Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #92: One Brain Cell, It's Me Shawn, Papa Gino's Meeting, etc.

1. While entering the supermarket, I caught the sounds of the excellent 1980s song ‘Take On Me,’ by A-ha. Growing up in the 80s, there’s no way I wouldn’t know the lyrics. It sounded different because it was an acoustic version of the song. A woman working one of the registers stopped ringing up a customer to loudly complain about how whoever was singing was ruining the song. She then kept complaining by saying the original is such a great song (truth) and these people should leave the song alone. I had to laugh to myself because the version of the song was an acoustic version BY A-ha. So this lady was shouting into the air about how A-ha was ruining A-ha’s song. I didn’t bother saying anything because she looked like she gets lost in a closet, so trying to explain what I just wrote would have fried her brain cell.

2. Ladybugs are supposed to be good luck, and you can make a wish while holding one and let it fly away and maybe it will come true. That being said, we had one inside at my job. I caught it and brought it outside. I made a wish and let it fly away. Only it flew right back and landed on my shirt. How far does the ladybug have to fly away to break the plane of the wish? Is it like crossing the goal line in football? It was crawling down my shirt so I ended up bringing it back inside with me and putting it in one of our plants. I’ll have to try again to make another wish on it this week.


3. In a follow-up from last week. I did in fact make a behind-the-scenes video for the When Henry Met Henry film. Last week I mentioned being halfway through recording on my webcam when my recording software decided to crash. Later that same day I took my phone and my selfie stick and did a walk and talk. I went to the local bike trail so that I could have some fall aesthetics and nature while discussing the filming process. I was pleasantly surprised that the vast majority of the video went off without a hitch. Granted, there were a few people on bikes but I just paused the video as they approached. The low light of the recording was the pain in the ass kid on his little dirt bike riding up and down the power lines right off the trail. That was an editing challenge. The highlight was the walk itself but also the blue jays yelling as I walked. I find recording at my desk boring and only do it when necessary. If possible, I will try to be outside, or at least somewhere different to give each video its own personality. Speaking of which, here is the finished When Henry Met Henry Behind the Scenes video.

4. Since giving up alcohol 5 years ago, I mostly drink flavored seltzer water. One beverage I will indulge in every now and then is birch beer. If you’ve never had it, the drink comes from the sap or bark of birch trees. I can only describe its taste as a mix of wintergreen with a hint of cinnamon. I can’t remember who in my family liked it, but it is from them that I first tried it. In trying to stay relatively fit in my late 40s, I will drink the diet birch beer, usually from Polar. A liter bottle runs 10 calories. Having drunk unsweetened drinks for many years now, I can tell when something is loaded with sugar. This week I got some birch beer and, within two sips, knew it was regular and not diet. A liter of the regular birch beer runs 410 calories. That’s a big difference so I sadly didn’t finish the bottle. Then, when I went to get diet Birch Beer I saw why I made the mistake. The regular and diet and right next to each other in identical bottles but the kicker is the color. It’s white letters on green-ish white background. I literally had to pull the bottle close to my face like I was 90 to see if it said diet or not. Oh well, at least I got the right one that time.


5. When I go for a walk or run, I wear big over-ear headphones to really get immersed in whatever music or podcast I have going on. That means that I also need to pay attention to my surroundings since the headphones can cancel out any noise. That came back to haunt me this week, but not in a bad way. So I was on a walk and going around the periphery of a golf course. No, I didn’t get hit by a ball. I was walking and I felt something slam into my right arm. This scared the hell out of me and got my heart rate jumping. I spun around, not sure what I’d see. What I did see was the cutest white Golden Retriever. It was a few hundred feet from its owner, whom I did see slowly walking up. The dog must have gotten so excited to see me but when I paid it no attention due to my music, it decided to really let me know it was there. And yes, before continuing on my walk there were copious amounts of belly scratches for the dog.


6. On a break from working, I grabbed my phone, selfie stick and my yearly mini-pumpkin and headed to get some photos. I ended up at the Cape Cod Canal and started wandering around the grounds snapping photos. Everything was normal until I started walking along the water, headed for a marina. I saw a guy fishing and he gave me the side-eye. At first, he joked to me that my photo would be better if his ‘fat old ass’ wasn’t in the way. I smiled and he said, ‘hey it’s good to see you again.’ Now I was confused and asked, ‘really?’ The guy said, ‘yeah it’s me Shawn. I saw you here before not that long ago.’ I told him it definitely wasn’t me, but I was polite and wished him a good evening before going for more photos. No idea who that guy was, or more importantly, the guy who looks like me who is creeping around the canal. Maybe it’s old me from the future coming back to take photos at the canal.

One of the photos taken along the canal.

7. This week, the NBA and the country have been rocked by a gambling scandal involving, as of this moment three people. Damon Jones, who was an assistant coach. Chauncey Billups, who is the head coach of the Portland Trailblazers and a former Boston Celtic. Lastly and the one that has raised my eyebrows is current Miami Heat player Terry Rozier. For those who don’t know the story here is a link to an overview. The reason Rozier got my attention is that he’s accused of point shaving. Basically, betting on the under on his own stats and then allegedly feigning an injury, or having an ‘off night’ to win money on those unders. One NBC Boston analyst mentioned Game 7 of the Celtics v. Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2017-18 Eastern Conference Finals. Rozier went 2-14 from the field, including 0-10 from 3-point range in 36 minutes of play. The Celtics lost 87-79. My mind immediately went to Rozier intentionally having an off night to win his bets and cost the Celtics a trip to the NBA Finals. Maybe it was just a coincidence but with Rozier’s gambling history, it seems like it sadly could be possible. I’m not saying the Celtics would have won the championship. Hell, the Cavs with Lebron James got swept 4-0 by Golden State. Still, you never know and that’s the worst part. Also, it sounds like this is just the tip of the iceberg, so grab your popcorn.


8. Sometimes I go seeking an adventure, other times the adventure finds me. I was out with my pumpkin, grabbing some Halloween-themed photos at an old mansion. It’s on a quiet road near the beach but is almost always deserted, which allows me to take my time setting up shots. I parked in a lot that is fairly hidden. I thought there might be a path so I could walk to the beach without having to get on the actual road. There wasn’t one, but there was a smaller overgrown parking lot, which I took a photo of so that I might be able to find out what it was used for. On the way back to my car, I spotted what looked like a decaying house about 50 or so feet back in the woods. Obviously, I needed to go check it out. Unfortunately, there was no path to it. This meant that I needed to bushwhack my way through the trees and brush to get there. It was a mess inside. There was a lot of graffiti as would be expected. There were also holes in the floor exposing water underneath. Luckily, I caught myself before falling through the floor but it was close. It’s a bit rundown and somewhat dangerous, so I wouldn’t recommend going inside. I got a lot of photos and videos, which I put together into a little Halloween adventure film so that you can see what it’s like.

9. We are in the hurry up and wait portion of the new bike trail extension near where I live. I’ve mentioned before that it begins just after a golf course and will likely go 4 extra miles. This will allow people to theoretically ride their bike from Wellfleet all the way to the Cape Cod Mall, nearly 30 miles. In the past few weeks, I noticed that the extension has been paved. I don’t know if it’s all the way but I did walk a half-mile or so down it. You’d think it’s nearly ready to be open to the public, but you’d be wrong. If the most recent bike trail extension, which connected the main trail to the golf course where it now ends, is any indicator, we’re looking at a year or more to go. The last extension was being worked on for at least 5 years from the time they removed an old railroad bridge to the day it was opened. Why does it take so long? I mean if you can get it paved that fast, why not just hurry up and finish it? Whatever, I’ll still use it even if it’s not ‘finished.’


10. The big news of the week is that come this time next year I will have had a script of mine made into a feature-length film. There is still so much to iron out, and I can only share a little right now, though. I met with the director of the film I acted in earlier this year, Cape Cod Cthulhu. He and his crew were on Cape Cod this week filming a new movie. 5 of us met for dinner and a chat at Papa Gino’s. I hadn’t had that for years so that was already a plus. We then started talking about a story I had written over 15 years ago. It fits 2 great categories: simple and cheap. We won’t need much for cast or sets, which means that the budget should be fairly low. The tentative plan is to shoot late next summer, so obviously, there won’t be a finished film for quite a while. Still, this is a big thing to have on my resume, being the producer of a feature-length film. It’s a really exciting new project, and the pizza at Papa Gino’s was good. Oh, and the director thought I was in my early 30s, so a great time overall.

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.