Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #98: Med Ball Tossing, Xmas Light Car, Stupid Bots, etc.

1. I have a 12-year-old client whom I train. Anyone who has kids, or is around kids, knows that trying to get a 12-year-old to do anything they don’t want to do is next to impossible. I have had sessions with this kid where it’s like pulling teeth to get him to do anything besides walk the treadmill or sit on our whole body vibration plate. That being said, when I do find something he enjoys, I run it into the ground. This week, I put my old bones to the test. Little did I know that he would enjoy throwing a 10# slam ball back and forth. It’s a softer, slightly larger medicine ball. Rather than try to get him to do other things I had on my list, we just kept tossing the ball, and tossing, and tossing. In total, we must have spent nearly 25 minutes of our 30-minute session throwing that medicine ball. My heart rate peaked around 130 according to my Fitbit, and I burned 164 calories. I only stopped him when his heart rate climbed up around 170. I only know that because even though he said he wasn’t tired, I could see it. I think I ended that session more tired than him. Oh, and if you’re curious, he came in a second time this week to train. We tossed the same ball this time for the entire 30 minutes. I burned 212 calories this time.

My Fitbit stats from the Weds. workout

2. December has begun, but I still managed to have a second Thanksgiving this week. It consisted of the leftovers my mom gave me. Rather than draw it out over two meals, I crammed all of the turkey, ham, stuffing, and mashed into one giant meal. I even bought myself a little jar of turkey gravy. I was on carb overload. Somehow it made more sense to have all of the food in one shot and eat sensibly for a while, rather than eat two meals on different days. Also my self-control when it comes to food is the lowest it’s likely ever been, so there’s that as well. Generally, I am really healthy, especially as I swan dive toward 50, but I need to work on my self-control. Otherwise, 2026 will be filled with blog entries where I whine about my lack of self-control until people think I’m just replaying the hits. The leftovers were amazing though.


3. It took until December 1st, but I finally broke down and put on my heat. Now in full transparency, I have this neat wall heater that I can turn on and off if I need to heat up my place for a while. So I wasn’t freezing when it got down in the low 30s recently, but I also didn’t trust that heater enough to sleep with it on. The recurring joke I tell is the fact that I set my heat lower in the winter than I set my A/C in the summer. True story. I set my heat at 65 which is perfect for me since I run hot with my Northern European blood. I set my A/C at 68 during the summer. Most people I think would have those flipped but for me they work just fine. Now, much like in summer with A/C, it’s a countdown until I can shut the heat off and open the windows back up. Likely it’ll be around the first of spring.


4. Tis the season officially. I haven’t yet gone to all of my favorite holiday light spots but that is coming soon. By the time this blog goes up, my Charlie Brown-like faux Christmas tree will be up and decorated. There might have already been someone who won the Holidays though. While driving home in the dark I spotted some Christmas lights up ahead. It took me a second to realize they weren’t in someone’s yard. No these were moving. Someone was driving a white sedan, not too unlike my own, but the entire vehicle was wrapped in string lights. It was wild to see. They definitely wouldn’t distract the driver, but I did wonder how they had them lit. Most likely plugged into a USB port, right? I have also found out it is illegal to do that in some states so be careful.

It looked like this.(WNEP.com)

5. I can be both happy and shocked with the New England Patriots being 11-2 on the season. After wrecking the New York Giants this week, the Patriots officially passed my prediction for wins, which was 10. They also lead the league in salary cap room for next season, meaning they will likely be one of the best teams in football for the foreseeable future. The shock is more of the fact that I thought they’d be this good, but not until next year. They’re a season ahead of where I thought they’d be, but I am not expert. The experts have them as one of the Super Bowl favorites, and QB Drake Maye as the favorite for MVP. The NFL had its chance but the kings are ascending back to the throne they had for 20 years.


6. I could post this every single week but I try to space them out. I hate LED headlights and curse whoever thought it was a good idea to help a driver out by blinding every other driver on the road. They should either be illegal or every car should have window tinting put in for free at the expense of the car companies who use LED headlights on their vehicles. I am shocked that there aren’t more accidents caused by these people blinding other vehicles. If you have so much trouble seeing at night that you need a pair of suns on your car then maybe you should stay home, or get an Uber. This will inevitably come up again in the future but I’ll let it rest for a while.



7. Welcome to the Frozen Tundra of Cape Cod. This week winter arrived a little early. There was a day this week when the low dropped to 15 degrees. With a howling wind, the real feel was in the single digits. Yes I know we’re in December and live in the Northeast but still that first day that the temperatures crater like that are just brutal. Luckily that morning I didn’t have to leave the house until close to noon. By that time it was nearly 30 degrees, downright balmy. The best part? We still haven’t gotten any snow on the Cape. So yeah, there’s still that to look forward to. Can you hear my sarcasm?


8. The CAPTCHA system, or ‘proving’ you’re human on some of these websites has gotten ridiculous. I’m all for hitting that stupid check mark to show I’m human. Once I’ve done that shouldn't that be it? In doing some research on an online newspaper archive I had to check that stupid box. Then I started scrolling through the pages of this newspaper when after 5 or 6 clicks that frickin’ box pops up again saying ‘our internal servers think you might be a robot.’ It’s like hey you moron bot, I literally just clicked the box 10 seconds ago. What do you think? That I am an AI that became sentient literally within the last few seconds? There are not enough synonyms for ‘stupid’ to make this make sense.


9. One thing I’ve noticed during my recent times of watching tons of funny cat videos is how many people would rather sit and film their cat breaking something rather than get off their lazy butts and stop them. I have seen tons of people filming while a cat is slowly nudging something fragile toward the edge of a table. They just sit and film and say ‘no’ or ‘don’t’ until the object falls, and breaks, and they get all pissy at their cat. It’s like, hey, it’s a cat. What did you expect? Get up, walk five feet, and grab the glass, or whatever it is before the cat breaks it. You’re not going to get enough views to earn enough to even replace that broken object so use your brain. I guess that’s asking too much.


10. It pays to double-check. I had plans over the weekend to take a drive to the local community college library. I find that when I am there my creative juices really get flowing. I had checked to make sure that the library was open. It said Sundays they were open from 1-5p, great. I got everything packed and ready to go but something told me to just look again. This time instead of a generic internet search I went right to the college website and it said they were closed on weekends. I was naturally disappointed. Then I triple checked. The ‘closed on weekends’ hours start on December 20th. So not only can I apparently not read correctly, I also seem to not know what day it is. I’m one step away from having warm milk and a nap as my height of excitement.

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.