Initial Impressions 2.0 #18: Is This Thing On?, Remote Controlled Moron, ATM Etiquette, etc.

1. I’ve been messing around with the idea of turning this blog into a second podcast for weeks now. I decided to make an attempt at recording a video version of last week’s blog. I set up my microphone and my Ring light and it looked halfway decent. I decided to use my Clipchamp video editing software to record the video since it has a green screen option in post-editing. So I recorded the entire podcast, probably something like 15 minutes. Once I was finished I was trying to figure out how to stop the recording. The only problem was I hadn’t even started recording. It’s not just ‘hit record’ and go, no there are more steps for Clipchamp which I wasn’t aware of. I basically talked to nobody for 15 minutes, yay. After that my eyes were hurting from the Ring light so I shelved the video for another time.

2. It’s not every day that you see someone wash their car at a gas station. There was a woman who after pumping gas used the squeegee and cleaner that is next to most gas pumps to quite literally wash her entire SUV. She even had her own rags to dry it off. I don’t think the attendants can do anything really since it probably happens almost never. Still, it was weird to watch. Needless to say, it motivated me to wash my car, but at an actual car wash.

3. I’m lucky to live only a few minutes drive from the beach. I take advantage of that nearly every day. I’ll go and sit and listen to music, or a podcast, or just listen to the ocean. I’m setting a peaceful scene here. It’s rare to see something I’ve never seen before at the beach. The other day though I was relaxing and got to bear witness to a seagull throwing up next to my car and another seagull leaning over and eating that throw-up like it was no big deal. It was like something out of a gross-out movie.

Yeah, it was kinda like that...

4. I don’t get how someone can be standing in their driveway driving their remote-controlled car into the actual road repeatedly and then get mad at me for having the audacity to drive to work. Either selfish, entitled, or stupid, or a fine mix of all three.

5. It’s not every day that you see a squirrel inside, let alone inside the gym where I work. Granted it was a cute little fluffy one but it’s not good for training people if you have a wild animal crawling along pipes on the ceiling. It was in there when nobody was around so it wasn’t too bad, but I was surprised nobody heard me in the next room yell when I spotted the squirrel. It scurried away through a hole around a heating pipe in case you were wondering.

It didn't even wipe down the equipment after!

6. It’s at the point now that anytime I see a beautiful girl anywhere I just assume she’s either too young or is in a relationship. I might be right or wrong but I can’t really find out because a stranger walking up to a beautiful girl and asking her age and status typically won’t fly unless you’re in a bar and can blame alcohol. Sadly I don’t drink anymore so I can’t use that excuse. Maybe they should all wear IDs that share the info?

7. From the ‘You Can’t Un-see That’ Department: I went into the locker room at the gym to quickly use the urinal. There are also a pair of stalls. As I turned the corner to where these were located an older man came out of one stall with his pants and underwear around his knees. He proceeded to open the next stall to go in there with his bare ass hanging out. It was not a pleasant sight early in the morning. I rushed out of there just in case he did something in that other stall. Sadly even though I didn’t see his face in there I found out who he was because he was the only person in the entire gym wearing jeans to work out.

8. Having a Facebook fan page for my podcast I have had to get used to being spammed by bots claiming my account will be shut down. I tend to get 3-4 a week at least. I’m not sure if it was a bot but the other day I had the same account leave the same comment on my last 8 posts. No sir, if you are real, I don’t want your help in getting more YouTube views. I’d basically be paying a bot to give me a virus.

9. A common sales trick in advertisements is to put the word ‘only’ or ‘just’ in front of a high price to make you think it’s actually a good deal. When I hear I could lease some rando SUV for ‘only’ $649/mo (plus a huge initial down payment of course) I picture the marketing people laughing at potential buyers as they put that into the ad copy.

10. An update from a few weeks ago. I shared a photo of a beach near my work that had a sign telling people they couldn’t drive their vehicles down a paved section and onto the beach. Apparently, the sign wasn’t a good enough explanation. Now as you can see there is a large rock at the beginning of that paved section. I guess it was figured that if people can’t read, or understand what the image of a vehicle with the red circle with a line through it meant, they’d understand a giant rock blocking the entrance. Where’s the ‘shaking my head’ emoji?

How it started. How it's going.

11. In your opinion what is proper etiquette when in your vehicle at an ATM? Do you keep back from the vehicle in front of you a bit like you would if you were standing at an ATM? Or do you get right up on their bumper? I keep back because it just seems more polite. If I was standing at an ATM and the person behind me was on me like a backpack I’d be pretty pissed. So why not the same for in your car? I don’t know that was just something that popped into my head.

Initial Impressions 2.0 #13 - Photo Day Trip 2

#13 – Photo Day Trip 2

1. I can’t remember the last time I woke up at 5am to head out on a day off for a photography trip. It’s been probably 7 years. What was originally a ‘quick’ trip with my buddy Steve to The Gurnet (a private beachfront community in Plymouth, MA) ended up stretched out late into the afternoon. It was well worth the early wake-up.

2. The reason for the early start was a stop shooting a famous tree in Duxbury known simply as the ‘gumdrop tree.’ This is due to its nearly perfect gumdrop shape. My buddy Steve and I pulled off the road and snapped a ton of amazing photos.

Duxbury's gumdrop tree

3. Two things to take from this gumdrop tree stop: 1. Egrets don’t care if you want them to help you make a photo better, they will do the opposite just to be jerks. 2. There may or may not have been a drunk cyclist riding by. He was one of three who rode by but made it a point to shout out asking what we were shooting. If he wasn’t a little sloshed he sure sounded it.

4. After being a passenger on the drive around the sandy roads of The Gurnet and Saquish in Plymouth I can say I’d never want to drive those myself. So tight and winding, you need perfect skills to navigate them. Guess that’s why the speed limits marked around there are 5mph.

5. Gurnet (Plymouth) Lighthouse is a fun place to photograph. On this trip, they were doing an excavation of a lot of soil for testing for lead since there’s also a centuries-old fort on the grounds. I briefly thought about not crossing the plastic orange fencing to get some shots, briefly. C’mon, what else would you expect from me?

Sorry, I didn't even see the excavating going on.

6. The Gurnet definitely has a cool vibe to it, no wonder why many of the people out there have passed down the old homes to family. Also, no wonder why some rich jerks want to steal some of that vibe for themselves by building houses that don’t fit in out there.

7. If you’re on the Massachusetts South Shore, grab a freshly made bagel with one of the varieties of cream cheese at Gunther Tooties. Several locations. I got a french toast bagel, toasted, with honey cream cheese. Highly recommended. Just enough of a sugar rush to get me through the arduous task of photography.

8. I finally got the famed Draco the Dragon on camera. It is a metal dragon sculpture that guards a house on Rt. 3A in Duxbury. It was featured on WCVB’s show Chronicle. How did I capture it? A slow-motion video on my phone as we drove by and then grabbed a screenshot when I paused the video. Pretty crafty.

9. Damon’s Point in Marshfield is a great spot to shoot not only a decaying old building that used to reside along railroad tracks that are no longer there but also a nest of bald eagles somewhere along the shore of the North River. There were no eagle sightings but there was a cute dog catching tennis balls in the nearby water. Every time it dove into the water I whipped my head around thinking it might be an eagle diving for fish. No such luck. There were plenty of seagulls since I never see those.

What are you looking at?

10. There are four huge coastal defense/fire watch towers along the Massachusetts South Shore. These are all concrete and look pretty cool. No clue if they are ever open for people to climb but they are all in Marshfield including the village of Brant Rock. Interesting for history lovers.

11. Minot’s Ledge Lighthouse sits 1¼ miles off the coast of Cohasset and Scituate at its closest. However, that is a private community with no access for common folks like us. So our best hope for photos of the lighthouse is Sandy Beach in Cohasset. This is 2¼ miles from the lighthouse. Luckily it stands 89 feet tall so it can be seen like a gray cigar. There is a large rock outcropping that can get you a slightly better photo than standing on the beach. Only now when traversing those rocks do I realize how dangerous it is and really doesn’t make the photo any better. I guess I’m older and wiser, or at least older.

12. Fort Revere in Hull is a haven for visitors but more specifically photographers. I believe that nearly every time I have gone there I see at least one other person with a real DSLR camera. The crumbling fort covered in graffiti makes for some amazing shots.

13. Fort Revere also gives a great vantage point of nearby Boston Light which is the oldest in the country. Surprisingly this was a rare time that a giant cargo freighter wasn’t passing by the lighthouse. It seems to always be the case since it’s a busy shipping lane, but alas not this time.

14. It can be like playing with fire when I go on a long drive as a passenger due to severe motion sickness. However, I must say that the Dramamine made with ginger root did a good job. I was out for roughly 9 hours as a passenger and felt strong when I got back into my own car. Recommended for anyone who suffers like I do.

15. In an interesting bit of psychology we visited Old Scituate Lighthouse. It’s being renovated and is surrounded by scaffolding. Steve mentioned that with the scaffolding the lighthouse somehow looked shorter than usual. Once he said that it looked shorter to me as well. The mind does play tricks on you.

16. I did manage to create a couple of time-lapse photos while at Fort Revere. I reenacted a pair of selfie poses inside one of the creepy corridors. One from 2017 and one from 2010. They came out good and were fun full circle type moments. Plus I’m glad that I didn’t look like I had aged terribly in the new photos compared to the old.

Fort Revere: 2017 on the left, 2024 on the right.

17. Overall it was a fun trip, not quite 200 miles driven. It definitely turned out to be much more than a quick trip to The Gurnet.

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