Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #80: Dream-Life Hangover, Phantom Oil Change, Supermarket Happiness, etc.

1. Anytime I get a taste of my dream job as a content creator, or filmmaker, or author, it’s a good thing. This past weekend, getting to see my old classmate’s one-man show inspired me. Speaking to him after I made sure to tell him that I use him as an inspiration for continuing my journey. It leaves me motivated to work on whatever my next project is. However, as soon as I walk into my day job after experiencing that motivation, I feel empty. I feel like I have failed. When I have my ‘days off’ to work on my other passions, I think, ‘this is the time I’ll get that big break.’ When it doesn’t happen and I have to go back to my typical work day, I feel like someone let the air out of my balloon. It’s almost like a dream-life hangover. Maybe one day it won’t be a dream anymore.

From after the show.

2. Several years ago, I bought software to convert VHS tapes to digital. I have more than 65 hours of old tapes I recorded during high school, and I am trying to get them all digitized before the VHS tapes eventually break. I have Elgato Video Capture. It has always worked fine. I hadn’t used it in a year or so when I plugged the cables in. For some reason, the software wasn’t on my laptop anymore. No worries, I downloaded the necessary software and drivers to do the job. Or so I thought. It turned out there were certain functions I needed to turn off on my laptop to get the software to work. However, once those were turned off, my laptop said it was dangerous and I needed to turn those functions back on. It was like an ice cream headache. In the end, I needed to delete the drivers for Elgato. Easier said than done. I spent a few hours researching just how in the hell to get them off my laptop. I was reading that if all else failed, I’d need to contact Elgato and get a new CD-ROM of the software. Not bad right? Well unfortunately, my laptop doesn’t have a CD drive, so yay. It was like a comedy skit where I just wanted to vacuum my car, but somehow managed to set it on fire instead.

3. Okay, I have reached the ‘I’m ready for fall’ portion of the summer. When it’s nearly 100 degrees and humid, that’s enough for me. Several years ago, when I was young(er) and crazy, I looked forward to running in all sorts of bad weather. Too hot? Let’s go. Too cold? I have layers. Hurricane or Tropical Storm? Sunglasses block the blowing sand. Blizzard? I can hide in a house under construction. That last one is 100% real. Anyway, this week’s heat and humidity took me out of my desire to do any run or walk. I chose to hide inside in the air conditioning. Hey, at least I am doing some sort of work, like this blog entry. Wake me when Labor Day is here. Sorry, not sorry.

4. There is an age-old line about New England that goes something like this: If you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes. That is how it went this week. I just mentioned it being close to 100 degrees early in the week. Only a few days later, we had rain with highs in the mid-60s. Honestly, if I had to choose between the two, I’m taking the rainy 65-degree day over the sunny, humid 97-degree day. I will say that my idea of perfect weather is partly cloudy, low humidity, and temperatures in the low 70s, but that’s just me.

The weather is always changing in New England.

5. After 2 months and 4 pretty bad injuries, I was finally able to start going back to the gym. I managed to injure my lower back twice, sprain my ankle, and nearly break both hands. The only thing I was able to really do over the past 2 months was go for walks and eat my feelings of being depressed. My first workout was good but man, did I feel my regression. I was so tired and sore almost immediately. Now my joke is how long is it going to be before I injure something else? I’ll take sore muscles. That’s way better than some sort of foolish calamity that leaves me unable to work out for another 2 months.

6. I am now at the age where waking up at 8am is considered sleeping too late. If you had told me 10 years ago that I’d be used to waking up by 7am on most days, including days off, I’d have said something must have gone wrong. I’m not going to start setting an alarm on days off, though. Years ago, the idea of waking up at 5am to hit the gym before work was a definite no-go. Now I am starting to think that within a few years I’ll be naturally getting up at that time. I still won’t want to go to the gym, though, I’ll just surf the net before sunrise.

7. My car is up over 150K miles, so keeping up on the basic maintenance is very important. My goal is for it to get to at least 250K. This week, it was time for an oil change. I usually go to Jiffy Lube since it’s quick and convenient. I mean, they do try to upsell you on a lot of stuff, but that’s kind of par for the course. This time was interesting. Everything seemed to be going well until one of the crew told me they couldn’t get my oil filter off. They said they tried a few ways, but it was rounded and nothing could get it off. What? Is that a thing? They told me I’d need to go to the dealership and they could change it. The irony is that the last few times I’ve gotten my oil changed, it’s been at the same Jiffy Lube. Getting the oil filter off has never been a problem. So what changed this time? I have no idea, but they ended up changing the oil and doing a few other things and not charging me. That was nice. Unfortunately, this means I have to do another trip for routine maintenance, and a dealership at that. You can smell the attempted upselling from a mile away.

8. I don’t know why, but one of my favorite things is shopping in supermarkets that I don’t typically go to. I mean locations that are out of my normal routine. It’s like I go to a Shaw’s or Stop & Shop, and all of them are varying shades of the same color. Still, somehow it’s new and exciting. It’s even more so when I go on road trips. You get me off of Cape Cod and have me stop at a Big Y, Hannaford, Publix, Giant Food, Aldi, or Wegmans? Oh man, it’s like I’ve won the lottery. I have gone to those places on vacations and maybe (definitely) have kept plastic bags with the logos. I even have an insulated Big Y bag that I bought. It is currently holding extra copies of my books.

9. After having a shaved head for about 14 years, it is still weird to me that I have a full head of hair. In fact, my hair is currently probably as long as it’s been, maybe ever. I can spike it up pretty high when it’s wet. The funniest thing is that if it’s not spiked perfectly, I get the hair at the front of my head, right where my hairline and forehead meet, falling forward. It literally looks like I have bangs like my sisters did in high school. I do plan on getting it trimmed down at my next haircut though. Not because of the bangs but the hair will tickle my forehead, which makes me think I have a bug on me, especially at night. Oh well, I know loads of guys around my age that would kill for the ‘problem’ of having too much hair so I should be grateful.

10. We’re now about 3 weeks out from my vacation, and I’ve got to tell you I’m not feeling any sort of road trip. I haven’t booked any hotels yet, and I’m kind of glad. I am looking forward to the time off, but I can’t tell if I am burned out or not. I work full-time and then work almost full-time on my content, such as this blog. It can feel like I am on a treadmill with working. Maybe as I get closer to the actual vacation, I will get excited and make plans to go, at least do one overnight stay, but who knows? Originally, I had plans for three overnights up in Maine and New Hampshire but honestly, as we get closer to the dates, just the thought of driving over four hours has made me lose interest. It is definitely a fake problem to have. Oh no, I have a paid vacation but don’t know what I want to do with the time. I don’t expect any tears shed for my predicament.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #66: Dream Chasing, Found Money, Lost Nerve, etc.

1. There are loads of famous quotes about chasing your dreams. The gist of them all is to keep pursuing them if you truly want them. My dream has been the same, to become successful in a field using creativity rather than simple manual labor. It has evolved over time. Writing, content creation, and photography are all a part of my dream. Now it has evolved into acting, whether on camera or voice acting. To do it though, you need to audition or at least apply for potential roles. Maybe you get the part, maybe you don’t, but you definitely won’t if you don’t apply. It’s better to apply, get a part, and have to figure out how to make it fit into your schedule, rather than worry about how it will fit into your schedule and not even bothering to try.

2. It is mating season for animals. Knowing this made a lot of things from the past weekend make sense. On a run I came across 3 turkeys standing in the road. The male had his tail feathers spread wide while a pair of females gawked at him. The funniest one though was running past an osprey nest on a pole. I found it odd that 1 osprey was seated in the nest and another flew down and literally landed standing on the other’s back. I thought it was weird until someone at work mentioned it being mating season. Suddenly, that awkward landing by the osprey made sense. They just needed some romantic music.

3. The older I get, the more I find myself living by the credo ‘say yes to whatever and figure it out later.’ Meaning if an opportunity you want comes along you accept it and figure out how to do it, or fit it into your life later. Being that I am trying to get some more acting gigs I have recently put that credo into action. I auditioned for a role in a movie set to film beginning at the end of May. If I get it I might need to put in for serious time off from work on relatively short notice. However, you never know what opportunity might be the one that changes your life. It’s a risk that needs to be taken sometimes. We’ll see what the results are.

4. Creating an audition tape is a unique experience. For the film I mentioned above I had to give some basic info about myself and also answer questions specific to the role I am trying out for. I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the recording went. Granted, I was able to edit out some long pauses and looking at the questions on my phone but that’s beside the point. Recording tons of videos and podcasts along with doing lots of speaking events, has made public speaking, or at least describing myself to strangers, much easier. I’m not saying that it means I nailed the audition and should get a call back soon. I’m just saying that I’m a way better public speaker than the shy, nervous, introvert I was growing up could ever have imagined.

5. I was at the grocery store one night this week. It was a standard trip until I got the self-checkout. It was then that I realized I’d left my wallet in the car. Part of me wished that I had actually loaded my debit card into my Apple Wallet after months of deliberating. Sadly I had to alert an employee. I had to let them know I was running to my car to get my wallet and that I wasn’t just ditching a full bag of groceries like some loser. After I paid and was leaving I thanked the employee for understanding. Their reaction was one that felt like they wanted to laugh but didn’t want to get in trouble. I still haven’t set up my Apple Wallet by the way.

6. In more money fun I mentioned a while back that I paid off a credit card I had maxed out years ago. I got it when I was desperate for extra money and it has an extraordinary interest rate. I wanted to keep the account open as it’s supposedly better for your credit score. However after getting slapped with a $99 annual fee I decided enough was enough. I have no intention of ever using the card again so I reached out to cancel the account permanently. I’m all for keeping my credit score up but I’m not willing to just throw money at this company like an idiot. I did that for years just paying the card off.

7. Located within sight of the parking lot at Chatham’s Lighthouse Beach is a rustic shack that you’d think has been there forever. The Occupy Chatham shack is 1/3 mile hike across the sand. It’s only been there since 2015. It’s a fun photo op, especially when the weather is good. I went this week with my buddy Steve and even though it was cloudy there were still great photos to be had. One photo op I passed on though was the litany of dead eiders on the way out. We counted 3 of the black and white ducks dead on the walk. I’m sure if we’d have kept walking we’d have found more but that was enough sadness for a quick trip.

8. From the ‘Almost Disaster’ files: I switched car insurance a few months ago. I ended up saving about $400 a year on the new policy. Afterward, I had gotten several letters from the former insurance company. I piled them and some other junk mail on a shelf. The time came when I needed to get rid of all of that junk. I started tearing up all of the letters. The ones from my old insurance company were all about life insurance, or so I thought. So I’m ripping these all to shreds but the final one I had a little trouble tearing. Luckily I pulled the contents out to see what it was and to my surprise there was a reimbursement check. It wasn’t a ton, like $50, but still I almost ripped up free money.

9. I typically don’t have any trouble sleeping. However every so often, maybe once every other month, I have a night where I wake up and am instantly wide awake. This happened this week and it was even less fun because I had an early wake up for a photo trip I was going on. The irony was that my mind was wide awake as I started seeing the potential photos I could take the next morning. It took a good hour but finally I did fall back to sleep.

10. Speaking of that photo trip. I joined my buddy Steve as he went to begin opening up his family’s cottage on the Gurnet which is a private seaside peninsula that is in the towns of Duxbury and Plymouth in Massachusetts. I love going there because there is a historic lighthouse that I can get up close photos of. On this trip there was a man and a woman doing some sort of cleaning inside the lighthouse. The front door was open and everything. I hung around a bit trying to be out of the way but polite. My thought was if I was there long enough and was friendly, they might ask me if I wanted to check out the interior of the lighthouse. Sadly this didn’t happen, but the photos were still great.

11. A favorite part of these Gurnet trips is stopping at Gunther Tooties for a tasty bagel and flavored cream cheese. There are six locations in the southeastern part of Massachusetts. I lean toward the sweet flavors like cinnamon, French toast, and honey cream cheese. They do, however, have more savory offerings. If you enjoy bagels and cream cheese, definitely check them out.

12. From the ‘Of Course’ files. Steve and I went on a quest to get out to this recreation area in a village named Humarock. It’s a part of Scituate. Anyway, there is a cool tower out there that I believe is one of the observation towers built during World War II. It seemed like everything was good to go as we followed the GPS out to the recreation area. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. Yes, there was a recreation area. The problem was that it was on Air Force property and gated. No chance of sneaking in for a few photos of the tower unless I wanted to be immediately cuffed and hauled away.

13. We headed out to get some photos of the newly renovated Scituate Lighthouse. Many years ago I had walked to the end of the nearby breakwater, scaled a tower, and taken a great panoramic photo of the lighthouse and coastline. My mind was set on doing that again. We walked all the way out and I got to the tower. About halfway up the ladder, I froze. Suddenly, the tower felt like it was 100 feet tall. The howling wind didn’t help my confidence. I climbed down and then felt ashamed so I started climbing again. A second time I got halfway up and froze. I don’t know if my brain sensed trouble could be ahead if I kept climbing but this time I climbed back down and gave up. Better to get a photo safely from the ground than get blown off the top of the tower. 

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.