Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #136: Expensive Soup, Goodbye Dolly, Finally Caught, etc.

1. I have heard of things being marked down in a store, but this one takes the cake. While in a supermarket, I was looking for soup to have with dinner. Of course there are loads of ‘New Low Price’ stickers everywhere. They don’t mention that first they had to jack the costs up a ton, so the low prices are still probably above where they should be. Anyway, I noticed one particular markdown that caught my eye. It was a Campbell’s soup, now marked at $3.99. The old price? $21.99. For soup? Unless it’s made with fresh lobster mixed with real gold, I couldn’t imagine any soup being that expensive. Honestly, I think it was a mistake, but still I had to grab a photo of it so nobody would think I was telling tall tales. You know, like seeing a three-foot garter snake but telling everyone it was a fifteen-foot boa constrictor? Not that I’ve ever told anyone that.

That's some markdown

2. Sometimes workouts wipe you out, and you know it immediately. Sometimes they are sneaky and leave you a puddle after you’re done. This week I had a shorter day at work. Since there literally is a gym attached to the office where I train people, I figured why not just use that instead of driving somewhere else. When I exercise at my work gym, it typically ends up being option overload. I have unobstructed access to almost anything I could want for training. This time it was lots of kettlebells, BOSU, cable machine, and such. I worked every major muscle and even threw in some HIIT cardio while I was at it. Good job for thirty minutes. I got done and had barely broken a sweat, so I figured I hadn’t gone as hard as I did. The joke was on me; before I had even gotten into my car, my body felt like it was turning to dust. All I wanted to do was go home and collapse in a heap on the floor, but I had to stop at the store. If I could have lain on the floor and slept, I would have. The best workouts are when you feel you didn’t do enough but in reality did more than enough. I’m sure some of you are saying the best workouts are none at all. That is a perfectly fine choice as well.


3. One of the banes of my existence during the warmer months is woodpeckers. I am kidding; it’s not that bad, but they do become annoying. Obviously, if you just look at their name, you know this bird loves to peck at wood. Every year they return and choose the areas on the other side of my walls to hammer away at. What do you do to stop them? I’ll bang on the other side of the wall to scare them off, but what if they don’t get scared? I was hitting the wall, and the dang woodpecker just kept going. There was only so hard I was going to pound on the wall. I could just imagine me putting a hole in the wall trying to scare a bird. I mean, how do you explain that to someone? If you say you were trying to scare away woodpeckers, they might just call the nuthouse to come and get you. You’d almost be better off saying it was roid rage or something like that. In the end, the woodpecker got tired of annoying me, I guess, and went away. The only thing worse than a woodpecker attacking the walls is when they do the same thing to the gutters. Then it goes from a dull thud to a jackhammer that never ceases to give me a mini heart attack when it happens.

It was one of these that was the culprit.

4. Live your life in a way that, when you pass, hundreds of millions of people feel like they have lost a loved one. That is the sentiment I get when looking around social media after the death of music icon and humanitarian icon Dolly Parton at the age of 80 this week. She is someone whose music touched generations, but whose contributions to society in general touched so many more. She made life better for countless people whom she never met. I have been reading dozens of stories from celebrities and ordinary people about their interactions and connections to Dolly. I am preparing a blog post to go more in depth, but I will quickly summarize mine. When dealing with a crisis of confidence or uncertainty about where I am going in my life, I look for inspiration and direction. I tend to look toward not just people who have been successful, but people who have been successful and, on top of that, a good person. Numerous Dolly Parton quotes have made the rounds in my life during the last several years. The biggest one in particular is her quote: “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” I felt that, as I have always felt like there was something beyond just a (no pun intended) 9-to-5 job. I have been trying to create my own path for years, and that quote reassures me each time I read it. I think there are very few people who were as universally loved and admired as Dolly Parton. Her death, even though she was 80, has stunned the world. But I circle back to the top. I feel like I am part of the largest group of mourners ever. Hundreds of millions of us feel like we lost someone special even though the vast majority of us never met her or even saw her in real life. There will never be another like Dolly Parton. Rest in peace to the Queen of Country. We will always love you.



5. I want to piggyback on that last entry. There are many celebrities, in particular musicians, who have inspired me with their work. Sadly, when you’re working on creating your own path, you sometimes forget to give thanks to those who inspire you to carry on. Such as it was with Dolly Parton. It was like after hearing of her death, I remembered all of the times that I read quotes of hers that seemed to bring clarity to my mind. I should have put it out in the universe, even if it was a social media post that she’d never see. Yes, celebrities don’t need the validation; after all, they have already made it. However, I would know that they lent a hand in my journey even if they never did. This is going to be a kind of catch-all, thank-you purge while it is fresh in my mind, as I don’t want to have a posthumous thank you as I just did for Dolly Parton. Whether working on a creative project or simply looking for answers in a sometimes overwhelming life, these are the artists whose music I have leaned on the most in those times. Thank you so much to: Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks, Norah Jones, Dave Grohl, Elton John, Phil Collins, Thom Yorke, Glen Phillips, Bono, Michael Stipe, Sade, and probably more, but those are the people whose words and music have spoken to me above all others. There are certainly more who have since passed on, but I wanted to thank these people while I still have the chance.


6. My life at times feels like two totally different films smashed together. No matter if they make sense, they are jammed into one hybrid. I feel like I am, on one hand, a health-conscious, wise, confident, and driven person. Then on the other hand, I am a self-loathing, terrified person bound to bits of self-destructive behavior. One day this week, it crystallized in a series of events that saw me ping-pong back and forth from fitness to fatness. I began at my day job as a personal trainer. As the day drew to a close, I was hungry and decided that going for a run was not going to happen. I wanted to eat, preferably something bad. That came in the form of a large pepperoni pizza. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it tasted great, but it left me feeling angry, knowing the amount of exercise I’d have to do to burn off what I’d just eaten. A few hours later, I was doing some writing work and felt the urge to go for a walk. So after eating a large pizza I proceeded to go and walk nearly 5 ½ miles on a perfect summer afternoon. I burned over 700 calories. Finally, the day swung totally in the opposite direction again. I got hungry after the walk and couldn’t decide what to have for dinner. My mind was set on cereal. So I went and got a box of cereal to have for dinner. Not a bowl, the whole box. It is wild when I write it down to think about how I swung in such opposing ways in the same day. I was a personal trainer and went for a long walk, burning lots of calories. Yet on the same day I ate a large pizza and a box of cereal. So yes, my life feels like it can be a pair of diametrically opposed films that are crashing into each other. It’s sort of like when you mix two perfect colors of Play-Doh, and it makes some weird color. The weirdest thing is that I kind of enjoy almost having the best of both worlds. I do heavy bouts of exercise when I want to and don’t deprive myself of the foods I like, even if they are way less than healthy.


7. The latest episode of being the fun uncle. I went to my mom’s to visit, and my 7-year-old niece Sylvie was there. We had fun with stuffed animals playing around. Sylvie had this spray-on, leave-in conditioner, and she started spraying the animals and combing their fur. Naturally, she wanted to style my hair by spraying the conditioner in it. The only issue is that I have less than an inch of hair on my head. I don’t need much conditioner. She also grabbed a pen and said she might be able to color in my gray hairs, but that didn’t work. To say I ended up with a lot of that conditioner in my hair would be a huge understatement. I’d say conservatively Sylvie sprayed the bottle 20 times on my head. It was plastered down with it. I left it in the whole time she was there, but once she had gone home, I went straight to the bathroom to try to wash it out. Despite soaking my head with water, I could still feel it hanging on. I guess that makes it a good conditioner. It took a full, hot shower to finally remove all of the conditioner. I did make the mistake of telling Sylvie that in the winter I will have a lot more hair. That means the odds of a follow-up featuring the conditioner are likely, but with even more to slick my hair down.

This is the stuff she used, I'm impressed I found it.

8. I know we were all kids once. I know most of us did dangerous and reckless things when we were kids. I’m assuming that those who are Gen-X like have way more stories and battle scars than a lot of the younger people do. I preface this next story by saying all of this so that I can then say that kids have to be smarter. I was leaving the supermarket one evening this week. I took a back road behind the plaza and through a neighborhood because in the summer it’s way easier than trying to navigate Route 28 (our busiest street on Cape Cod). On this occasion, I was going slow to a stop sign and preparing to turn right down another road. I would say 99 out of 100 times when I hit that intersection, there is nobody anywhere. No cars, no people, just a wide open road. However, I also never assume, so I stopped and waited a moment. Good thing I did. Without warning, and from an area completely shielded by bushes, a kid on a motorized scooter came flying around the corner. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t look, just flies right in front of my car. I had no idea that he was there until he flew in front of my car. It was a total blind spot. I am so grateful that I was taking my time because if I had started driving a second or two earlier, I could have hit that kid. I can only assume he goes down that route and never sees a car. I also remember, as a teenager, you feel you’re invincible until something comes along to slap you in the face. I shouted a few words at his stunned face and then went on my way. I am glad I didn’t end up being his wake-up call to be more careful, or something worse.


9. This week I finished the series Glitch on Netflix. It was another in my run of sci-fi, supernatural, suspenseful shows. Yes, I guess I have a type. The series is from Australia and has 18 episodes, which are divided into 3 seasons. The gist of it is a group of people returns from the dead, literally crawling out of their graves. The show is then trying to figure out why they came back looking normal and healthy, and also the ramifications of their return. I won’t spoil anything but will say it actually has a happy ending despite it being totally different than what I expected. One thing totally unrelated to the plot of the show has to do with the recent trend on streaming platforms of original shows having incredibly small numbers of episodes counting as a ‘season.’ 6 episodes is a season? Even 8-10 is weak. I guess growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, when TV shows had 20 or so episodes in a season, I have been spoiled. Attention spans and commitment levels are a lot shorter in the 2020s. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t matter much when you’re binging a show that has already run its course, but I have a few shows that are still currently going, and having to wait a year or more for another handful of episodes is pretty lame. I’ll still do it, but yes, I will complain about it along the way.

10. Well, it only took 9 months, but Netflix finally realized I was getting all of their shows ad-free when my subscription was the low tier with ads. I had wondered if they would ever catch on. I mean, I certainly wasn’t going to write to a multi-billion dollar corporation and tell them I was getting a higher tier than what I was paying for. In December, when I got Netflix back, I noticed after a few days I hadn’t seen one ad during my time on the platform. Weeks turned to months, and I almost started taking it for granted, expecting that they might have forgotten about me. This week I was watching something when all of a sudden an ad popped up. Then, maybe ten minutes into the show, a full-on ad break came on. I was sad for a moment, but hey, I had a good run with ad-free Netflix. Besides, I grew up in the times when you couldn’t skip commercials; they were just part of the experience. I guess if I was a kid who had only known streaming, I might be upset. I’m old, though; I can deal with a few ads with my shows. It’s just like the 90s all over again. Well, except my knee doesn’t get sore because of playing sports; it gets sore because it’s Tuesday.


11. As things ramp up for going on location to film The Cabin next week, I have gotten to enjoy recording some scenes with friends that I cast in the movie. First, it cuts down on the search for people to play the roles. Second, it allows me to thank them by giving them roles in the film. Two scenes were audio-only, as they will be telephone calls in the film. A third was a fake Zoom call. The audio scenes went pretty seamlessly. In the end, I decided that it might be better to do the fake Zoom call in person, just in case anything went wrong. Boy, I was lucky I did. There were a few minor mishaps when it came to lighting and sound that would have been harder to try to solve from the other end of a computer. Plus, if you’re on Zoom, you only get something like 45 minutes of video time before it shuts down. I could have just imagined needing to spend most of that time fixing technical issues only to have Zoom kick us off as we finally got going. In the end, we got it all to work and got the scenes shot. It was the final thing I could do on Cape Cod for the film before heading off on location in a few days.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #61: Acting Gigs, Chilly Hikes, Meeting Frankenstein, etc.

1. I wrapped up my scenes in my first film and first acting gig. It is a campy indie horror film. I had to put together and record a Zoom meeting which was fine. There was a brief moment of terror when I couldn’t get my camera and speakers to work. I can’t give too much away but I can say there were several takes of a scene. These went well and were all sent to the director and editor. The filming wraps the weekend of March 22-23 and then we’ll see how long until the film is available to view. Needless to say, I am pretty excited about what is to come.

2. You would think that the ‘best by’ date would be accurate and I’m sure for the most part they are. This week I was making some coffee and grabbed the milk from the fridge. It was the exact ‘sell by’ date so I figured I was good. I poured some in and then got rid of the rest. It definitely tasted a little bit off but I figured ‘oh well I’m sure it’s fine.’ That was until I got to the bottom of the mug. It was there that I found a nice congealed blob of milk swirling around. Was it edible? I have no clue because I immediately tossed it out. That woke me up more than the caffeine in the coffee.

3. In 2012 I injured my Achilles tendon marathon training. From that point on I had to re-learn how to run. A major saving grace was Dr. Scholl’s Heel Pain insoles. They were the perfect size and amount of padding and they allowed me to actually become a better runner after such a bad injury. I stopped using them around the time COVID started because I had a bad hip injury that really stopped me from doing any meaningful running. As I am training for my latest comeback race I have been looking for those heel pain insoles. It turns out they have been discontinued. I was devastated. But as luck would have it people are hoarders. I was able to find a stash through a person on eBay. Brand new, reasonably priced, and now in my possession. I might not ever run like I did say 7 years ago, but I do feel like I might not make a fool of myself in my latest race. That’s something.

4. Some people have a high pain tolerance. Some do not. Then there is this next person. At my day job we have many helpful therapies for overall health and wellness. One such therapy is called Shockwave. What it does is use focused acoustic waves to treat various musculoskeletal conditions, promoting healing and pain relief by stimulating tissue regeneration and increasing blood flow. That being said, it doesn’t feel like butterfly kisses, more like a tattoo needle or bee stings. It’s a good pain most can tolerate because they know it’s promoting healing. We had one patient, who in full transparency is a friend of my boss, come in needing the shockwave on her lateral quadriceps. He jumped everything the shockwave wand hit his skin that you’d have thought I was using a taser. It got to be so ridiculous with his hooting and squirming that my boss finally had to come over and physically hold him in place so I could do my job. In the end it was one of the funniest scenes in my time at this job, but also one we won’t be putting in our brochures.

5. Hopefully without jinxing myself I can say now that after a few weeks, I feel like I’ve finally cracked the code of my own mind. To sum it up for the last several years I have been in a bad place mentally. Dealing with the stress of life in general led me to destroy my diet and therefore my body in general with bad foods. My diet was terrible. At times it felt as though I had no control and that the only thing that gave me momentary happiness was all of the fried, salty, and sugary foods I could find. I have slowly been chipping away at my bad habits. Cutting my caffeine intake, hitting the gym more, and forcing myself to fix my diet. It’s not easy but after closing in on 3 weeks I feel like I might have turned a corner. I don’t crave the bad foods anymore and actively seek out things to help me reshape my body. My hope is to get back to how I looked and felt 6 years ago, before Covid. Will I get there? Who knows, but at least I feel like I’m on the right track.

6. I saw a video this week on social media of someone referring to an otter as a ‘water sausage’ and I cannot stop laughing. On one hand, I wonder how they came up with that description. On the other hand, I immediately think ‘Yes of course it is.’ Now you will never unsee it.

A water sausage in its native habitat.

7. The weekend was a whirlwind of fun adventures. I was up before 6am to drive an hour to Provincetown to hike with a pair of friends out to Race Point Lighthouse. To get myself up and out the door early I needed a dose of caffeine. I was trying to stick to a schedule so as I was driving I had to pee pretty bad. I was determined to make it to Provincetown without stopping. I was still 10 minutes away from my destination when I realized a disaster might be coming. I ended up pulling into the parking lot of a restaurant in Truro and dashing into the nearby woods to pee. All I’ll say is it was a good thing I stopped. Just think of when Austin Powers is unfrozen and you’ll know how bad I needed to pee.

8. The hike out to Race Point was fun. It was also 2.5 miles. We saw a handful of people about a mile from the beach parking lot. They were all taking photos of the returning Right Whales. The huge mammals pass by Provincetown just offshore and can be seen due to their water spouts from their blowholes. We didn’t see any whales, but we did see about half a dozen fluorescent light tubes intact. Fair trade?

Race Point Light is always worth the hike.

9. Rather than walk the same way back around the beach we decided the take the ORV trail back to Race Point Beach. It was a good walk sometimes over soft sand. It was filled with planes from the nearby airport, a low-flying helicopter, and a friendly albeit off-putting Natural Resources guy who wanted to chat while menacingly holding a sledgehammer.

10. It was a unique experience getting to be on a movie set. The main thing to remember is to be quiet and stay out of the way. I mostly did that. However, there was one scene take where I was seated off camera just trying to keep quiet. Well silly me I thought I could simply move my arm and things would be fine. Nope. My elbow decided to let out a huge cracking noise. Luckily this foolishness didn’t ruin the take but I did have a few eyes looking at me wondering why my body had to explode like that.

11. A bonus of being on the movie set was getting to shoot some behind-the-scenes videos and interview some people from the film for my YouTube channel. That being said, one interview almost didn’t happen because of another one. The first interview, with 3 people, went great. The problem was after we stopped filming and I was prepping to leave they wanted to talk for another hour. This meant my other interview subjects had to sit and wait while hungry. We bribed them with delicious cheeseburgers from Bay Cafe in Provincetown and all was forgiven.

12. Nobody could have told me that one day I’d be driving down Commercial Street in Provincetown in the backseat while in the passenger’s seat, Frankenstein’s monster growled and yelled at people on the sidewalk. The uncle of one of the crew in the film dressed as the famed monster for a scene. We had to drive him to the location though. As soon as the first woman spotted him and mouthed ‘Oh my God’ it was over. Frankenstein spent the entire drive shouting and growling at people much to my amusement. Too bad it was a short drive, although the wackiness continued on location. I’m sure all of the people driving by were wondering why Frankenstein was attacking people. Or maybe not, it could have been just another day in Provincetown.

13. I highly recommend anyone go to Provincetown and just walk around. It is a different vibe there than almost anywhere. Unique shops, famed restaurants, interesting but friendly people, loads of history, and beaches for miles. Yes I live on Cape Cod so I’m biased but there’s a reason people fall over themselves to visit in the summer. I have been to Ptown countless times but always find something new and interesting when there. Besides Frankenstein. You can walk all of the narrow streets and find beautiful vantage points for photos which is right up my alley.

14. After such a packed and fun day the next day was essentially a ‘fun hangover.’ It consisted of mostly sitting in an easy chair and surfing the web until I got hungry. Eating, and then going back to the internet until I got hungry again. A perfect balance of blandness from the previous day’s excitement.

15. A rather odd occurrence. My phone desperately needed to be charged. I grabbed a plug adapter so I could attach the USB cord. This portable plug had been in an outlet for days. I grabbed this plug and removed it from the outlet so I could plug it in closer to my bed. I attached the USB and attached the other end to my phone and shockingly before I even plugged it in it turned on my phone to charge. It’s like the portable plug had just enough stored electricity to briefly turn my phone on. It was pretty weird.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #57: Bloody Good, Diet Woes, Don't Call Me Sir, etc.

1. At my work we have something called compression therapy. You get wrapped up in these pads that squeeze your body stimulating the lymphatic system to get moving. It is great for your overall health. When you do this therapy it is 30 minutes you relax and then when the session is done someone comes in and unwraps you. If somebody has done the compression therapy enough they might feel comfortable enough to start unwrapping themselves to help. A person was doing that before I got in the room to assist them. It all seemed fine until I went back in to clean off the pads. It was then that I noticed the splatters of blood on different parts of the various pads. It looked like a crime scene. The worst part was there was another person set to use the compression therapy and as I wrapped them in the pads I kept noticing other drops of blood I had missed. I had no poker face and was horrified.

2. The only thing that could possibly rival the bloody good story above at work this week was the following. My boss got a great deal on a used mannequin. He intends to use it to display clothing featuring the business logo on it. Makes sense. The funny part was how it arrived. It was in pieces. So bringing in the top half and the arms was fine. However, nothing could prepare me for the sight of my boss walking in with this naked ass mannequin bottom up near his face. I couldn’t have written it any better. We ended up stashing it for a while in the compression therapy room but kept the door closed since it looked like we had killed and dismembered someone in there.

3. Only I could vacuum a room for several minutes not realizing the hose wasn’t attached. Granted I wondered why the vacuum had such terrible suction but it wasn’t until I turned around and saw the disconnected hose on the floor that it all made sense. I have said it a million times, I was born blond so don’t be shocked at stories like these.

4. I spent an evening tearing up an old carpet and then slicing it into strips with a box cutter. I was so focused on getting it done right after work that I didn’t bother to put any sort of mask on to protect me from dust. Eventually, I brought several contractor bags of rolled-up carpet slices outside. My body was exhausted from the workout. Then later on while relaxing not wearing a mask came back to haunt me as I got a major bloody nose from inhaling all of that dust and whatever else was underneath the carpet. Oh well, at least it got done.

Yeah, it was a little like this.

5. In the coming weeks I am shooting the scenes for my first acting gig. It’s funny because I made tons of skits as a kid with my camcorder and craft scripts for my podcast weekly yet trying to get lines I didn’t write memorized is really tough. I printed out all of my scenes and have had trouble getting the lines down. One solution I had was to print them out again, only in a much bigger font. It’s like speaking to a dog, and then saying the words again slower like that will suddenly make the dog understand you.

6. I could be on the strictest of diets but will never not be a sucker for a new flavor of Doritos. I have loved them since I was a kid and any time they release a new flavor I will try it. The latest proof of that is the Late Night Sizzlin’ Cheeseburger flavor. I definitely enjoy them. Every now and then some Doritos are okay, but when I see there are more flavors in this Late Night series that’s when the ominous music starts to play and I feel my pants begin to get tighter. Oh well, six-pack abs are overrated anyway, right?

Dangerously good.

7. Did my first real interior paint job this week. A subtle gray paint on half of my apartment. Luckily I wore clothes I was cool with throwing out because to no one’s surprise, I got paint all over me. Also, put in new flooring in the form of carpeted tiles. That was fun as well but hell on the knees. The room does look a lot better but my body needed a day to recover for sure.

8. I was under the impression on Instagram that once things you post on your story are gone (after 24 hours) nobody can see them except you in your own archives. This week I had some random person like a story of mine from 5 ½ years ago. Not sure how they got to see it. It was very creepy and suspicious that I immediately blocked them just to stop any weirdness before it really gets going. I mean you need to be a special kind of weirdo to deep dive someone’s IG story back more than 5 years.

9. This winter has been one long hibernation. It’s like I’ve done a lot of work, content-wise, but I feel like I’ve been holed up. I don’t know if it’s the cold. I don’t know if it’s being busy with work. I don’t know if I need a change physically to gain energy. Maybe it’s my diet being bad and my body doesn’t produce the energy from bad foods. One or all of these things need to change soon. This blah chapter feels like it’s run its course.

10. Being called ‘sir’ by someone much younger is still a very weird thing. I don’t feel that old (most days) so I definitely don’t feel like being called ‘sir’ is warranted. But I’m also not going to be some mid-life crisis guy who corrects someone young who calls me sir. It actually shows respect for your *ugh* elders. I mean I call people much older than me sir. Wait, so I guess I’m much older than these people? Man, it’s time for a nap followed by dinner at 4pm.

I'm not this guy...yet.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #40: Frozen Mouse, It Was Our Destiny, Bees Like My Car, etc

 

1. Before opening a new document to begin this week’s blog I spent several minutes trying to diagnose what was wrong with my wireless computer mouse. It had the green light on so I knew it was working. On-Off, On-Off with the power switch, nothing. Finally being super smart I looked and realized the adapter was not in the USB port, it was on an end table. This blog begins with that foolishness, hopefully, it will get better.

2. In what was a fun adventure I went out to Race Point Beach in Provincetown this week. I was meeting my friend Frank who is a film producer and his friend Bryan. They were replicating part of Henry David Thoreau’s hike along Cape Cod’s outer beach. We were meant to hike the final 2+ miles out to Race Point Lighthouse together only that didn’t happen. After they had hiked about 7 miles their bodies gave out. I got a call from Frank and had to drive to where they had crossed from the beach to the main road and pick them up. We plan to finish the hike in March.

3. Skipping out on the hike to the lighthouse freed us up to do something else. As we have done many times before we paid a visit to St. Peter’s Cemetery in Provincetown. Here is where Ruth Marie Terry, aka the Lady of the Dunes, is buried. In what could only be described as a wild coincidence we happened to arrive at the cemetery as they were having a ceremony for the unveiling of a new marker. Ruth Marie’s son was there and I got to finally meet him. In a fun twist, he is writing a book about his experience and he said that Frank and I walking up during the ceremony was the perfect ending to his book. For those who have no idea, Frank produced the Lady of the Dunes documentary that helped spur law enforcement to finally solve the nearly 50-year-old cold case. It was a full-circle moment that wouldn’t have been possible if the original hike hadn’t fallen through.

The new marker for Ruth Marie Terry

4. Hey, what kind of idiot gets a sunburn in late October? This guy. So I guess being out in the bright sun for 5 straight hours with no sunscreen is not good, even in mid-Autumn. I honestly thought once the calendar flipped to October that sunburns would be on hold until summer returned. Only when I got home and looked in the mirror did I see how red I was. So there, you can get sunburned in October. The more you know.

5. LED headlights on vehicles should be outlawed. I bet that in 5 years we’re going to have loads of people with vision issues from having to stare into these terrible inventions coming at you on the road. It’s like either make them illegal or make it legal to coat your windshield with an extra tint so you can drive at night and not feel like you’re staring into the sun.

6. I am now in the ‘do a big overhead stretch and pop a rib out’ stage of my life. I stepped out of my care at work in the morning did a big stretch and breathed in the fall air. It was a great moment until I felt a pop and immediate pain. What felt like an ice pick under my left shoulder blade turned out to be not 1, but 3 ribs out. Luckily my boss is a chiropractor among other things and he was able to adjust me and get those ribs back in. Getting older is not my favorite thing.

Me in a few weeks trying to train someone after more of my body explodes.

7. Having to ‘prove I am human’ on the ChatGPT website is an irony that is not lost on me. I guess it’s to make sure that AI is not conspiring together to end the human race. Of course, that’s what AI would want you to think, that you’re protected.

8. An interesting phenomenon that has been happening to me recently is that a collection of yellow jackets has started hanging out on my car at work. I am thinking it is due to pollen or other goodies being dropped onto my car from the trees I park under. Typically there are a dozen or so walking all over my hood and windshield. The other day once I was in my car I shot a video of one of these bees walking on the windshield and it was then that I got such a cool closeup video and it looked like the bee was licking the windshield. Also when I start my car and leave I don’t use my windshield wipers or anything to kill them. I drive until the wind blows them off. The last time I had the bee experience one of them hung onto my windshield for close to a mile while I was driving, most impressive.

Objects might appear larger than they are.

9. In a shocking admission I am not a fan of people who drive fast and don’t pay attention in a parking lot. I know, it’s crazy. You’d be amazed at how many times I see people flying through a parking lot, driving diagonal through parking lanes, looking at their phones. One night this week a woman nearly ran me down. I didn’t dart out in front of her but I was slowly walking. Luckily I kept my eyes on her because she didn’t stop. She had this look on her face like I had jumped in front of her on the highway. I might have shared a few 4-letter words as she passed.

10. As my birthday grows closer and I drift into my late 40’s I feel like a saying I heard somewhere is getting truer each day. As you get older you have to work twice as hard to get half as far. 10 years ago the thought of redesigning my diet and training regimen would have been easy, or totally unnecessary. However staring that prospect down now is daunting, and very necessary. It’s a weird feeling to see yourself slipping backward. It’s like I know exactly what to do and have the tools to do it but there is some sort of a disconnect. It’ll be a battle but I’ll figure my way through it.

1970s Weird Weight Loss Fads: In My Footsteps Podcast

It is natural to want to feel and look the best we can. Diet and exercise are the most common way to achieve this and come in all shapes and sizes. However, some of these weight loss ideas skew into weird and unusual territory. In this segment from the In My Footsteps Podcast we look at some of the oddest fitness fads of the 1970s. Hopefully, you didn't try any of these. To listen to episodes of the In My Footsteps Podcast click here: https://inmyfootstepspodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Become A Subscriber to the Podcast on Patreon: patreon.com/InMyFootstepsPodcast Purchase a DVD copy of the Lady of the Dunes documentary here: https://www.oldies.com/product-view/1176D.html Purchase the new book Searching for the Lady of the Dunes written by 12th Generation Cape Codder Christopher Setterlund at https://theladyofthedunes.com/ This video contains some images created with the help of Bing AI, some videos and photos used from Canva Pro. Intro Music: Weirder Stuff - Geographer End Music: Local Elevator - Kevin MacLeod

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 144: The Crow 30th Anniversary; 1970s Diet/Exercise Fad Fails, Forgotten 80s MTV Shows, First McDonald's Restaurant(5-15-2024)

 

The 30th anniversary of the movie The Crow. Some amazing diet and exercise fad fails of the 1970s. MTV shows that came and went in the 1980s. The very first McDonald's restaurant.
Episode 144 will super-size your nostalgia cravings.
It kicks off with a look back at the movie The Crow on the week of its 30th anniversary. Marred somewhat by the tragic on-set death of star Brandon Lee this movie is a captivating story with a perfectly 90s soundtrack. We'll look at all of that and more in this segment.
Most people in their lives will struggle with their weight or overall health. Diets and exercise are the cure but can be boring at times. That being said some fitness fads of the past are not recommended for anyone. We go way Back In the Day this week to look at some diet and exercise fads that failed during the 1970s. You won't believe some of these were real.
Not all television shows can be hits. For every show that changes the entertainment landscape, countless fade away into the annals of history. As MTV was developing into a cultural phenomenon it tried many different show types. Some made it big, but on this week's Top 5 we'll look at those MTV shows that came and went in the 1980s.
The brand-new This Week In History and Time Capsule will look at the behemoth known as McDonald's as it celebrates the anniversary of the opening of its very first location.
For more great content become a subscriber on Patreon!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• The Lady of the Dunes.com
• Purchase My New Book Cape Cod Beyond the Beach!
• In My Footsteps: A Cape Cod Travel Guide(2nd Edition)
• Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
• Wear Your Wish.com - Clothing, Accessories, and more
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
• Subscribe on YouTube!
• Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog

Listen to Episode 143 here 

Initial Impressions 2.0 #15: No Trespassing, Dogs v. Texting, Google Car Is a Rolls-Royce?, etc(5-6-2024)

1. Have you ever noticed that it is typically the houses that look abandoned, have unkempt yards, no grass, and rusted-out cars littering the property, these are the houses that have ‘No Trespassing’ signs. It’s like don’t worry I don’t want to get any diseases by stepping foot on your garbage property. How about taking the money you wasted on several No Trespassing signs and using that for grass seed, or a bucket of house paint?

2. I don’t understand how someone can work for a supermarket chain and hate all of their bosses so much that they constantly transfer to other stores in that chain. I also don’t understand how if they hate management at all of these stores why they don’t go work for another chain altogether, or get into a different industry. Unless you signed a contract with your job you are not forced to work there. It’s almost like they’d rather just be angry and spiteful because it’s easier than looking for a new job.

3. I grabbed a few energy drinks at a local dollar store because they were crazy cheap. I didn’t get a bag so I walked out and back to my car holding a few cans. On my way, an old man, likely mid-70s, joked that I couldn’t drive home if I was drinking those. I laughed and thought about offering one to him but could already hear the ambulance sirens in my mind if the man drank something like that.

4. It would have been my Nana's 100th birthday this week. She has been gone for nearly 15 years but it only took me a few minutes to come up with a dozen things that I immediately associate with her. It shows her importance in my life even as our times together fade further into memories. I do things like this because I want her memory to remain alive and as long as I live all of my grandparents will live on.

5. I was paying for groceries at self-checkout with cash. I had some extra change in the center console of my car so this was an easy way to get rid of it. In the end, I owed 1 more cent. I actually looked around the area for a random penny on the floor, but no luck. I grabbed out a dollar and wouldn’t you know it the dang machine eats it. It was a 10-minute ordeal of finding someone to open the machine to get the dollar out. The person who helped actually put a penny in so I wouldn’t have to try the dollar again. To top it off the lady overseeing the self-checkout area then decided to give me a lecture about how to properly insert money into the machines. I said as nicely as I could that I knew how to pay at self-checkout seeing as how I have done it literally hundreds of times. As I walked out I said to myself ‘this is going in the blog,’ and here it is.

6. I actually saw a cat wandering around in a neighborhood. There was nothing odd about the cat, but I feel like over the past several years, especially on Cape Cod, outdoor cats have become increasingly rare. We have a coyote problem down here. Not sure if outdoor cats are still common in other places. Or maybe they still are everywhere and I just don’t notice them.

7. So in all honestly what is more dangerous? Texting while driving? Or having a dog in your lap? They both seem equally irresponsible yet only one can get you a ticket as far as I know. Are there laws against dogs being in a driver’s lap? You wouldn’t have a child roaming around while you drive, so why let a fidgety dog jump all around you while you’re behind the wheel of a 2,000-pound weapon on wheels?

Cute but dangerous

8. While out driving I saw this beautiful Rolls-Royce. It was slowing down to turn onto the road I was on. I was momentarily shocked and confused as I saw nobody driving it. Then as it turned it all made sense, it was a European model of the vehicle so the driver’s side was opposite to here in the U.S. For a brief moment, I wondered if the Google Maps vehicle was on Cape Cod, and also a Rolls-Royce for some reason.

The next Google Maps car?

9. Every now and then I see people driving in a parking lot and using their turn signals when going up and down rows of vehicles. I think I see this about as much as I see people using their turn signals for actual turning on the road. Maybe not that much but it does seem odd to use blinkers inside a parking lot. I have seen way more examples of people not using their blinkers on the road though but I think that’s more common everywhere these days.

10. I was thrilled when I stepped on a set of bilateral scales at work and the numbers were exactly the same on each. When I first got to my current job 3 years ago I had a misaligned hip that caused the end at the time of my competitive running. I was 15 lbs heavier on my left than my right when I first used the bilateral scales. The work I’ve done to fix my hips has paid off which makes me very happy. However, I was hit with a cold slap of reality when I added the 2 scales up and it was more than I had ever weighed in my life. So yay my hips are good again, and boo it’s diet time. 

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