Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #123: A Classic Story, Birthdays & Graduations, Meteors, etc.

1. It sometimes shocks me to think that I have been a part of social media for 23 years. My first profile was created for Friendster in 2003. We’re closing in on half of my life chronicled online. This is all on Facebook, as nothing original from Friendster or Myspace exists anymore. I check the memories page on Facebook daily. It creates some fun snapshots of different chapters of my life. One rabbit hole that I fell down this week had to do with the last year of my Nana’s life. There wasn’t much of substance relating to her from 2009. However, a specific memory popped up this week. It involved someone hitting my parked car while I was at my Nana’s house. In short, the guy did a U-turn and rear-ended my Jeep, destroying the rear axle. This guy was a weirdo and wanted desperately to go inside and talk to my 85-year-old Nana. Why? To tell his side of the story? It’s like, dude, you hit my parked car, tell me the story, not my grandmother. Anyway, I went way down the rabbit hole of that accident story and turned it into a great blog (I think). It was the last classic story of my life while my Nana was still alive. You can read the blog here: The Final Classic Story From My Nana's Life



2. I was asked to do an author talk about my latest book for this summer at a local library. It was all set up with the date and time. Then the person who reached out to me about the event said the date they agreed to had already been taken. Funny how they offered it and agreed to it, but then went back on that. Okay fine. So I rescheduled. I filled out paperwork to use their conference room, which I’ve never had to do for any event I’ve ever done. Whatever, it was all set. This week, the same person reached out and said they needed to reschedule yet again. No reason given. So I sent in a pair of dates I could do, making this the third different set of dates for a show at this same library. I am not sure if they are incompetent. Maybe they think they can just jerk me around and I will continue to reschedule my talk, which, remind you, they reached out to me for? While I love to do these speaking events and I will be way more flexible than I probably should be, part of me wants them to not be able to accommodate my new dates so I can just tell them to take a hike. We’ll see what happens.


3. After writing the full treatment for a sitcom I am trying to get picked up, I joined a website where people post their shows in the hopes that television companies and execs will see it and possibly want to create it. I am hopeful but not holding my breath since I know that for every person like me, there are probably hundreds of others, many likely with good ideas as well. I want to make the best impression I can, so I shot a video and shared the full details of the proposed show. Any decent profile needs a photo, so obviously, I wanted to put a good face out there. That’s where the hiccups came. No matter what I did, the site kept saying there were issues with my photo. I tried several photos before finally contacting the website. I explained my issue and then also said I could send the photo to them, asking if they could just put it on my profile. Instead, they recommended changing the size, the DPI, and the file format of the photo. Each time it didn’t work, and I reiterated that it might be easier to just send them my photo. Finally, after three times of being given advice that didn’t work, they asked me to send the photo. Gee, thanks for listening. It only took a week and a handful of messages. I don’t think that I missed any opportunities in the week that my profile was up without a photo, but still, would it have taken more than five seconds to plug my photo in? It probably took 1,000 times more effort to write three emails than it would to click and post. Oh well, it’ll be worth it if the show gets picked up.


4. Despite creeping toward 50, I still enjoy playing basketball every now and then. I don’t play competitively; my body can’t handle that. I go to a nearby recreation area where there is a court that is almost always empty. I went this week to shoot around for a while. It was a perfect afternoon. Well, except for one thing. It’s pollen season. Oh boy, did that come into play. Every time I bounced the ball, a puff of yellow dust came up. I made it 15 minutes before I was getting gassed, but I pressed on. I needed to make it to at least half an hour of good cardio. By the time I hit that mark, I was pretty much choking on the pollen. I must have had a cloud of the stuff all around the court like I was Pigpen in Peanuts. My black shirt and shorts were coated in yellow like powdered sugar on a donut. That being said, it ended up being a good shoot around, and I burned over 300 calories. Not too shabby.

Me playing basketball this week.

5. I highly recommend The Burroughs on Netflix. I had been waiting for it since I saw the first trailer a little over a month ago, and it did not disappoint. Without spoiling anything, it is basically like a perfect mixture of Stranger Things and Cocoon. It centers around a retirement community that is a town in the middle of the desert. It stars several big-time actors like Alfred Molina, Bill Pullman, and Geena Davis. She is excellent, and there is a nod to Thelma & Louise in it. It is eight episodes, so an easy binge. Or you can be like me and savor it and only watch one episode per night. Even then, it only lasted a little over a week. It has been really popular on Netflix since debuting, so my hope is that it gets greenlit for a second season because there is a lot of room for more story. Go and check it out if you can.

6. A nightmare scenario almost came true this week. Since Memorial Day Weekend has passed, the beaches have gotten their porta-potties back. There is a beach I like to spend a few minutes at on my way to work most days. I took a little walk and decided to use the facilities before heading back to my car. A few steps from the porta-potty, I spotted what looked like a septic truck entering the parking lot. I figured whoever was driving saw me. Then I heard the beeping of it backing up. It dawned on me that they were there to empty the porta-potty. For a brief moment, I didn’t know what they were going to do. Bust in through the door? Strap the thing to the truck and take off with it? Even if they didn’t see me, I knew they weren’t just going to knock the porta-potty over to empty it. They’d have to open the door, which was locked. I don’t know why I felt this sense of dread while listening to the truck backing up. I stepped out and gave a wave to the driver, and everything was fine. I hope those guys get paid well. I have seen some of the most disgusting porta-potties, and knowing that people have to clean them is just nasty. So yeah, pay the septic people more, they literally deal with shit for a living.


7. This weekend, I was able to see my nephew Landon graduate from high school. It’s an interesting feeling to watch someone you’ve known since they were born taking that step into whatever the next chapter of their life is. I say this time around is interesting because next week marks 30 years since I graduated high school, so my mind has been back in those bygone days of 1996. At times, I feel like I have one foot back in my youth with the other foot trying to keep me moving forward into the future. There are times when I feel confused. How can the younger generation of family be moving on to the ‘real world’ when I feel like I haven’t firmly established myself? Luckily, I am not the only one. Everywhere I look, I find people my age expressing how they don’t feel like they’ve got being an adult down to a science. I kind of long for the days of having a textbook to follow when going through classes in school. Now all you can do is keep walking the path you’re on and hope that you’re going the right way.




8. Pontificating aside, the graduation was a fun family event. The weather was rainy and windy. It held off when we all arrived, but by the time we walked outside, the wind was kicking up, and the rain had started falling. It’s a shock to the system to be standing outside on the last weekend of May with wind chills around 40. A sunny and warm outdoor graduation would have been better, but I’m just glad I was there at all. I didn’t get to see my nephew Liam’s graduation, and my niece Emma’s graduation was during COVID. I did manage to see it from outside the fence at the high school, but it wasn’t the same. I wish we could have had a family cookout after, like we did for my oldest niece, Kaleigh, but just being with a good chunk of family was a pleasure that I don’t get nearly as often as I wish I did. We got some photos before the rain really kicked up to remember the day.


9. Staring down 50 in 18 months, I think, has made my sentimental side take over a lot in my life. I find that there are a lot of achievements, celebrations, graduations, and such that give me mixed emotions. I am happy to see and be around family, but then I end up feeling a bit empty and bittersweet. It’s not anything they do. It is the sad reality that we don’t all get together like we used to. I miss the giant holidays at my grandparents' houses. I miss big cookouts, family reunions, and hangouts just because. As we all go down the roads of our own lives, sometimes they can take us further from each other, even though we might not physically be too far apart. Jobs take up hours, and schedules don’t match. Other obligations can make it so that only when events like achievements, celebrations, and graduations come around can the family find a way to be together. It’s bittersweet because there are only so many of those types of events. If I could, I would have family get-togethers every week until we got so sick of each other that we had to pause them to recharge. Sadly, that isn’t in the cards for me currently. All I can do is check my calendar to see what the next event is that might result in another big family gathering.


10. There was a high wind warning this weekend. It was on the day of my nephew’s graduation. It really picked up in the afternoon with winds gusting 40-50mph. Despite the terrible weather, I needed to head out to the store plus to get gas. I could feel how bad the wind was while driving. It felt like my car was being pushed side to side at times. At this point, it was only in the mid 40s with wind chills dipping near freezing, at the end of May. I stopped for gas and didn’t pay attention to the wind. When I opened my door, the wind took it. The door ended up smashing into a trash can and sending it toppling over. I picked it back up, but it made the person pumping gas next to me look worried. I don’t know if she thought I was mad about gas prices and just karate kicked the garbage over. I figured I’d leave it a mystery rather than explain to her about the wind. She probably wouldn’t have believed me, or freaked out, scared, and taken off.


11. It’s not every day that a meteor comes flying into the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s even rarer when it happens only an hour from where you live. This weekend, we had a meteor rumored to be about three feet in diameter explode through the sky around Boston. The sonic booms were captured by all sorts of cameras. Apparently, the sound could be heard anywhere from Montreal to Delaware. It happened around 2:30 pm, and I was inside, so I have no clue if we could hear it. Reports said it landed in Cape Cod Bay. Not sure if anyone is going to try to find it or not. Plus, there was a rare Blue Moon that same night. So to recap, on the same day in Massachusetts, there were gale-force winds, snow, a meteor, and a blue moon. I love my home.

Radar picking up the exploding meteor(WWLP)

12. My niece Kaleigh celebrated her 27th birthday this weekend. It’s amazing how fast time can go. I fully remember my sister Kate being pregnant with her and having me drive my beat-up old Ford F-150 down the bumpiest roads we could find to try to induce labor. I have vivid memories of moving all of our stuff into a new house with my stepfather, Serpa, on the day Kaleigh was born. He and I were the last to the hospital to meet Kaleigh. I was 21 and had orange-yellow hair, an eyebrow ring, and a hemp necklace. It was the dawning of the full-on quarter-life crisis. I remember those early months being a travel trio with Kate, Kaleigh, and the numerous people who thought she was my daughter. My sister’s reaction was always priceless. I bring these memories up because, for as much as I am not a fan of getting older myself, I can deal with aches and pains and grays because I know I got to spend so much quality time with my nieces and nephews. The bittersweet feeling I tend to get around their milestones as they grow mainly comes from knowing that with each passing day, our roads grow further apart. I don’t have regrets about not spending enough time with them as kids because I actually did. In a world where I have had way too many regrets to count, the time I spent with my nieces and nephews is not one of them. I tend to get very reflective in moments like these. It was a good week for family and a good week to be reflective.

The Final Classic Story From My Nana's Life

Social media has been a part of my life since 2003, when I created my profile on Friendster. It has been mostly a blessing as it allows me to keep in touch with family and friends while also sharing my work, thoughts, and random moments from life.

In one major way, it has been a blessing because it serves as a makeshift journal chronicling my life. Anything on Friendster has long since been lost. Anything on Myspace, at least from its heyday, has also been lost. The biggest storage container of the memories of my life on social media is Facebook.

Since the spring of 2007, my life and the events of it have been shared on Facebook. Every day I look at the ‘Memories’ page, and it brings me back to different chapters of my life. It’s amazing to think that I started on Facebook at 29, and later this year, I will turn 49. It’s getting very close to half of my life.

A recent post from the memories page is what spurred this article on. When it comes to my grandparents, the three who were alive during my lifetime at least, my final memories of them are different. Not so much the very end. They were all sad, but in a small way, also a relief because they were all old and suffering to a different degree. I am looking at the final full years of their lives.

My Grampa’s final year, May 2018 through May 2019, is burned into my mind. He was trending downward from the effects of dementia. The older memories still remained, but ask him about present-day, and it was a lot of stammering and blank stares.

My last truly wonderful moment with my Grampa was sharing a photo of his childhood home in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, with him in November 2018. From then on out, it was a rapid decline and an end that was sad, but a relief because, as I said, he was suffering.

My Grampa's childhood home in Fitchburg, MA

My Nina’s final year, March 2020 through March 2021, was awful. I am sure most of you see the timeline there and know what was going on. My Nina’s final year was spent in lockdown at the assisted living facility she had been at.

The sad irony was that I had been working at that same place and had access to her every day I worked. I would visit every day, bring the foods she liked, including raising toast and bacon. If anybody questioned it, I said I was family, and I was giving her what she wanted, and basically, they couldn’t stop me.

Mere weeks before the COVID pandemic shut the world down, I left that job. I was looking for part-time so that I could start getting back into personal training. It was a huge mistake. The new job was a terrible step down, with or without the pandemic. Leaving my Nina on her own when I had been there has left me with guilt that I might never live down.

When it comes to my Nana, things are a bit blurry. Her last year was December 2008 through December 2009. With my Nina and Grampa having lived until much more recently, I have found that their lives remain fresh in my mind. Having been nearly 17 years since my Nana died, it can be hard to form a clear picture of her last year.

My last real memory of my Nana in a normal sense was around my birthday in early November 2009. I would always visit her even as I grew older into my 30s. It wasn’t until after she had ended up in an assisted living facility at the end that a few things became clearer.

Her memory was slipping, but at 85, that was to be expected. Physically, she had much more trouble walking. It became more of a shuffle. This actually led to a funny story during those final months.

I was sitting at the dining room table as I had done hundreds of times in my life. I believe that I had my laptop open and I wanted to show her something. Sitting on the floor next to me was Nana’s cat Mittens. She was a black and white striped cat who, by that time, had to have been 15 years old.

Nana came over to look, but in doing so stepped on Mittens’ tail. She screamed out and tried to run away. My Nana, with her legs weak and heavy now, couldn’t lift her foot fast enough. It ended up looking like a cartoon with Mittens jumping into the air with all four feet elevated, but stuck by her tail under Nana’s foot. Eventually, she lifted her foot, and Mittens ran off. Her anger only lasted until Nana opened a fresh can of cat food for her. This video is from October 2009, just over two months before my Nana died.

The social media aspect of this post comes through when I had a memory pop up from May 2009. A story I had totally forgotten about. I will share it, but it also made me want to take a trip back in time and see what other sorts of stories I might have shared during my Nana’s final year.

The final hurrah in terms of classic memories with my Nana actually has little to do with her. She was more of a background player in what turned out to be a typical event in my life.

It all began with a car accident. I was at a pretty rural intersection in Yarmouth. I had never before, or since, had anything remotely odd happen at that meeting of the roads. On this date, August 27, 2008, I stopped, looked both ways, and started through the intersection. Then I saw it.

A car came barreling around a bit of a blind corner. It flew through the intersection. I had a moment to cut my wheel and turn away before the car t-boned me. It hit me on the driver’s side just in front of the tire, spinning me around. My airbag didn’t deploy, which was great. If I hadn’t cut the wheel, who knows what types of injuries I would have had?

My totaled Saturn

I was fine and stepped out of my car only to see the other vehicle slowly, very slowly, driving away. I chased after it, yelling and swearing because this jerk had slammed into me and was trying to sneak away like they were a naughty child. It turned out I wasn’t too far off.

A neighbor ran out and chased the car down while another man came out to check on me. It ended up being the same man who was our school police officer at my high school back in the day. He’s asking me if I’m okay, and I’m getting excited to see him because it has been 20 years.

The man who hit me ended up being 95 years old. Insurance took care of everything, but unfortunately, my Saturn Ion was considered totaled. I ended up having to get a rental car for a few days while beginning the search for a new car. The tie to my Nana was that I was heading to her house after work on that day. So I ended up not making it due to my car being totaled.

This time, instead of choosing a smaller sedan that was good on gas, I went with a Jeep Liberty SUV. 4X4, heated leather seats, moon roof, terrible gas mileage, but whatever. I loved it.

The winter was great. I didn’t have to worry about getting stuck in the snow or sliding on ice with my Jeep. I figured that the accident with my previous vehicle was an anomaly and a story I’d be telling for years. It turned out that there was a sequel on its way.

Flash forward to May 25, 2009, and the reason for this entire post. Thanks for making it this far.

I was at my Nana’s house. It was getting dark, so it must have been closing in on 8pm. I was probably watching a rerun of The Simpsons with my father while Nana was sitting at the dining room table.

From outside, I heard a crash. Thinking there had been a collision, I jumped up from the chair and looked outside. I spotted a sedan to the right side just at the edge of my Nana's yard. Its front end was smoking, but it was still trying to drive off. There was no other vehicle until I realized what had collided with that car: my parked Jeep.

This vehicle had slammed into the rear end of my Jeep while doing a U-turn in the middle of the road. Then they tried to sneak off, much like the old man the previous August. I knew that my rear axle had to be trashed from the collision.

I ran outside yelling at the other car. This scrawny guy steps out. He was probably around my age, then early 30s. I could tell he must have been on something by the way he was speaking in stuttering phrases while being very jittery.

Flashbacks of my Saturn popped into my head, and I started going off on the guy. How could he be so reckless as to slam into my parked car? I wasn’t in the middle of the street. I asked him if he was drunk, and suddenly his demeanor changed.

He started begging me not to call anybody. He begged to be able to go inside and talk to the people in there. So this tweaking weirdo wanted to go inside and talk to my 85-year-old grandmother? No way.

By this point, my Nana had come to the door to see what was up. This bag of bones sees her and starts calling out to her. He’s begging to be allowed to go in and talk to her. Why? Honestly, what did he need to speak to my Nana? To plead his case? You hit my car, pal. Plead your case to me.

I stood between him and the front door, telling him explicitly that there was no way I was letting him near my Nana. I demanded his insurance info. Now my father had come out, and the other guy finally relented. Granted, he was still pleading his case, but what could he say? He hit a parked car like a moron.

I remember being so mad. Part of me was mad that I had stayed a little longer at my Nana’s. The whole situation could have been avoided if I hadn’t been there. That was just misguided anger. It was a random coincidence that nobody could have predicted.

I believe I drove my Jeep home, but then I didn’t dare to drive it. The sketchy other driver continued to bat 1,000 by ducking his insurance company for days. I had to think seriously about going to the police to get this guy to cooperate. I was also shopping around for a good, reliable mechanic to fix the Jeep.

A few days were spent chasing the guy down and getting his insurance company to handle the claim. I did a lot of walking until I got a rental car, which ironically ended up being the same model as a friend at work. That should be where the story ended, but it wasn’t.

A rare photo of that rental car.

You’d think that it would be as easy as bringing the Jeep to the mechanic and getting the rear axle fixed. Nope. Come on, why would it be that easy? From the day that the accident happened to the day that the Jeep was 100% again was two months.

Not only did it need a new rear axle, but a new fuel tank as well. There was also confusion from both insurance companies as to the actual place where my vehicle was. I had to deal with the idiot who hit my car, calling me angrily, asking about where my Jeep was. In reality, the guy was pissed that he had caused way more damage than he thought. It’s like, hey dude, don’t drive like a moron, and things like this won’t happen.

After five weeks of rental cars, walking, and even riding bikes, I got my Jeep back. Almost immediately, my battery died. It was a comedy show, as anytime I wanted to go somewhere, I had to pop the hood and jump my battery. I believe I had borrowed a portable battery charger. This was every single time I needed to start it. So back to the mechanic it went.

As I mentioned, it was two full months before the Jeep was purring like a kitten again. I loved that vehicle, but an issue would rear its ugly head. Gas prices. Shortly after my Nana died in the last week of 2009, I started doing road trips to cope. I took photos and wrote articles about the places I saw. Those articles are actually way, way back in the archives of this blog.

Gas prices were nearly as high as they are in 2026. Each trip I took got further from home and cost more. I knew I had to make a choice. It was either the road trips that were soothing my soul after my Nana’s death, or the Jeep that up to that point had been my favorite vehicle I had.

In the end, I chose the road trips. I sold the Jeep and got a Ford Focus. Great gas mileage, average looking, but it allowed me to keep logging loads of miles. It worked out for the best.

Me parking my new Ford in some odd places.

Only when going through my Facebook archives did I come upon this story of the Jeep accident. It makes me glad that I have shared as much as I have on social media. I have a great memory, but some things slip through the cracks.

Besides that accident and her standing on Mittens’ tail, there aren’t many memories I have from my Nana’s final year. Luckily, in her case, and the case of all of my grandparents, I have more than enough memories to keep them alive inside my mind for as long as I live.

That is a big reason why I choose to share stories like this. Sure, it’s kind of funny, but it’s also a way to keep my Nana’s memory alive. She might have been gone for going on 17 years, but she created a legacy, and I am a part of that. It is partially my duty to her that I keep the legacy going. I take great pride in that duty.

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 246: Arsenio Hall Show, The Monkees 1986 Comeback, Underrated 1980s Moments, Bob Dylan(5-27-2026)

 

The definitive GenX late-night talk show. An unexpected musical comeback. Underrated 1980s moments.

Summer is unofficially here, and Episode 246 of the podcast brings a fresh batch of nostalgia unlikely to spoil in the hot sun.

Cue up the dog pound because we're starting off with a look back at the unique and highly influential Arsenio Hall Show. It broke barriers and broke the rules of late-night talk shows. Arsenio's show felt like something created for the younger generation at the time, and we will get into the details.

Here they come. They could have been a quirky 1960s footnote, but instead, The Monkees made an unlikely and hugely successful comeback twenty years after they debuted. What started as a marathon of their hit TV show on MTV in 1986 soon became a full-fledged return of Monkee-Mania.

The Top 5 is focusing on the lesser remembered and underrated moments from the 1980s. Pop culture, sports, music, and technology are all represented this week.

There is, as always, a brand-new This Week In History and Time Capsule featuring the life and career of music icon Bob Dylan.

To support me and the show, become a member on Patreon. 

Or you can support my work and Buy Me A Coffee!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• Buy My New Book, In Their Footsteps!
• Searching For the Lady of the Dunes True Crime Book
• Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• MSFTS Community
• Kingfisher Hotels Cape Cod
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
• Subscribe on YouTube!
• Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog
• CJSetterlundPhotos on Etsy

Listen to Episode 245 here

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #122: Record Temperatures, Dogs In Golf Carts, Nice Parking, etc.

1. Well, that escalated quickly. We graduated from a typical Cape Cod spring, meaning low 50s with loads of clouds, fog, and drizzle. In a snap, it was record-high temperatures. We hit right around 80 degrees with low humidity and tons of sun. I had a great time going for a morning walk in the perfect weather. I enjoyed it so much that I created a short video of my walking route. Granted, the record highs didn’t last. We dropped to more normal, but still nice, temperatures in the low to mid 60s. It was perfect for mid to late May. Much like the first snow of the season, the first hot day of the season is fun, but as it becomes more common, it gets less appealing. To me, perfect weather is low humidity, partly cloudy, temperatures in the low to mid 70s. If I could bottle that, I would. Now it is the race to see how long it is until I have to put in my air conditioner. Last year, it was early, maybe the third week of June. I am hoping to hold off until after the 4th of July, as I typically do, but I can’t control the weather.


2. The sirens wailed as I walked to my car one morning this week. I was headed to work. I hear sirens almost daily, police and fire. I see the vehicles go by the house every so often. On this day, one fire truck flew by, then another. I had to wait as a third flew by. I wondered where they were headed. It didn’t take long to find out. After not even a minute of driving, I saw the huge plumes of black smoke billowing up from the trees. It wasn’t a forest fire, though. Near the end of the road I live on, I saw the fire trucks congregated. There it was. A shed, a boat that was probably 20-feet long, and a back fence were engulfed in flames. The next-door neighbor was dousing their side of the fence with a hose to try to hold off the fire. Cars slowed but didn’t stop. I wondered all day about the fate of that house. On the way home in the evening, I slowed down by that house. The fence looked like it survived. The shed had a massive hole in its roof. I saw the front half of the boat, but I don’t know if the back end was a loss. Thankfully, the house looked fine, and I can only assume all of the people were okay. Cheers to the Yarmouth Fire Department for getting there so fast and getting the fire out.


3. Aging is a weird thing. It’s like mentally I feel like I am still 18, but that was 30 years ago. Certain songs or foods can immediately bring my mind back to how I felt as a teenager. Even when I look in the mirror, I don’t feel like I have aged badly. Yes, I have more gray than I’d like, but I have a full head of hair. Between 40-53% of men in their 40s are going bald, or are bald. That jumps to 50-85% of men in their 50s. Granted, I could start going bald in 11 years and still be in my 50s, but I have good genes. Physically, though, is where the differences are piling up. It wasn’t when I turned 40 that things started changing. It was actually after turning 42 in 2019. I had a bad hip injury from running, and also battled Covid and lived through it like we all did. Those things all seemed to turn the tide in a way I haven’t been able to come back from. I do well for a few months and lose 10-15 pounds, but then my energy and willpower just get sapped, and I fall off. I think recognizing it is a benefit, though. Every new day, you can try again to get it right. Is that a stricter diet? Lowering my caffeine intake? Reducing my workload so I can go to the gym more? A little of all of them? I have no idea. All I know is that, going back to those good genes, I am likely going to be lucky enough to reach my 90s, as many in my family tree have. That means I have 40-something years left. I can either keep working hard and have more healthy years ahead. Or I can just give up and have decades of a downhill trend. The choice is mine.


4. The heat wave in May in New England broke in spectacular fashion. It was as hot as 88 degrees with a real feel of 101. I decided to make the most of it by going for a walk in the afternoon when I got out of work. I was on the bike trail. It was not as bad in the shade, not very humid. I saw in the sky the thunderclouds billowing above the trees. I knew it wasn’t long until the rains would arrive. I walked 3.5 miles, so it took me an hour. When I parked my car at the bike trail, my car’s thermometer read 84 degrees. When I got back an hour later, it was 74. Dropping 10 degrees in an hour is pretty wild. In fact, the longer I walked, the more I could actually feel the heat breaking. It took a couple of hours, but the heavy rain and a few thunderstorms arrived. It was the ultimate example of ‘if you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait 5 minutes.’ We went from a real feel of 101 one day to low temperatures dropping into the upper 40s the next night. It feels like it might be a wacky, unpredictable summer weather-wise.


5. I don’t know what to say. I guess wild animals trust me. That is my thought process after this week. I was out for a run when I was passing a golf course and noticed a pair of cute little chipmunks running and playing near an open gate. One was lagging behind, and I got the sense that it might end up coming around the corner of the gate when I was walking by. Instinctively, I grabbed my phone in the hopes of getting a photo of one of them. The curious chipmunk not only came out from the fence, but it literally walked right up and sniffed my sneakers. I was able to get a few seconds of video of this tiny chipmunk by my feet before it ran off with its friend. Now, couple this with the foxes last week that seemed all too comfortable with me hanging around. Then go back a couple of years to a little bunny that wandered out from the bushes at a beach and literally climbed on my shoe and tried to eat my laces. I’m not saying I can go sit under a tree, and birds are going to land on my shoulders like pets, but I’ve had more wild animals get close to me recently than I’d expect. Soon, I will have amassed an army of creatures. Too bad it’s all bunnies, chipmunks, and baby foxes.



6. One day each week, I either wait with my youngest niece, Sylvie, for the bus or go with her to get dropped off at school. I look forward to it every time. She is so sweet and kind and always looks to give me something of hers. I have been finding new ways to ‘forget’ and leave them behind. Usually, when she gets dropped off, I get out of the back of the van and move up front, so her mom doesn’t feel like she is a taxi driver. Sylvie has explained to me before how to close the sliding side door properly. You tug the handle once, and it automatically slides closed. As she was getting out, she did that, and I couldn’t stop the door. Only when there were a few inches to go did the door stop. Then it began setting off a beeping to warn you that the door was open. We had to drive to a parking spot so I could get the door closed once the automatic function was turned off. I laughed because I said Sylvie told me how to do it right, but obviously, I am old, and technology will now be my enemy, I guess.


7. My Fitbit has a few times it will buzz to let me know of achievements. They usually have to do with heart rate zones. It also buzzes when I hit 150 exercise minutes per week, or 10,000 steps in a day. Whenever I hit those milestones, it’s a good feeling that I am being active and healthy. The only problem is that Fitbit has a tendency to track steps using arm swinging motions as much as actual foot movement. This came through one day this week when I was sitting at my desk recording my podcast, and my Fitbit started buzzing. I looked and saw I had passed 10,000 steps. But how? I mean, I was pretty close to 10K anyway, so it wasn’t a major glitch like I magically got 10K steps while sitting. No, I think I was gesturing too demonstratively with my hands while recording, and the Fitbit took that as steps. Despite sitting still, I somehow kept adding steps. I guess now I know that if I’m close to 10K but don’t feel like going for a walk, and can just wiggle my arm a whole bunch and get there anyway.


8. I never know what interesting things I am going to see when out for a walk/run. At this point, there really isn’t anything that could shock me. For example, one day this week, I went walking to a little neighborhood located right on Bass River near me. It’s one of those semi-private neighborhoods, not quite gated, with a sign at the entrance with some fancy name to it. This neighborhood is very relaxed; the only vehicles driving through it tend to be those who live there. Those who do live there venture around the roads not in their cars or trucks, but many of them drive golf carts. It is pretty unique. I was walking through the neighborhood and saw a golf cart coming around a corner. It was driven by a girl who couldn’t have been more than eleven. Her passenger was an adorable golden retriever. Just a young girl, her dog, and a golf cart. I just smiled and thought it was par for the course as far as things I see on my walks. Yes, the pun was intended.

Like this, but even cuter

9. Sometimes the stereotype fits. I drove to the Three Sisters Lighthouses in Eastham. There is a small dirt parking lot that can only fit a handful of cars. I pull in. There is a car parked normally, and next to it, some jerk parked diagonally, taking up 2 spaces. When there are dozens of spots, and you park diagonally, you’re a jerk, but it’s not as egregious. When there are like 5 spots, and you do it, you’re an inconsiderate prick. I looked at the New York license plate. My first thought was ‘typical New Yorker.’ I know not all people from New York are pricks, but you do see a lot of them. This jackass wasn’t even at the lighthouses. I am pretty sure he parked there and walked the ¼ mile down to Nauset Light Beach so he wouldn’t have to pay. I got some photos and videos, and when walking back to my car, I saw this idiot and his equally stupid wife getting into the car. A guy had to wait for this moron to back out and leave before he could pull in. Of course, the smug jerk couldn’t even look at any of us watching him leave. It took all of my composure not to just yell at him. The person pulling in asked if I could believe that guy. Needing to vent my anger, I said the guy was a ‘f*cking prick.’ Then I saw his young son getting out of the truck. I quickly apologized for my language, but he was cool. We laughed, and I left. Moral of the story: Whether you’re from New York, Massachusetts, or anywhere, just don’t be a jerk. It’s really not that hard...for most people.


10. For 5 years, I had been running my Facebook business/fan page entirely dedicated to my podcast. I finally realized recently that I was selling myself short. I spend so much time creating that it’s basically a second full-time job. One that I get paid considerably less for currently, but I’m working on that. The fact that I was only promoting my podcast on that page when I also have books, blogs, videos, photos, and film projects, was definitely downplaying all of the hard work I do. This week, I chose to revamp that page from being only about my podcast to everything I do. Fittingly, I renamed it The World of Christopher Setterlund. My plan is to post several times a day there, featuring not only current things I’ve finished, but also shining a light on some of my archived projects. I have a tendency to finish something, share it a few times, and relegate it to a metaphorical box in the back of my closet. I need to promote older stuff much more. The fact that I literally have thousands of pieces of content in various forms that I can pull from means that my back catalog feels totally fresh again. This will be a fun new way to share all of my creative work.

Alternate Life Timelines. #1 - Going Away To College

Getting older means a lot of things. You see and do a lot. You meet people. You lose people. You experience the exciting, the mundane, the exhilarating, and the ordinary. Your body changes. Your mind changes. Where you live? What you do? It’s all a free-flowing sea of days washing over each other.

As I approach 50, I have a unique perspective on my life and life in general. The older you get, the more chances you have had to travel down different paths. These might not be physical paths. You might not even have traveled far from where you grew up. Time does lend itself to creating different chapters of your life.

In some ways, life becomes like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books. The decisions you make have ripple effects throughout your life. If you do this, then that happens. What about the decisions or events that could have happened but didn’t? Those are going to be the purpose of this series of articles.

I will be looking back at the nearly 50 years of my life and finding the seminal moments that either did, or could have, changed the course of my existence. I will expand on them using my best intuition as to what the probable outcome would have been.

You can easily do this as well and likely already do. Everyone thinks back to moments that could have changed their lives. If you didn’t meet someone. If that car in the other lane hadn’t swerved in time. If you had chosen to take that job. These articles won’t be so much about rehashing regrets. They are more of an interesting look at how many times in life you are faced with the potential of a big change. What do you do when the opportunity arises?



In order for something to have the greatest ripple effect through your life you need to choose moments from long in the past. The first one that pops into my mind is my choice to not go away to college. This has had an enormous amount of impact on my life.

It was 1996. I was a senior in high school and was, in all honesty, getting burned out on school. I had been an honors, sometimes high honors, student. I had taken my SATs when I was thirteen. I had been invited to genius camp by the prestigious Johns Hopkins University. I worked hard on my education throughout my formative years.

I still had time for friends, but I was also driven to be successful in school. This was likely tied to my own self-worth due to not getting much emotional support in my home life aside from my mother, who was doing the best she could to be both parents. Good grades proved I had value.

When senior year came, most of my friends were looking toward the future, specifically college. I had my eyes on some places. They were lofty expectations, like the University of North Carolina or the University of Nevada – Las Vegas. These were tied to athletics, something that I was not excelling in, and therefore my odds of going to schools like those were slim to none.

Closer schools, like the University of Massachusetts, should have been on my radar since I had family who had gone there. You cannot predict the future, and an event happened during the final few months of high school that threw a wrench into my plans; I got a girlfriend.

This changed my outlook. I hadn’t had a real, serious girlfriend before. My judgment became clouded. She was still going to be in high school after I graduated. I couldn’t leave her, right? I enjoyed the feeling of being in a relationship. Having someone who was so deeply into me was intoxicating. So intoxicating that I couldn’t see, or didn’t want to see, the obvious issue. There was a very, very small chance that we would be the high school sweethearts that lasted into old age. The reality was we weren’t going to make it.

When you’re a teenager, dealing with your first real relationship, you don’t have any experience by which to judge your choices. I chose to back off on my application to colleges. In fact, I decided to not apply at all. I chose to take a semester off from school after graduation.

My mother was supportive, but I am sure she could sense that I was starting to drift in a different direction. My life was no longer going to be filled with education. It was about my relationship. I did end up going to college after taking a semester off, and that plan still happened. However, I didn’t go out of state. I barely traveled from my home. I signed up for classes at Cape Cod Community College for the spring semester in 1997.

It is a great school and a boon to the Cape, but compared to how my future had looked a year earlier, it had to be seen as a step down. I took classes in graphic design, journalism, and creative writing, among others. These were all things I wanted to become good at for a creative career. Looking back, though, I was all over the map. I had no definitive path for my education. This is why my major was communications.

To no one’s surprise, my relationship did not last. After 2 ½ years, we broke up. I was devastated, even though I had brought the breakup on myself. That left me heartbroken and wandering through college with no real drive. Not to mention that I had been taking fewer classes per semester than was necessary.

I did that to have time to work and also spend time with my girlfriend. What it meant was that when my two years at community college were finished, I did not have enough credits to get a 2-year degree. I was deflated. It took all of my willpower just to keep going in college to get to that magical two-year mark. After that, I could take a breath and see where I wanted to go. Maybe it wasn’t too late to go to UMass or somewhere else.

None of that happened. I sank into a deep depression and gave up on college temporarily. To escape my sadness and overall frustration at where my life was, I ended up moving to Las Vegas in 2000.

We look at the chain of events from my choice to not go away to college. I lost my drive for education. I settled for a low-risk, low-reward cooking job to pay the bills. I lost a lot of friends because they went away to college. I became resentful of my girlfriend and blamed her for my poor choices in life. Eventually, this led to a breakup, bouts of depression, and ultimately moving across the country to try to find myself before it was too late.

It doesn’t stop with a move to Las Vegas. You can keep the timeline moving forward to anything in the last 25 years that didn’t work out the way I wanted. It truly is the first major regret, major mistake, I made in my adult life.



Now let’s go back. It’s 1996. I am a senior in high school. How would things have changed?

I was already on the fence about going off to college before I met my girlfriend, so we’d have to go back to the beginning of senior year. I have made up my mind that I am going to go to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. It is close enough that I could visit Cape Cod any chance I could get. It was also far enough away that I’d feel like I was on my own.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t have dated the same girl. I believe that if my plans were in motion to go off to college, I would be less apt to break them and stay. In reality, I didn’t have to cancel anything; I just had to not fill out the applications.

Maybe I date my girlfriend. Maybe I don’t. When August 1996 came though, I’d be packing up and getting ready to head off to college. I likely would have found a dorm roommate from high school classmates who were also going to UMass Dartmouth. I know a few who did.

I would have experienced everything that college life had to offer. Living away from home. Parties. New people. It would have taken a bit of adjusting, but being placed in a large, unfamiliar situation would have done wonders for my confidence.

As far as a major went, I’d be looking for a creative field like I did at Cape Cod Community College. Probably not communications, likely something along the lines of creative writing. I wrote for the college newspaper in reality, so I’d probably do it at UMass as well.

The college experience would have better prepared me for social situations in general as I got later into my 20s and 30s. The older I get, the more difficult it becomes to step out of my comfort zone. Succeeding or failing at doing things while in college would have shown me that I would be all right in an unfamiliar environment. Going away to college would have forced me out of my normal routine. The longer I stayed on Cape Cod, the more ingrained the routine became. It’s like stepping into wet cement. You can get out of it, but you have to do so quickly, otherwise you are stuck once it dries.

After four years of college, the sky would have been the limit. I would have graduated in 2000. In reality, by the summer of 2000, I had gone through that terrible breakup, dealt with severe depression, given up on college (temporarily), and decided to move to Las Vegas. In the alternate timeline, none of that would happen.

I might have had breakups and dealt with depression, but I would have been able to look at what I was doing in college and hope that any suffering would pay off. I do believe I would have pulled through any adversity. In the alternate timeline, I might have been getting burned out on school, but I never took my foot off the gas. That is the biggest regret.

When you have momentum in anything, it’s easier to just keep going than it is to stop and try to start again later. In this timeline, I keep going. Even if I don’t become the absolute best I could be, I would not have the doubts and self-loathing that grew inside of me in my early 20s. It’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re a failure.



The view from 20,000 feet shows a massive change in my life and my identity as a person. No high school girlfriend means no messy breakup, which means I don’t feel a desperate need to find love anywhere. This had serious effects on my confidence. Going away to college means I don’t settle for the low-risk job that I ended up spending way too many years at. Comfort does not always equal happiness.

Graduating from college with whatever degree means I have a wide open playing field in which to ply my trade. Maybe I do end up in Las Vegas, but with a college degree. This would mean not grabbing the first low-paying job I could find just so I wouldn’t be broke while I went to college out there. Or maybe I end up somewhere totally different, with totally new people and experiences that take me further and further from Cape Cod.

Maybe I make connections elsewhere. Maybe I meet my soulmate in a town I don’t even know exists. Maybe I get married, have kids, own a house, all things I do not have in my reality. I am sure I would find time to visit home, but it would not be nearly the same as reality.

This brings me to the things I would have missed out on if my life had gone down this other path. First and foremost, I would have drifted away from my family. Not out of spite, but due to time, distance, and my own schedule. I would not have been there for the births of my two older nieces. I would not have had the close bond with them when they were growing up. That right there eliminates most of the regret I feel about not going off to college.

I would not have seen my Grampa as the role model and hero that he became. I grew to appreciate him more as I got into my later 20s and 30s. If I am not close by, I probably find my role models in celebrities or strangers. Who knows what that means for me as a person?

Then other things may or may not have still happened. Do I get a book published, or as it stands now, ten? Do I get deep into fitness and get into the best shape of my life in my mid 30s? Or do I end up overweight with various health issues that I don’t have to worry about in reality? It’s things like that which you take for granted.



So, to sum up this first alternate timeline, where do I think I’d be at this stage of my life if I had chosen to go away to college right after high school? Obviously, there’s a difference between what I’d want for a life and what I truly believe. For me, I think what I’d want and believe wouldn’t be that far apart.

At Age 48 in this alternate timeline, I could see myself living somewhere like Southern California. Not Los Angeles or San Diego, I don’t like cities. It would be a mid-sized town, probably slightly inland and somewhere halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

I don’t think I’d be an author, but I’d be working in some creative field. Despite being a writer, podcaster, etc. I have learned many ancillary skills like editing, research, and story development. I could see myself finding steady, good-paying work, maybe not in my dream job, but a suburb of my dream job.

I believe that I have good genes. I would still likely be in halfway decent shape physically and probably better shape emotionally. The experiences, both good and bad, of college would have better prepared me for being an adult.

I would be married. Is it my first? Who knows. I know not all marriages make it. I also would know if I found love once I could find it again, so I wouldn’t close myself off like I tend to do in reality. Kids? I believe I’d have two. I’d hope for a boy and a girl, Michael and Jocelyn, but two of the same would be just as good.

In reality, I have been chasing my dreams as an author and creator for so long. The idea of letting them go to pursue a ‘normal’ life hasn’t sounded appealing. Having gone to college for a specific major would give me the purpose I have been chasing. I’d find a job and meet new people. Maybe I meet ‘the one,’ and we get married and have kids.

Or maybe I hit a bump in life that throws me off course, and I end up living in a shack in the woods with a beard I have to stuff into my pants, so I don’t trip over it. This is all a guessing game.

In the end, it is a fun and somewhat enlightening exercise to look at where I think I would be in life if I had gone away to college in 1996. What I always come back to is that there has to be a reason why I am where I am and who I am at this point in my life. I might briefly wonder what might have been, but I can’t live there.

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.” – Kurt Cobain


See you in the next alternate timeline.