Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #52: Neck compression, Sunset Skeletons, Coat Rack Excitement, etc.

 

1. I was wandering through Dick’s Sporting Goods this week. I was looking for a nice backpack. While browsing I came upon a rack of compression items. Compression sleeves for arms, calves, knees, etc. It dawned on me that there is no compression garment for those with stiff or sore necks. I thought for a minute and it became obvious why. Any compression sleeve for the neck would simply choke the person unconscious. I mean, you wouldn’t be thinking about your neck pain anymore, so there’s that. I do think the lawsuits would eliminate any profits the product made though.

2. I was taking a random drive to nowhere as I tested out the camera on my new phone. I ended up passing a sign with my name on it. Someone had taken a ‘Slow’ yellow sign and made it up with black tape. Besides my name, the little black figure had a baseball cap and fingers on one hand. I initially drove by but then turned around and went back as I thought this was more than a coincidence. I grabbed a photo and then proceeded to sit and wait as I felt something might happen. No more than 2 minutes later the daughter-in-law of the Lady of the Dunes called me. She asked if I had any photos from my work on my book that I could share with her. They are for other members of the family to see the area where Ruth Marie Terry was found. I am sure she would have called anyway but the timing of it after the sign made the story even better.

It's like I was meant to go that way.

3. A sunset shoot turned extra foolish. I walked toward a small river at the east end of a local beach. It was on this walk that I spotted a skeleton sitting in a beach chair watching the water. Sensing an opportunity for some humor I took a video and a photo with the skeleton announcing our relationship on social media. Sadly I was actually expecting a few people to not pay attention and think I was announcing a real relationship. No, not with the skeleton, but like they wouldn’t take 2 seconds to look at the photo and they’d just send congratulations or something. I was pleasantly surprised that nobody fell for that, at least not so far.

What a beautiful couple.

4. For the last several weeks I’ve had a soreness/tightness in my left hip flexor. I have been doing a lot more stretching to try to loosen it up but it wasn’t really helping. Sadly I came to the realization that the tightness was from sitting too much at work. Something similar happened during the initial months of COVID-19 when I was at home most of the time. The solution is easy. I had to turn my desk into a stand-up desk. The funny thing was how tired my legs were after an hour or so of standing the first day. All I wanted to do was sit but I figure if my hip flexor gets any tighter my leg is going to permanently look like Daniel Larusso at the end of Karate Kid when he’s doing the crane kick.

5. I don’t have a fear of spiders. Sometimes it’s hard for me to relate to those who do. This week one of my favorite clients was in the gym to train. After our first circuit of exercise, she went over to our water fountain to refill her bottle. A small light brown spider apparently crawled across the top of the bottle. I had my back turned but she screamed and launched her water bottle into the air. It hit the floor and water went everywhere. I thought she had accidentally pressed the hot water button on the fountain. When she said it was a spider I had to keep a poker face and not laugh. Once I knew she was ok it ended up being a hilarious scene.

6. I am now ‘I am super excited to get a coat rack’ years old. I needed one. I have been storing coats and long-sleeves and the like on a chair which looks very ‘teenage boy.’ So I got a rack. Well, it’s more of a pole with hooks all over it. I can finally start living like an adult as I get closer to 50. It’s not a wedding announcement to share with my mom but hey it’s the next best thing, right?

So exciting!

7. What is the appropriate time before turning in your vehicle to put your signal on? I often wonder. This week I got to see the two extremes and didn’t like either. I had one person wait basically until they were turning to put a signal on. This is sometimes complete with the driver barely slowing down so that leaves you to have to slam on your brakes to avoid hitting them. I also had someone who put their signal on probably 1,000 feet before their turn. This meant they passed several other roads and driveways with the blinker on. Either of these choices though is better than not using a blinker at all which sadly I see way more often.

8. Many years ago there was a girl I was nuts about. We worked together and we were really close friends. For those who watched The Office, she was Pam Beasley to my Jim Halpert. Honestly, our storyline was very similar. She even had a d-bag boyfriend like Roy. The difference came when she finally broke up with her boyfriend. In The Office, Jim goes for a job interview in New York but ends up turning it down to come back to finally ask Pam out. My story was akin to Jim going to New York and never coming back. We never ended up getting together. It came down to me thinking if I was a rebound relationship it wouldn’t last. It was dumb then and sounds dumb now. I am glad she ended up in a happy marriage with two kids. I often wish I had at least taken my shot though because who knows. This story is front and center in my mind this week because it was her birthday and I still remember and I still wish her a happy birthday. Happy Birthday to my Pam.

9. I have been good in 2025 by not going to any takeout restaurants (so far). However, despite that I have not been immune to eating poorly. One of my weaknesses is chicken wings. This gets elevated when I visit a local grocery store. The reason is because they have these awesome fried wings that remind me of a sub shop I used to visit near my house in the 1990s. They were called Wing Dings. I think a lot of places have them though. Anyway, the problem arises when I go to this grocery store and they have the wings in their deli section marked as ‘buy one get one.’ I mean how can I resist? Well, I know I can but I don’t want to. So yeah, no McDonald’s but buckets of chicken wings. Is that a good trade?

10. There are plenty of times that I feel like I am in my own head way too much. Overthinking. Expecting the worst. Feeling like perfection is the only way to succeed. Sadly, I know this isn’t the healthiest way to be, yet it still occurs pretty often. It is as if my brain has been trained a certain way and rewiring it seems to be a process I can’t finish no matter how much I want to. I had a quarter-life crisis. This is likely part of a mid-life crisis. I’m hoping there’s no old-age crisis but that’s likely death so at least I won’t have to write a blog about it.

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.