to proceed if you’re not in a vehicle. They say: Walk Right, Ride Left. That makes sense if you’re going in one direction. What about if you’re going the other way? When you walk right and ride left isn’t it on the opposite side? Doesn’t that make it basically anarchy on these roads? The sign should just say: Walk wherever, ride wherever, as long as you’re not in the middle of the road. These types of thoughts and observations are Exhibit A of why I say my life is like a Seinfeld episode some days.

6. My introversion paid off a bit. I stopped for a few quick things at a convenience store. I grabbed them and immediately went for the self-checkout register located in between a pair of regular registers. This was so I could get in and out without a lot of small talk that I’m not particularly a big fan of. The employee that was working had stepped away momentarily to straighten up one of the aisles. They were so grateful that I could check myself out rather than make them stop their work and come back. I decided to take that win and not say it was because I didn’t want to interact with anyone.

7. At my work there was a fun message I came into one morning. We have an automated away message that is sent to people who text after hours. It just thanks them for the message and states our hours. I walked in with 48 unread messages from one specific number which was alarming at first. I mean who would text us 48 times overnight, right? It turns out that the message that came in was automated, and then we responded with our automated message, which then triggered the same message again from the source. You can see where this is going. It was two bots responding to each other repeatedly. I couldn’t stop laughing once I realized the absurdity of it.

This is how I imagined the bots interacting.

8. Those who used to read the original Initial Impressions blog back in 2010-2012 will remember my attempts to get 5-Hour Energy to sponsor my road trips. I mentioned it numerous times in the old blogs. Now there’s a new version of this energy shot called 5-Hour Energy Sport which I guess is different than the regular because it’s supposed to be a pre-workout. Anyway, I enjoy it but again it has me wondering how to get them to sponsor my road trips. Maybe I’ll keep mentioning them in the video version of this blog. Or maybe I should actually start doing more road trips before I look for a sponsor?

9. In keeping with the feeling lost, Mid-Life Crisis theme I am trying to shake things up with small changes in my life. Switching from Pandora to Spotify for my music app. Quitting Twitter/X and going to Bluesky. Growing my hair out a bit. It’s only been a few days of all of this but it does feel a little new and rejuvenating. I believe a series of smaller tweaks in life can be just as impactful as packing up and moving cross country. I mean I already did that, twice.

10. Speaking of growing hair out my plan is for it to be only slightly longer. When my hair is long it is not straight or curly, it is like a bird’s nest which I hate. I have been routinely shaving my head since 2010. With few exceptions, this has been a weekly occurrence. On the odd occasion when I have grown my hair out people are shocked that I actually have a full head of hair and don’t shave it because I am going bald. Unfortunately now in my late 40s, I can already see after a few weeks of growing it that my hair is far more gray and white than I remembered. I’m not going to dye it though, I might as well age with dignity. Plus I can always just shave it off again in a few months.  

My hair will not be as long as it was here in 2019.

Initial Impressions Blog 2.0: #22 - Lock the Door, Hooters, Parking Lot Geniuses, etc.

 

1. One of my favorite running routes takes me through a quiet and quaint neighborhood. It eventually abuts a golf course at a cul-de-sac. I like this spot because within 50 feet of the road are a pair of porta potties behind a fence on the golf course. So I use one pretty much every time I go by there. In years of doing this I could honestly count on one hand with fingers left the number of people I’ve seen using one of those porta potties. I walked around the fence and one was locked, the other was not. Of course, the one not locked had someone inside as I flung the door open. Luckily his back was to me. We both kind of laughed and he was cool since he admitted he didn’t lock the door. It was like on The Office when Jim walked in on the preschool teacher in the bathroom because he didn’t lock the door.

2. It’s amazing to see how different weather forecasts can be between 2 websites. Same place, different app, and the temperatures are routinely 6-7 degrees off for the highs. In the winter that big of a discrepancy can mean the difference between snow and rain. It’s the same with precipitation. How much, when it starts, when it ends, or even if there will be any at all. I end up picking whichever seems best and then cheering or booing that site depending on the accuracy.

3. The first heat wave of the season hit the northeast this week. The mid-80s on Cape Cod. Granted on the Cape it’s a good 10 degrees cooler than in Boston but it does take the energy right out of you. All I wanted to do was sit in front of several fans. Oh, I have A/C but I stubbornly try to hold off as long as I can to put it in and then try to take it out as quickly as I can.

4. I am at the point in my life where if I don’t feel a connection with a person I move on. I’m not saying within a few minutes, but after a certain amount of time, you know if you click, or if you’re wasting your and their time. I find it’s better to move on early than drag it out and lead someone on in the hopes of forcing a connection over time. But that’s just me.

5. Note To Self: When microwaving something if the cooking time you are choosing is 3 identical numbers, IE: 5:55, make sure that you press the buttons 3 times because you could end up pressing it 4 times and leaving something in the microwave for far too long. Yes, note to self, that never could have actually happened to me.

Beware

6. One thing I had forgotten that has come back in full force as I’ve started running more is how many vehicles don’t care about runners or cyclists on the road. Some give room as they pass, others don’t move at all. I have had times that if I reached my arm out a passing vehicle would have torn it off. We’re not saying swerve into the other lane into oncoming traffic, but at least make an effort to not kill us as you pass, thanks.

7. I was in a supermarket in the town where I live when a couple walked in. The woman was in a full-on Hooters outfit. Now this is all well and good, I mean I didn’t mind taking a peek. But here’s the thing, the nearest Hooters to where I live is 75 miles away. Maybe they decided to come visit Cape Cod right after she got out of work and she didn’t bother to change out of her work clothes? Halloween is not for 4 months but maybe they were going to a random costume party in late June? Or maybe she just craves attention and decided to wear that outfit inside a supermarket filled with elderly people and children. Your guess is as good as mine.

8. The vast, vast majority of people know how to navigate around a parking lot. It’s not hard, you just need common sense. That being said there are the select few who put their blinker on at the end of a row of spaces like it’s the end of a street. Even worse are those who just drive straight through all of the spaces like they’re not there. I’m sure it’s like a bell curve, tons of normal people in the middle, and those 2 sets of idiots on either end.

9. While running at the local high school track I spotted 2 women walking over. 1 walked onto the track and just stood there, the other was nowhere to be found. It was a little suspicious. I finished running and retreated to a sort of pavilion at the top of the bleachers. The 1 woman was still standing in the same place. Now it was getting weird. That was until I saw the other woman. She had a pair of rollerblades and couldn’t get them on. The other woman helped and then proceeded to lead her around the track helping her skate. I didn’t ask but it seemed like the woman with the roller blades was special needs and the other woman was a friend or relative. It made the whole situation very sweet and I stood and watched for a few minutes before heading home.

10. Speaking of that run I did. It’s that point in the summer when I have to make a choice between sunscreen and bug spray for runs. Well, except for this time. I sprayed sunscreen on my head and bug spray on my arms and legs. Seems pretty straightforward right? That was until I was sweating a lot running and like a fool used my arm to wipe my face and eyes. Yup, bug spray in the eyes. Luckily at that point, nobody else was on the track so when I yelled I only scared the birds. 

Choose wisely

11. It was incredible to get to watch the Boston Celtics win their 18^th championship, the most in NBA history. I’ve been lucky enough to see so many titles in various sports living in New England. I won’t take it for granted though. I lived through the Patriots being a joke. I lived through part of the Red Sox Curse of the Bambino. I also lived through the ML Carr years of the Celtics, although he did come and speak at my middle school so it wasn’t all bad. Congratulations to Jaylen Brown, Jason Tatum, Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis, and Jrue Holliday who was the catalyst for this year’s team. Go Green!

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog. #20: Library Tricks, Move Birds Get Out the Way, Smashing Pumpkins, etc.

1. I was sitting in the library trying to get some work done on a few upcoming projects. It’s rarely dead silent and I understand that. However this time it was unusual as a woman sauntered in with a big recyclable grocery bag that made a ton of noise as she walked. She then proceeded to sit down at a computer and have a full-on loud conversation with someone on her phone. Now I can say for sure what her job was, but she kept telling the man on the other end that she could get him more money and that she’d gotten $20 of what she was owed. She then angrily asked if this was how the whole summer was going to be before storming out of the library with her loud bag crunching along. UPDATE: She came back in and was loud again on the phone, swearing until another woman came over and confronted her. The librarian then had to throw her out.

2. It’s funny in a kind of sad way to see people like EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. of my IG/FB stories EXCEPT for the one where I wish people a happy Pride Month. Yeah, I see you homophobes you can take your story likes and shove them up your prejudiced asses.

3. Note to self, don’t sit anywhere outside during the warmer months. You either leave a sweat print on something when it’s super hot, or you act as a duster and get all of the pollen, pine needles, and whatever other random stuff is there to stick to you. Also worms, those little green worms, they’re everywhere and on everything.

4. It was a wild scene driving down this road to a nearby beach. The people ahead of me were going slow, 25mph. I was about 2 car lengths back. Up ahead were 6-7 birds in the road. They looked like doves. I say ‘looked like’ because I didn’t notice them until the car ahead had run over one. They didn’t fly or even really attempt to move. I saw that and swerved to the left. The other birds were running around the road, not flying, but running. I have no clue if I hit one, I did my best to avoid them, but the car behind me stopped. Don’t know why those birds were just clustered along the road like that.

5. When I go for a walk or run I have my headphones on and music playing. I do pay attention to my surroundings but can zone out at times. As I was on a walk this week I was zoned out. I felt like I had tripped over a stick. It turns out it was a dog that I guess was trying to get my attention. It was a puppy, a brown-ish Labradoodle. Even when the owner finally came around to get his dog it followed me for a few hundred feet. I’d have been fine taking the dog with me but I had to cross a main road, and the owner likely had some treats to coax it home.

6. I should have known better than to think I was out of the woods when it came to allergies this year. Typically I have 2 battles with allergies, late April/early May and then mid to late August. I got to the first week of June and finally had a day where my throat felt like it was just caked in pollen. It was like that stupid spoonful of cinnamon challenge from several years ago except slightly less tasty.

7. A double-dip of Halloween entry here. For one, my Halloween pumpkin finally was tossed out. By tossed out I mean smashed on pavement for a video. It lasted from mid-October until the first week of June, pretty good. Second, there is a house in my town that has a group of life-sized skeletons in its front yard that the owners put in funny situations all year long. Currently, they are playing cornhole. In the past they’ve been Santa and reindeer, around a campfire, mowing the lawn, and tons of other classics.

8. When I was 16 I would tear open a bag of M&Ms and pour them into my hand for a quick sugar rush. Now at 46 I tear open several bottles of vitamins and supplements and pour them into my hand so that I can get out of bed without my joints sounding like bubble wrap.

9. In a first for Cape Cod this past week there was an authentic pink flamingo at Chapin Beach in Dennis. Experts think it got disoriented from a hurricane last year and flew north and can’t figure out how to get home. It looked like someone had bought a plastic flamingo and placed it out on the tidal flats, until someone shared a video of the flamingo walking. Now I wonder what other exotic animals might be fun to see on Cape Cod. Nothing super dangerous, but maybe a moose would be fun.

10. I saw a slow-motion car accident in the gym parking lot. I say slow motion because each vehicle was backing out of spaces like snails. They bumped with literally no damage to either. That didn’t stop the people from arguing about who was at fault. Because you’ve got to win the argument even if nothing of consequence comes from it.

11. I will never take for granted that I can be out for a walk on the nearby bike trail and if I time it right I can bump into my Uncle Steve out for a run. The other morning we stopped and chatted for a few and it made my day. Some time will be the last time so I don’t ever want to miss an opportunity if I get it.

Initial Impressions 2.0 #19: Unknown Savings, Jury Duty, Parking Lot Musician, etc.

1. I frequent 2 supermarkets, Stop & Shop and Shaw’s. Both have rewards programs you can enter that include savings on gas. Ironically, I only routinely use the points I get through Stop & Shop. The other day I finally thought I should check Shaw’s points and see what I could do with them. It turns out that I had enough to get 70 cents a gallon off of gas. I filled my tank for a shade over $20. I guess it pays to never check your rewards points.

2. Within an hour of driving on Cape Cod on Memorial Day Weekend I was already begging for Labor Day. From the lady screaming at me to pull out of a parking lot, despite there being a car directly in my way. Oh sure lady I’ll just broadside this car so you can get to the dollar store 2 seconds faster. A man driving ahead of me also decided it would be nice to randomly slam on his brakes to let someone make a left turn. Never mind the fact that there were no cars behind me so that same car would have been turning 2 seconds later. I know it’s not all tourists, but the number of idiots naturally goes up with the number of overall people who come to the Cape to visit.

3. Does anyone know if it’s illegal to drive your car down along the power lines? I’m talking about those dirt areas directly underneath the rows of poles that extend at least a few hundred yards. I cut through this one power lines pathway on my runs and saw a random SUV parked in the middle of this area with some guy sitting in a chair outside of it. Not sure if it’s against the law or anything but it was definitely weird and suspicious to me.

4. In the warmer months I could wash my car daily and it would still never be clean. First, because it’s a white car so it shows all the dirt. Second because the parking spot I have where I live is under some trees. This leaves the car susceptible to sap, pollen, bird poop, and even bug poop. I’d invest in one of those car covers but I feel like it would take less time to wash my car daily than to take that on and off.

5. I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people who mean the most to me. I fully admit that. It’s something I am trying to work on, including picking one person to text and check in with each day. However I also realize that telephones and email work both ways, so when I see, or don’t see, those same people reaching out to me I don’t feel quite as bad.

6. Walking through the supermarket freezer section I happened upon new Totino’s Breakfast Bites. They are basically pizza rolls just with eggs/sausage, etc inside. I’ve loved pizza rolls since I was a kid so it was only natural that I let out an audible grunt/moan of excitement when I saw them. The only problem? They come in boxes of 40. Meaning I’d eat all of them in one sitting for sure. Had to pass, for now.

7. I had my latest jury duty adventure this week. It started when I got my summons in the mail last week. Immediately I went on the website to try to postpone it only to be stopped since the current date WAS my postponed date from last year, so booo #1. The next thing I had to do was cancel my training clients for that day. I couldn’t take the chance of being called in for the jury and having clients show up to my work, but I was not there, so booo #2. Then I just said the hell with it and took the entire day off from my job. Of course at 5pm the day before I was supposed to have jury duty I got the email that I didn’t have to go in, so booo #3, but also I had an extra day off to do work on the podcast, videos, and this blog, so it’s a small yay.

8. I don’t know what it says about where I live on Cape Cod but there has been a bicycle leaning up against a tree outside of the gym I go to for about a year. No exaggeration, this blue bike has sat there for that long. Nobody has claimed it, nobody has taken it. It’s almost like it’s an experiment to see how long it will stay there before someone claims it as their own. I finally got around to snapping a photo of it, so now watch it’ll be gone before the next blog goes up.

Been there for a year

9. Sitting in the middle of a Stop & Shop parking lot I saw a man who appeared to be playing a saxophone. He had a sign asking for donations. The only problem was that the music he was playing also had drums, bass, etc in it but nobody playing those instruments. Also his ‘saxophone’ looked more like a Casio keyboard. Now I’m not saying he wasn’t actually playing a sax along with a pre-recorded beat, I don’t know since I didn’t care enough to go over and scrutinize his music. That would have cost me at least a $5 in his jar.

10. Irrelevant thing that I think about too much. Is Louisville pronounced Loo-eee-ville, or Loo-uh-ville? The person’s name Louis is pronounced Loo-ee, not Loo-uh. But I’m not from there so I don’t know the proper pronunciation. Much like people who come to Massachusetts and can’t pronounce Worcester, Leominster, Peabody, or Quincy. The most egregious one I ever heard was someone who pronounced Hyannis as Hay-nis. Like, really? The only thing heinous was their stupidity.

11. Product Review: I tried the Levia Dream Seltzer, it’s cannabis-infused. It was Jam Berry in flavor and for mellowing out. It tasted like a good raspberry/blackberry mix. I enjoyed it, the dispensary I went to said it’s smooth and mellow because it’s not super potent with THC. Although they did say if you chug it you might get hit a little harder. I spent an hour drinking it and felt great. I need controlled doses of any cannabis. If I smoke I go from ‘this is fun’ to ‘oh no this is an ordeal now’ in a flash. So drinks and edibles are the way to go for me. So yeah, if you like weed drinks grab one. Here is their website: Levia Cannabis-Infused Seltzer

Initial Impressions 2.0 #15: No Trespassing, Dogs v. Texting, Google Car Is a Rolls-Royce?, etc(5-6-2024)

1. Have you ever noticed that it is typically the houses that look abandoned, have unkempt yards, no grass, and rusted-out cars littering the property, these are the houses that have ‘No Trespassing’ signs. It’s like don’t worry I don’t want to get any diseases by stepping foot on your garbage property. How about taking the money you wasted on several No Trespassing signs and using that for grass seed, or a bucket of house paint?

2. I don’t understand how someone can work for a supermarket chain and hate all of their bosses so much that they constantly transfer to other stores in that chain. I also don’t understand how if they hate management at all of these stores why they don’t go work for another chain altogether, or get into a different industry. Unless you signed a contract with your job you are not forced to work there. It’s almost like they’d rather just be angry and spiteful because it’s easier than looking for a new job.

3. I grabbed a few energy drinks at a local dollar store because they were crazy cheap. I didn’t get a bag so I walked out and back to my car holding a few cans. On my way, an old man, likely mid-70s, joked that I couldn’t drive home if I was drinking those. I laughed and thought about offering one to him but could already hear the ambulance sirens in my mind if the man drank something like that.

4. It would have been my Nana's 100th birthday this week. She has been gone for nearly 15 years but it only took me a few minutes to come up with a dozen things that I immediately associate with her. It shows her importance in my life even as our times together fade further into memories. I do things like this because I want her memory to remain alive and as long as I live all of my grandparents will live on.

5. I was paying for groceries at self-checkout with cash. I had some extra change in the center console of my car so this was an easy way to get rid of it. In the end, I owed 1 more cent. I actually looked around the area for a random penny on the floor, but no luck. I grabbed out a dollar and wouldn’t you know it the dang machine eats it. It was a 10-minute ordeal of finding someone to open the machine to get the dollar out. The person who helped actually put a penny in so I wouldn’t have to try the dollar again. To top it off the lady overseeing the self-checkout area then decided to give me a lecture about how to properly insert money into the machines. I said as nicely as I could that I knew how to pay at self-checkout seeing as how I have done it literally hundreds of times. As I walked out I said to myself ‘this is going in the blog,’ and here it is.

6. I actually saw a cat wandering around in a neighborhood. There was nothing odd about the cat, but I feel like over the past several years, especially on Cape Cod, outdoor cats have become increasingly rare. We have a coyote problem down here. Not sure if outdoor cats are still common in other places. Or maybe they still are everywhere and I just don’t notice them.

7. So in all honestly what is more dangerous? Texting while driving? Or having a dog in your lap? They both seem equally irresponsible yet only one can get you a ticket as far as I know. Are there laws against dogs being in a driver’s lap? You wouldn’t have a child roaming around while you drive, so why let a fidgety dog jump all around you while you’re behind the wheel of a 2,000-pound weapon on wheels?

Cute but dangerous

8. While out driving I saw this beautiful Rolls-Royce. It was slowing down to turn onto the road I was on. I was momentarily shocked and confused as I saw nobody driving it. Then as it turned it all made sense, it was a European model of the vehicle so the driver’s side was opposite to here in the U.S. For a brief moment, I wondered if the Google Maps vehicle was on Cape Cod, and also a Rolls-Royce for some reason.

The next Google Maps car?

9. Every now and then I see people driving in a parking lot and using their turn signals when going up and down rows of vehicles. I think I see this about as much as I see people using their turn signals for actual turning on the road. Maybe not that much but it does seem odd to use blinkers inside a parking lot. I have seen way more examples of people not using their blinkers on the road though but I think that’s more common everywhere these days.

10. I was thrilled when I stepped on a set of bilateral scales at work and the numbers were exactly the same on each. When I first got to my current job 3 years ago I had a misaligned hip that caused the end at the time of my competitive running. I was 15 lbs heavier on my left than my right when I first used the bilateral scales. The work I’ve done to fix my hips has paid off which makes me very happy. However, I was hit with a cold slap of reality when I added the 2 scales up and it was more than I had ever weighed in my life. So yay my hips are good again, and boo it’s diet time. 

Listen to the In My Footsteps Podcast

Subscribe to the YouTube Channel