Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #102: Winter Storm Names, Stranger Things, New Year Intentions, etc.

1. I still don’t understand the point of naming winter storms. As of this writing, there is a Winter Storm Ezra coming toward New England. Like, who cares if it has a name? Did meteorologists feel sad that only hurricanes were getting names? Also, does anyone remember any winter storm in the last few years by its name? I sure don’t. What’s next, naming every day after someone? Oh man, look out, Partly Cloudy Pete is coming today. In 20 years, I’ll tell the younger generation ‘You should have been there for Foggy Drizzle Dan, it was so mildly inconvenient. Then again, every day is International (something pointless) Day, so I guess naming winter storms tracks.


2. Currently, I am on a holiday break from my day job. We do it each year from Christmas to New Year's, basically because the one year we didn’t, our schedule was maybe half-full, and my boss rightfully didn’t want to pay us full-time to be standing around half of the day. I’ve been using the free time to work a lot on content and also hit the gym more in advance of any New Year’s resolutions. That being said, I could tell my body was starting to wear down with how hard I was working out at the gym. It got to a point where my Fitbit had to basically order me to take it easy. Yes, Fitbit, whatever you say. I will gladly take a day to sit and relax. It didn’t hurt that the day it told me to chill, it was 25 degrees and windy out. Much easier to relax when the thought of going outside is too much.


3. This was a sure way to kill the mood of a day. I wanted to do some work on my script for my film that will shoot late this summer. Rather than sit at my desk as I always do, I decided to head to a local library. Typically, I get good creative vibes from writing at a spot different from home. Well, I should have just stayed home. I drove all the way to this library, and it was packed because it’s school vacation week. That was no big surprise. I went in and found a desk in the back corner and unpacked my laptop. I noticed they had new chairs. These were brightly colored and padded but also very low to the ground. As soon as I sat in the chair, I knew I’d never be able to work there. The desk was basically chest height. It was ridiculous. No more than 30 seconds after sitting, a big fat guy with headphones sits at the desk next to me. His being there was no big deal until I heard the music. This jerk had his music so loud in his headphones that I could clearly hear it, and it was distracting and obnoxious. I sat for maybe 2 minutes before being so aggravated that I packed up my stuff and left. It took me longer to drive to the library than the time I actually was inside. What an absolute waste of time. All it did was piss me off to the point that I no longer wanted to write.


4. One thing I have been doing for my Patreon subscribers is remastering and sharing these livestreams I used to do for my podcast. About 4 years ago, I was going live on Instagram weekly and doing something called Without A Map. I’d review the most recent podcast episode and invariably go wildly off-topic into fun and wacky stories. I fix the audio, edit any dragging parts, and enhance the video to make it a better experience for my subscribers. I had been downloading the original videos from YouTube to edit. This week I went to grab the next in line and noticed it went from #10 to #12, no #11. I also noticed my Without A Map playlist only went up to #28 when I knew I did way more. I wasn’t sure what to do since, after the streams would end, I’d have to save them to my phone and then upload them to YouTube. What happened to the other streams? Luckily, a little research showed me that all of those ‘lost’ streams had been bundled in with my reels on IG. I was able to go into my archives and find #11 and download it. Oh, and I ended up doing 49 streams in total, so there’s plenty more content to come for my Patreon subscribers.


5. I headed out after dark one night this week to grab a few quick things at the store. I had barely taken a few steps and was reaching for my keys when I noticed something a few feet beyond my car. Then I noticed another, and another. 3 big shadows sneaking across the neighbor’s yard. It took me a moment to figure out that they were deer. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough getting my phone out for a photo. Even if I did, it was dark, and it would have either been blurry or the flash would have lit up my car. It was shocking for sure to suddenly see 3 fully grown deer emerging from the shadows. They went across the street into a small conservation area. That conservation area is a haven for deer, coyotes, foxes, turkeys, and owls. I haven’t gone down in there to find out; it’s just that there are way too many of those animals lurking around the yard, especially in the warmer months. Now I’m going to have to be at the ready with my phone anytime I go out after dark in case the deer are hanging out again.


6. The finale of Stranger Things was an amazing and fitting ending. The show was 5 seasons of a trip back to my childhood. Granted, I would have been younger than the main cast when the events were happening in the 80s. In fact, for those who know the show, I was the same age as Holly and Derek and their crew. I won’t spoil things for those who will be watching, especially since it was literally New Year’s Eve when the finale premiered. It must have been watched by a lot of people since Netflix was glitched out for several minutes when the show went up at 8pm. Stranger Things had so many wonderful characters and actors playing them. We got to watch them literally grow up before our eyes. The thing is, for as beautiful as the ending of the show was, it was ever so slightly traumatic for my GenX mind. It was like reliving my childhood, yes, but then it was also like watching my childhood slip away all over again. I don’t think I was ready for that, and judging by social media, a lot of my GenX brethren weren’t ready for it either. So at least I am not alone. I will miss new episodes with the killer 80s music, product placement, and references that people of my generation understand. Rumor has it that there are at least a pair of spin-offs coming. One is an animated series based in 1985. That one’s confirmed. The other is top secret, but I have heard rumblings that it might be based around Nancy’s character. We’ll see. I posted it all over social media after the show aired, but once again, thank you to Stranger Things and the creators, The Duffer Brothers, for letting me, and so many other GenXers, relive our childhoods even for a little while. I even wrote a blog about how the show affected me. You can read it here: Stranger Things Have Happened: A GenX Fairytale

7. I have always had a wacky sense of humor. It comes out quite a bit in these blogs. When I was in high school, I spent my savings on a camcorder with dreams of being a film director. I loved using my creativity to make up the most random stuff to make skits. These were mainly to make my friends laugh. One thing I want to do more of in 2026 is crafting skits again, but this time for social media. They will probably be tougher to do now with all of my friends having jobs and families, or living far away. Still, I am looking for any and all creative outlets to explore since that’s the stuff that really makes me feel alive. Here is a little something I cooked up for New Year’s Day. I hope you like it.




8. In a strange but necessary twist, I actually turned down a couple of creative projects to kick off 2026. I’m not giving up my dreams of being a totally self-employed content creator. I am just being more selective with what I choose to spend my time on. This goes far beyond just content projects and goes into life in general. I have spent the last 5 years working nonstop on content. That means books, podcasts, YouTube videos, blogs, editing, producing, acting, and anything else that floated into my orbit. I don’t regret any of it. That being said, I have a goal in 2026 that involves having more free time for family, friends, and maybe even finding a relationship. In order to achieve that, I had to start finding places that I could cut back. The pair of projects I turned down would have been fun and would have added to my resume, but they also would have required who knows how many hours out of my life. I can’t say ‘I want more time with those I care about’ and then not do my part to make it happen. I think of it as going to a buffet. In the last few years, I would fill my plate with anything and everything, overflow it. In 2026, I am still going to have a full plate, just with fewer options. All steak and mac and cheese, no rolls or cole slaw.


9. It has already been a snowier and colder winter this year than last, and it’s only been 2 weeks. We got the storm this week that left us with 3-4” of heavy snow. That’s not a big deal except for the fact that the temperatures stayed below freezing for the next several days, meaning that the snow and slush stuck around and refroze. I only realized there was an issue when I was leaving the gym one morning this week. I saw the frozen slush/dirt combo stuck in my wheel wells and under my front doors. It was so bad that if I had gotten any more up in there, my tires wouldn’t have had any room to spin. I kicked a little away, but most of it was frozen solid. Not wanting any problems with my car, I looked for something to chisel the sludge away. I found the perfect utensil in the form of a tire iron from my trunk. So there I was, in my gym shorts, on a 30-degree morning in the gym parking lot, chipping frozen slush out of my wheel wells with a tire iron. Two thoughts were going through my mind. 1. How crazy do I look? 2. This is going in the blog (obviously).


10. It was 10 years ago this week that my buddy Steve and I went on one of our best photo adventures. We were up early and drove out to Provincetown. Next up was a 2-mile hike through the darkness and the woods, over the dunes to get to Race Point Lighthouse. It was in the low 20s with the wind chill at, or below, zero. We sat with our backs against a brick building known as the Whistle House. You can rent it in the summer. It was freezing, and we would get up to take photos of the ever-increasing sunrise, and then quickly huddle back down. It was one of my favorite photo adventures ever. How did we celebrate the 10th anniversary of it? By going on another cold photo shoot. Only this one was sunset, and Nauset Lighthouse is only a few hundred feet from the parking lot. I guess we are getting older.



11. Earlier, I mentioned my hope/desire to actually start a relationship. Intentions without actions are useless, so I signed up on a dating app. A problem that I have living on Cape Cod is that the dating pool can be small, especially as you get into your 40s. In previous years, when I was on dating sites, it was nearly impossible to find someone because I kept my search radius low, like 25 miles. That works fine if you live in a city, but not in a relatively rural area like the Cape. An old friend of mine used to have her search radius so wide that she’d end up finding and dating people in Boston. I wasn’t willing to go that far until now. Well, not Boston far, but expanding my radius to 50 miles. That gives me places within an hour of me. It’s like I’m showing the universe I’m serious. How serious will I be when I find someone 50 miles away, and we have to plan a date that might involve an hour of driving? We’ll see. But maybe showing I’m willing to get out of my comfort zone will bring someone amazing into my orbit.


12. While at the gym one day this week, I finished with the actual workout and went to sign up for a session on one of the hydromassage beds. They are definitely worth the little bit extra I pay per month, for now at least. While signing up, there was an employee explaining the gym to two potential new members. Ironically, he began raving about the hydro bed. I mentioned that was why I was standing there. Before going into the room, I looked at the two potential members and told them that it was my favorite part of the workout. I also said I wasn’t a paid spokesman for the gym. I will say that if they did sign up for the more expensive package, I should get at least a little thank you, like a free drink or something.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #101: Unexpected Guest, Christmas Fun, 30 Year Search, etc.

1. This was a short work week with the Christmas holiday happening Thursday. I ended up working two days and then getting to enjoy 12 straight days off. That doesn’t mean that there was a lack of interesting stories. The main one came in the form of an unexpected guest in the gym. In the early afternoon, my boss happened to lay eyes on something in the corner of the gym near the exit to the hallway. It was a dead mouse. No idea where it came from or how it got into our gym, but there it was. I was tasked with removing it, so I grabbed a pair of gloves and picked it up by the tail. I apologized to it as I tossed it out the back door into some nearby woods. The interesting part of this story is that where the mouse was found was next to an area I had planned to use with a client that morning. She ended up having to cancel her appointment. If she had been there, she’d have been doing planks on a mat right there, and no doubt would have seen the mouse and rightfully flipped out. So I guess it was a good thing that her schedule changed. Fun fact: In the last year or so, we have had a mouse, a frog, and a squirrel in our gym.

An average day at the zoo, I mean, the gym.

2. A sad realization, or an aha moment? I was at the supermarket one evening this week and was craving pizza. I was trying to get through Christmas before trying (again) to get my health on track. Anyway, I saw an ex of mine there. I didn’t speak to her, just saw her. She didn’t see me. The moment I am talking about comes from the fact that when I knew her as a friend and girlfriend, she was my fitness muse. She made me want to be the best version of myself physically, and I was. I felt that old mindset bubbling up inside of me, but the current version of me stamped it down. Maybe that’s why I didn’t go talk to her? I didn’t want to have that healthy voice speaking to me again. It’s a sad realization that what used to be second nature for me, my health and fitness, seem like foreign concepts. I am planning on using my extended break from work to try to get this under control, but it failed on this night. I still went and got pizza.


3. The town where I live doesn’t allow the sale of individual plastic water bottles in grocery stores. They’re allowed in most towns on Cape Cod, though. One of the items on my list to bring for Christmas was a case of water. Because I waited until the last minute, and because it was snowing more than expected on Christmas Eve, I chose to stick close to home to get the water. Even though I couldn’t get a case of water in plastic bottles, I did find several options for canned water. I don’t know why this amused me so much. Cracking open a nice can of water just made me laugh, so of course I got that. It beats water in boxes. I mean, what is that foolishness anyway? You might as well sell water in bags.


4. Every year since 2009, I have paid a visit to a local beach that my Nana spent lots of time at on Christmas Eve. I did it that first year because she was near the end of her life and couldn’t go and enjoy it. She passed a few days after Christmas in 2009. I make it a point to be there around sunset. Whether it’s sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy, cold, or less cold, I am there. It allows me to purposefully spend a few moments with my Nana front and center in my thoughts. I truly do feel her spirit there. As the years have passed, I have lost several more loved ones. I now use this Christmas Eve tradition to remember them as well. It is somber and bittersweet but also invigorating. I feel all of them in my heart at that time, and it makes me feel lucky I had people that important who still bring those emotions long after they’re gone. But also, it makes me appreciate those who are still here who give me those same emotions. It was cold, windy, and snowy this year, but I was still there and still walked out into the elements to get a photo.

The view at my Nana's beach on Christmas Eve.

5. Christmas was filled with family, food, and fun. The times of family gatherings can be fewer, and further between the older I get, so I always look forward to them. It’s funny how time goes. I can remember my nieces and nephews from the day they were born. Yet here some of them are as teens and young adults, and I can talk and laugh with them in different ways. Sitting and eating my mom’s amazing chicken stir fry while talking about 90s music was a blast. We all were in a food coma by 4:30, but that didn’t stop us from grabbing copious amounts of to-go containers' worth of leftovers. It was a great day overall.


6. One funny thing this Christmas was my surprise that nobody knew this classic Honeycomb cereal commercial from the mid-1980s. We were watching The Princess Bride, and I was mentioning how, at this point, Andre the Giant was probably at his most famous. He was Fezzik in the movie, and around the same time, he was in a Honeycomb commercial. I was shocked, especially that my sister Kate, who has a better memory than me, didn’t remember the commercial from when we were kids. I sang the jingle first, which was embarrassing enough. Honeycomb’s big! Yeah, yeah, yeah! It’s not small! No, no, no! Then I showed everyone the commercial, which they liked but still didn’t remember. I’ll share it here for any fellow GenXers, but maybe my memory is better than I thought.




7. It’s interesting how the week between Christmas and New Year’s is such a dead zone. It’s like I know there are seven days in there, but all I want to do is hurry through them, get past New Year’s, and then speed run my way to spring. I have said numerous times that the period from Labor Day through the end of the year is my favorite time. That being said, my least favorite time is from January 2nd through the first of spring. It’s one long Seasonal Affective Disorder session. It’s made all the more glaring because at my day job, we have the week between Christmas and New Year’s off. This year, we also have an extra week off in January, oh, and there will likely be another week-plus break in March because my boss can afford to shut down for long stretches. He can, the other employees can’t, but that’s why I keep working hard on my content, so I hopefully don’t have to worry about it too much longer.


8. I finished up the continuing education credits to renew my personal trainer certification. I took a course called Business Progressions Level 1. The thing about this course is that the vast majority of it was stuff I already knew. It was a lot about sales and marketing, including social media stuff. That’s literally what I do in my spare time: market and sell my work. So, rather than spend something like 12 hours watching webinars about stuff I already knew, I skipped around, sought out the answers I needed for each quiz, and got my 10 CECs in less than half the time. But shh, don’t tell anyone, I’m sure they’d have preferred that I played by the rules and watched it all.


9. When I was in high school, my sister Kate became friends with a foreign exchange student from Ukraine named Anna. She was this super cute blonde who enjoyed wearing denim overalls. I had such a big crush on her, but I was terrified to say anything. I was even more scared to tell my sister to see if maybe she could put in a good word. Don’t get me wrong, anytime I interacted with Anna, it was good. She was sweet and seemed to find me funny, which was a plus. The universe works in mysterious ways. The time seemed right to grow some guts and make a move. There was going to be a party coming up. She would be there, and I would go. Everything seemed to be falling into place. Then, out of nowhere, Anna was gone. It was like she vanished, but in reality, she had gone back to Ukraine. Now the stories I have heard can’t be verified. I had heard that something had happened to her father, or some member of her family back home, and she was forced to go back and essentially go into hiding. For me, what’s worse is that I learned after the fact that she did indeed like me. She thought I looked like one of the members of the group All-For-One. They did ‘I Swear.’ So not only did I not get the chance to say anything to Anna before she left, but she has been MIA since then. That was 1995. Every now and then, I try to search for her, but I get stuck. I am trying again now since it’s been 30 years. I found a mention of her in a newsletter about exchange students in the state of Massachusetts. The company, MATSOL, still exists. So I went to their website and emailed them to see if there might be any avenues I could go down to try to find Anna. It is highly likely to be a dead end, but you never know. I mean, I failed at finding my great-grandfather’s biological family for years, and then suddenly, new information was available, and it was a success. We’ll see.


10. Being the end of the year, it’s time for New Year’s Resolutions. In the past, I’ve had grandiose declarations of achievements I wanted to accomplish. There’s nothing wrong with setting the bar high. For 2026, I have a big goal, yet also one that is hard to define. I want to rediscover the best version of myself. What does that mean? I’m not totally sure. In all honesty, I haven’t felt like the best version of myself since probably 2019. Even then, I was battling alcohol problems and mourning the death of my hero, my Grampa. Giving such a broad and undefinable resolution might be seen as a cop out, and you might be right. How will I even know if I am the best version of my current self? Maybe it comes down to a feeling? For the most part, in my life currently, I feel unfulfilled and incomplete. I work nonstop on projects like books and podcasts because, in many ways, I am trying to prove my worth to the world. In reality, I think it will come down to the feeling of being happy and satisfied with where I am and, most of all, who I am. Will I achieve it? Who knows, but I’ll spend 2026 trying to find it.