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 #130: Familiar Scents, Wildfire Skies, Too Many Soups, etc.

1. A favorite recent pastime of mine is going to a park in the afternoon and sitting in my car to listen to a podcast. There is something about the sun, the scents of summer, and the people watching when combined with a good podcast that really sets my soul at ease. I spent so many good times riding around on my bike as a kid. There were certain scents that I remember from back then that instantly trigger good feelings. Don’t laugh, but two of them are dead pine needles and dirt. Yeah, that sounds like an idea for a terrible novelty body wash, but it’s true. The brown pine needles in the hot sun give off a scent that brings back the teenage boy in me. That combined with the smell of dirt, like after you’ve dug a hole or moved it around, it’s like it unlocks something inside. Hey, come on, I know that all of you have certain smells that trigger memories. Mine just happen to be part of the playbook of a typical 1980s boy. So when I am sitting at a park and can smell the pine needles, it’s an automatic release of endorphins. I’m not saying I want to buy an air freshener that smells like dead pine needles, but if someone gave me one for free, I wouldn’t throw it away.



2. I am a connoisseur of energy drinks, if that is a thing. Since college in the late 1990s, I’ve tried pretty much everything there is to try when it comes to energy drinks and pre-workout supplements. There have been some that I liked more than others. Many of those I liked ended up being discontinued or even banned due to their ingredients. Even now, in my late 40s, I will try most energy drinks. I was shocked this week when, of all people, my mother had a recommendation for a new energy drink. It’s from The Loaded Tea Shop. These are in powdered form with 200mg of green tea caffeine and a few other vitamins. My mom and sister enjoy the flavors; many have funny names like Frog Spit. I have had a couple of the powdered sticks and do enjoy them, but I will admit they are a bit pricey. If you click the link and go to their website, you will see that each stick, even when on sale, is $4. I guess my favorite energy drink is usually the cheapest one that is on sale. When I get one, they typically cost $2-2.50. If you go by the directions, each stick could be 2 servings of 16 ounces, so it’s possible it’s more affordable than I think. Anyway, I have enjoyed them and am linking to their site so you can try for yourself rather than just taking my word for it.


3. No matter how old I get, I still find and enjoy the beauty in the small things. Arriving for Monday Runday this week, I ended up being distracted. I spotted a greenish dragonfly landing on a branch nearby. Rather than go off to the track to start some exercise, I was fascinated by the insect. It seemed to be relaxing, so I was able to start getting photos and videos. No matter how much I filmed or how close I got to the dragonfly, it just sat there. Eventually, I had to get going, but first, I wanted an action video of the dragonfly flying. I was shooting a slow-motion video, which was beneficial. I slowly started moving my finger closer and closer until finally it flew off. I probably spent a few minutes hanging out with the dragonfly even though it felt much longer. Ironically, for as long as I hung around the dragonfly, I could have stayed longer. That is because once I got to the track, I was still the first one there. Then again, there was only so much room on my phone to video an insect sitting on a branch.




4. I have to start this off by saying cancer sucks. This week, I found out that a former patient at my work passed away from brain cancer a few weeks ago. Her name was Christine, and she would come in routinely with her husband, Doug. When they first came in, she was battling a brain tumor. I think she had already had one surgery to combat it. She used a pair of our therapies that promote healing at the cellular level. They are PEMF(pulsed electromagnetic field) and EWOT(exercise with oxygen therapy). When they would show up, I would drop what I was doing if I could to spend time chatting with them. She was so sweet and friendly even in the face of something so horrible. I don’t know how she did it. Coming in twice a week for several months, she got positive updates. Her brain tumor was shrinking, and we were so excited and hopeful that she would beat the cancer. Sadly, the last few times she came in, October of last year, I noticed something. She was not able to ride as far on the bike or take in as much of the 93% pure oxygen that makes up the therapy. Then all of her appointments were canceled as she prepared to fight the resurgent cancer. We wished her all the best, which was all we could do. This week we found out that she didn’t win the battle. She was only 68 years old. Rest in peace, Christine. My heartfelt condolences to Doug and the rest of her family. Oh, and most of all, fuck cancer.


5. It was eerie during the middle of this week when the sky went from sunny and very soupy, to a yellowy haze. It felt like a horror movie was starting. We had an air quality alert, which I thought was due to how hot and humid it was. It turned out to be at least partially due to smoke from Canadian wildfires. The smoke rolled in so quickly that the temperature dropped five degrees within minutes. Sadly, there were more than 800 wildfires across Canada, with many located just across the border north of Minnesota. I am sure by the time this blog goes up, that number will change, hopefully for the better. It feels as though this sort of thing occurs far too frequently now. There are typically a handful of days a year when smoke from some wildfire drifts down into New England. It makes for an interesting sky, but there’s nothing else good that comes from a wildfire.




6. Over the last 12 years, I have been privileged to do easily many dozens of author events based around various books I have written. It is never lost upon me that people, most of them total strangers, take time out of their days to come out and hear me speak. It is a humbling experience I will never take for granted. I have done multiple events at many libraries all over Cape Cod. It is increasingly rare for me to do an event at a place on Cape Cod that I have never been to before. This week I got to speak at the Snow Library in Orleans for the first time. It was a fun event with a beautiful setup. I am distantly related to Cape Cod’s Snow family, so it was fitting. In addition to the rows of chairs in the conference room, I was fascinated by a sort of balcony level of seats. There were two rows of fixed seats in the upstairs level of the conference room. I wish that it had been a busier event where people had to go and sit up there because I bet the visual would have been cool. Of course, I forgot to go upstairs to see the view from there. I am so grateful to everyone who came to the event at the Snow Library and hope to do it again at some point in the future.




7. In a sort of ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’ moment, I was out on the tidal flats this week during the time when the Canadian wildfires were impacting the skies over New England. I walked out to get some surreal photos of the red/orange sun over a boat resting on the sand. I brought my trusty selfie stick. It allowed me to get a few cool angles on the photos. I had to hurry to get to work, so I was walking back to my car across the sand. I guess I was a little too rough trying to get my phone out of the holder on the selfie stick. Not only did my phone come free, but so did the holder itself. Yes, I managed to break my selfie stick after taking some cool photos with it. But wait, longtime readers of this blog will remember that the same thing happened last June. So I have broken two of the same selfie sticks in 13 months. Now, the big question is, do I get the same stick again, which is convenient, affordable, but also apparently pretty fragile? Or do I spend a little more on something that claims to be sturdier? I say ‘claims’ because with my luck I’ll spend more money on a new selfie stick and probably break it when opening the box or something. We’ll see what happens.


8. Some things can’t be blamed on the runner’s high. I went for an afternoon run one day this week. It was a perfect afternoon with sunny skies and the temperature around 80. I had a great run, ending up putting in 5.5 miles in total. When I got back to where my car was parked, it was natural to think about what was for dinner. Luckily, it was a short walk across the parking lot to a supermarket. I was exhausted but walked over to grab a few things. I went to the self-checkout as I always do. While scanning, some pissed-off-looking Karen came up complaining that she couldn’t find containers of Parmesan cheese dust to shake. That idiot distracted me, and I didn’t notice that I had scanned my one can of soup five times. I had to call an employee over to start voiding my mistakes. Once he was done, he had no sooner walked away than I accidentally scanned the dang soup again. That made six times. He had to come back over, and I swore I wasn’t messing with him. He didn’t seem to care either way. I could blame it on the runner’s high or that entitled Karen, but I’ll just laugh and say it’s par for the course for me.


9. I’d like to think that I am not that hard to see when I am out for a walk or run. Yes, I like to dress in black a lot of the time, but I also am out during the day and not at night. So it comes down to a select few drivers who either shouldn’t have their licenses because they can’t see properly, or shouldn’t have them because they are dangerous and don’t care. I’d say it was the former during one incident this week. I was down a quiet road in a quiet neighborhood on a beautiful morning. Even on quiet roads, I run on the side, not in the middle, out of respect for other drivers. This red sedan goes by me, so close that if my left arm had been anywhere but by my side their mirror would have smacked me. They could have easily slowed down or maneuvered slightly to the left; there was plenty of room for both of us. But no, this car just kept right on going like I was invisible. I saw it was some old lady driving. Didn’t matter, I let her have it, yelling and swearing. Seriously, what if I hadn’t been hugging the side of the road? Would this old bag have just plowed into me? She stopped about five houses ahead of me. Rather than keep going so I could get up close and scream at her more, I decided to just let it go and turn around and run back the other way. The run and the scenery were too good to let some blind cotton ball ruin it.


10. This week saw the return of the new Cape Cod tradition, Big Nick’s Ride For the Fallen. It is in honor of Yarmouth resident Nicholas Xiarhos, who was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2009. The ride itself consists of well over 1,000 people on motorcycles traveling from the Massachusetts National Cemetery down into Yarmouth, where it ends. The wild part is that the procession goes right by where I live. It ends up being roughly ten straight minutes of revving engines going by. Every year, I plan on filming it, and every year, something comes up. This year, the plan was to set up my selfie stick tripod and shoot a cool time-lapse video. Of course, you know from a few entries back that my stick broke. I wasn’t going to stand there for at least ten minutes holding my phone, so I just watched from a window. It is a cool new tradition and one that has a lot of meaning and raises money for good causes. Some year, I will film it, but you can see it yourself at the link: Big Nick's Ride For the Fallen


11. I tend to type pretty fast and wild when I get into a groove. Luckily, with spell check and Grammarly, I can cover my tracks and not look too foolish with any mistakes I make. However, the problem comes when the word you misspell is actually another correctly spelled word. The one that keeps coming up for me is the word ‘core.’ Why? It happens when putting together notes for workouts I did with clients. There are a lot of people who I have do core rotations to strengthen their abs. Way more times than I’d like to admit, I rush to get my notes done and have misspelled ‘core’ as ‘crow.’ I have gone back through my notes and wondered what in the world is a crow twist? I know there is a crow pose in yoga, but none of my senior clients could do that. That one isn’t bad since only other office people would see it, and they really never check what I am doing in the gym. The one that is more embarrassing is misspelling my own name. I will text clients and preface it by saying who it is. ‘Hi X, it’s Chris from Mind Body Spine.’ Pretty simple, right? Except it’s not when I get caught between names way too often. I have typed Christ and sent it. Not Chris, not Christopher, but Christ. ‘Hi, this is Christ…’ Those I can’t get back. I haven’t had anyone say anything yet. One of these times, I should give some profound advice after. ‘Hi, this is Christ, the answer you seek will come after giving $500 to your trainer.’ That would never work, but if it did, yay, cash windfall!

Yay, windfall!

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #127: Monday Rainday, Business Cards, Relax or Else, etc.

1. Monday Runday was Monday Rainday this week. I will take a little rain over 85 and humid, though every day of the week. It was fitting, though, that after just over 3 miles of circling an old school track in varying intensities of rain, the water stopped. My legs were tired, so I had no plans to run to reach my desired 3 miles. I just had to walk faster and endure the rain. One thing I have been very happy with is the durability of my headphones. I have had the same pair of big red over-ear headphones for going on 8 years. I know that someday they will break and I will need a new pair, but that wasn’t the case on this day. The rain didn’t short them out, although I didn’t risk it, and when the rain got steadier, I took my headphones off and hid them in my shirt. Years ago, at my peak as a runner, I used to enjoy running in all sorts of inclement weather. I’d run in rain, wind, snow, whatever. I guess since I ran all of those races and ran in all of the different types of weather, I have lost the desire to do so again.


2. One day this week, I was training an 87-year-old client. She was brought by her daughter-in-law and also had her 7-year-old granddaughter in tow. I have known them over the years at my work, as the daughter-in-law is a patient at my work. The 7-year-old I have known since she was a toddler, and I give her free rein to come into the gym if I am training someone and she is there. On this day, she was just hanging out while I trained her grandmother. This was after she and I failed to find a rogue cricket that had been calling the gym home. Anyway, I was training her grandmother, and so she grabbed a dry-erase marker and started scribbling on our green dry-erase board. When she left, I saw what she wrote, and it was so sweet and cute that I decided to leave it up there. I won’t erase it, but there’s no guarantee it won’t be erased. The fun coincidence was that her other grandmother was a client of mine in the afternoon. She practically melted when I told her who wrote that sweet message. I won’t leave you in suspense. I did take a photo of it to share.




3. No matter how many speaking events I do for my books, I will always feel blessed and humbled. I am always happy that people, the vast majority total strangers, take time out of their day to come out and hear me speak. That’s why I do my best to make each and every event the best I can possibly do. This week I had an event at the Eldredge Library in Chatham. Despite it being a sunny, 80-degree day in early summer, there were close to 30 people who chose to come inside, sit, and hear me speak about my latest book. In Their Footsteps: The Interesting People, Places, and Events of Cape Cod History features 40 stories from the Cape, all in chronological order. It was a fun event, and I have a few more this summer. Come and see me on July 15th at 5pm at the Snow Library in Orleans, or on July 23rd at 6pm at the Dennis Public Library. They will both be great shows, I promise!

Coming up next!

4. This week marked the 250th episode of the In My Footsteps Podcast, which I have hosted since November 2020. It’s amazing to think that the idea I had once, my brain had cleared after giving up alcohol, would have such staying power. It began as a way to distract myself from the alcohol demons I was fighting off. It was just me talking about all of the subjects I enjoyed. Slowly, it morphed into my favorite thing I do. I actually love the research, planning, recording, and yikes, even the editing of these podcasts. A podcast is easily the best way to keep in contact with your audience. You can speak about anything you want, and I bet you’d find people interested. A lot of it comes down to time. Doing all of the work surrounding the podcast can be time-consuming. If you’ve ever thought of starting your own podcast, all you need is some sort of computer, recording software, a decent microphone, a topic, and the desire to create it. My show is now strictly GenX nostalgia, but that covers a ton of ground. It ends up being nearly anything that has occurred between 1960 and 2005. You can see why I believe that I can easily do another 250 episodes. If you’ve never listened, now is your chance to start. They are fun and breezy at around an hour each. Thank you to those who have listened, and here’s to the next 250 episodes!



5. What do you do with outdated business cards? In 2009, I created my first business card. It featured Chatham Lighthouse and simply described me as an author. This was despite not having any published books or even a blog. For some reason, probably because it was a better deal, I had something like 500 cards printed. They lasted me until 2017. By that time, I had 4 published books, so a change was needed. I bring cards to my speaking events because they are a way that people can possibly keep connected, even if they don’t buy a book. The most recent cards I had made were when I had 6 published books. I now have 10. I am currently in the process of designing new cards that I should have for my next event. The outdated cards are something else. Around the time I redesigned my author cards in 2017, I also created personal trainer cards. I thought I might be able to drum up business for in-home training if I had my own business cards to hand out. I might have had 100 made, and in the 9 years since, have probably handed out less than 20. That means I have a boatload of cards with a photo of me from 2014 promoting something I have no desire to do again currently, that being in-home training. Oh, but wait, there’s more. I also created cards for my podcast. Again, about 100 made. The problem is, since I printed those, I changed not only my podcast logo, but what the show is about in general. So those are even more useless than the training cards. Yay. I have something like 150 useless business cards. I might keep one of each and then send the rest through the shredder at work.


6. Family get-togethers used to be a regular occurrence when I was younger. Now they have become fewer and further apart. Despite having a pretty busy schedule for the most part, I try my best to make time if a family get-together is on the horizon. This week I was able to do so. I went to have dinner with my cousin Patrick, who was still on Cape Cod from Las Vegas. We were at our cousins Richard and Dale’s house. They are our 2nd cousins. It was a wonderful and worthwhile experience. The weather was perfect, so we all ate outside. I sometimes forget that Dale used to run a restaurant on Cape Cod decades ago and is an accomplished cook. She just casually whipped up a Bearnaise sauce, Greek salad with dressing, and fresh whipped cream like it was no big deal. I was tired from a busy day, but didn’t want the dinner to end. At this point in my life, I do realize that you never know when another family moment like that might happen. Even when the sun was starting to go down after 8pm, I stood out in the driveway with Patrick and just talked about anything we could. It was a battle between fatigue and genuinely wanting to stay and chat as long as my body would hold up. I am grateful for these moments today, when, as a kid, they were so common that I felt almost as if I could miss a handful and not miss a thing. Patrick says he might come back to Cape Cod next year, but you never know what happens, so I am glad we got a lot of chances to spend time together during this visit. If you are lucky, you end up with many family members that you would rearrange your day just to spend some time with. I am that type of lucky.




7. Every time I go into a certain local supermarket, if a specific employee is working there, they always say hi to me. Not ‘hi’ like they’re just going through the motions, but saying it like they know me. I see this guy who has to be maybe a few years older than me, going about his job, but nine times out of ten, if I pass by him, he stops and specifically says hello to me. He even occasionally asks how things are going. I am sure he is probably just friendly, and he does the same thing with other customers, but I don’t have any other employee at any other supermarket do that. Part of me wants to stop and ask if we know each other, but I doubt it. He never says my name or asks anything more specific that might make me think we have a history. Believe me, it’s not a bad thing. I’d much rather have someone go out of their way to say hi to me than the alternative. I could only imagine having someone shoot me a dirty look every time I was in their store.


8. When I was at my peak as a runner, probably 2015-2016, I used to run sometimes as much as 40 to 50 miles per week. I definitely had my share of aches, pains, and injuries, yet somehow I kept going year after year. Once I injured my right hip while training for a Top 10 finish in a 5K in 2018, things changed. The injuries tipped the scales, and slowly but surely, my running career faded. I kept trying, but it was an exercise in futility. A few years ago, I made a concerted effort to return to running races. I at least wanted to do one, even if my time was nowhere near what I used to be able to do. I competed in three races between 2024 and 2025. The last race I did, my time was something like 6 minutes better than I expected. My confidence was sky high. Only a few weeks later, I severely sprained my ankle and everything shut down. I haven’t run a race since and haven’t run much at all. In the last month or so, I started wondering if there was anything that I had done when I was at my peak as a runner that I might be able to add back into my life that might help me start running more. Two things came to mind. One was making BCAAs (branched-chain amino acids) part of my daily life. They help muscles recover from strenuous exercise. The other was adding more glucosamine to my supplement regimen. It helps with the lubrication of joints and overall joint health. When I was running 40+ miles a week, I took more than the recommended dose of glucosamine regularly, and my knees and hips always responded well. I figured it was worth a shot to try that again. It takes two weeks or so to get the full effect of any vitamin or supplement into your body, so I didn’t attempt anything before then. I have noticed in the time since I started taking 1.5x the recommended amount of glucosamine that my joints, specifically my knees, feel better than they have in quite a while. This came to a head this weekend when I went for a long walk. It was like my legs were craving running, so I gave in. It wasn’t like it used to be. There were no stretches of sub-7-minute miles. But I did end up running much more than I have in months. There were even points where I thought I should stop and walk, but my body was on autopilot like the old days. I just kept running and focusing on my stride. Only time will tell if this is a significant development in my running life or if it’s my brain tricking my body until something else breaks. Either way, it felt good to be running on a beautiful summer morning on Cape Cod again.


9. It’s amazing how a little dose of the old runner’s high can make a route I’ve gone down hundreds of times feel fresh and new. A favorite running route leads along a river to the beach. It’s through a historic village and is in total just over three miles from my front door to the ocean’s edge. When I was a competitive runner, I’d enjoy the route but be more focused on my pace. Now I can stop and take it all in at times. Little coves, flowers, loads of walkers and riders, historic homes, and ample beachfront views. I figured, why not create a little video of this route? You never know who might get inspired to check it out themselves. You can drive it if you want, but walking or cycling is better.




10. In recent weeks, I have started to try to make Sundays into a day when I don’t do anything major. I make it a day where I sit around and relax. No exercise, no content work, just mindlessly recharging my battery. It’s not that I’ve lost the desire to work hard on my content or enjoy some sort of exercise, but I have found that if I never relax, I feel like I am in a constant state of fatigue to start my new work week. My brain automatically goes to projects I should be working on. I admit I will do some minor work, like posting links to projects on social media. However, more involved things have to be put on the back burner at least for a day. There have been long stretches over the last 5 or so years where I have felt in a state of perpetual burnout. My energy levels crater, and I get agitated at that. A month or so ago, I decided to force myself to sit and relax all Sunday. I did this by binging several episodes of the Netflix series Dark. I felt for so long that if I wasn’t constantly working on something, I’d fall behind whatever imaginary metric there was to show my progress in creative fields. Now I have come to realize that if I don’t take at least a day to fully relax and recharge, it could lead to longer stretches where I just can’t keep that pace up physically or mentally. Not just for me but for anyone, make sure you take some time, some real time, to relax and recharge. It will do you a world of good.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #117: Used To Be Young, Price Update, Double Entendre, etc.

1. I try to remember that I was a kid once, and so was everyone else. I don’t want to become the old guy who is always suspicious of younger people. I say all this because this week, when it was time for Monday Runday, I had to put that to the test. I run with a longtime friend at a school track. The school has been closed for a few years and is likely to be torn down in the next few years, but the track is still in one piece. I pulled into the parking lot, and standing near the front door of the school were two teenage boys. They were just hanging out with their bikes. I did my best to remember I was a kid once, but I had my eye on them the entire time I was there. They stayed huddled by the front of the school for a good 45 minutes while I was on the track. They only left a few minutes before I got done. Of course, as far as I know, they didn’t do anything except hang out, but my old man eyes were fixed on them anytime they got in my line of sight.


2. There is an old 1990s song by a band named Everclear called ‘Everything to Everyone.’ The title has always stuck with me because I feel that is my lot in life. I’ve always hated to let people down. For too many years, I’d say yes to things that I wasn’t 100% into because I wanted to be liked. In some ways, it’s noble to want to have the ability to do whatever you can for others to help them. However, when you constantly try to please everyone, the one person who ends up being not pleased is you. In my 40s, I’ve done a lot more of saying no and setting boundaries. Not being a jerk, but when whatever it is doesn’t 100% jive with what’s in my heart and mind, I have to decline. There are obviously levels to people pleasing. Small things, I am still apt to say yes to, but my level of extension out of my safety and stability grows smaller with each passing year. I feel bad when I have to say no to people, especially loved ones, but I also feel like the things I’ve declined haven’t been unreasonable. I’m sure those who’ve asked feel differently, but you can’t please everyone, and you shouldn’t try.


3. I love Netflix. Ever since I signed up for it again last year, I have posted about the shows I have been enjoying all over this blog. That being said, they are, at the end of the day, a greedy corporation looking to squeeze every cent they can out of their subscribers. They know that they have loads of great shows and movies and that the more than 320 million worldwide subscribers will pay for their service, even as they continue to raise their rates. I had to laugh this week when I got an email from Netflix. In it, they mentioned their rates being raised. I have the lowest tier with ads, and it’s up to $8.99 per month, up from $7.99. The laughing part came from how they phrased it. They called it a ‘price update.’ Update? It’s not like a new Windows download or iPhone software. It’s a straight money grab. I’d have had more respect if they just said, ‘Here’s info about the latest price increase.’ It’s not like I’m going to cancel, but I had to laugh at how they frame their making more money off of us. Please don’t piss down our backs and tell us it’s raining, Netflix.


4. This week saw the first 70-degree days of the year on Cape Cod. After the terrible winter we had, it was an amazing feeling to step outside in short sleeves and feel the warmth of the sun. It was 70 degrees at 9am, which was perfect. Of course, the first 70-degree day was also a work day, so there was a tinge of sadness. I was driving to work and had to stop off at the beach. This is the time of year when it gets warm, but the humidity is still a way away. This is also the time of year when it gets warm, you can be outside, and the flocks of tourists aren’t here yet. I joked to myself as I walked along the sand that I must really like my job because I was choosing to go to work inside when the wide open beach was staring me in the face. The most ‘New England’ thing about the warm weather goes back to last week, and saying that we have 12 seasons here. Well, next week our highs drop back into the upper 40s for a few days because, of course, they do. I’ll just keep a heavy coat and maybe an ice scraper on hand for another few weeks just in case.


5. A couple of eye-opening things happened at work this week. Our new CA (chiropractic assistant) tech is learning a few therapies that she didn’t know of at her previous job. One that she’s learning is Myovision. It is a quick way to measure muscle tension in the spine. This, in turn, shows where muscles might be compensating. Things that typical X-rays don’t show. It is done at 3 areas along the spine. When my hip area was measured, it showed a major compensation on my left side, which made sense since a right hip injury several years ago ruined my running career. We tested again, and it was a little better. Then I was asked to take my shoes off and do a third test. To my amazement, the left hip compensation was gone. I was then curious about how much my shoes, and more specifically, my extra insoles in them, contributed to hip and knee issues that have been plaguing me. We moved on to the bilateral scales. I’ve mentioned them before, but in short, they are two scales side by side. You step on each with one foot, staring straight ahead. It then shows you which side bears more of your weight. Without shoes, I was nearly 10 pounds heavier on my right. My left knee has been an issue for the last week or so; it made sense. Then I stood with only the extra insoles under my feet, no shoes. It flipped, and I was nearly 10 pounds heavier on my left. With shoes, I was basically even. My mind was blown by how much those insoles negatively affected my legs. They were immediately thrown in the trash. I guess it was kind of lucky that we did the Myovision test, or else I might have kept doing damage to my legs with those insoles. Oh, and I also found out I am down 14 pounds in 2026, so it was even better news.

An example of the Myovision test results

6. This is the 4th year that I have helped my buddy Steve install and remove a dock in a lake at a couple’s summer house. It’s good money for relatively short work. Granted, it’s me on one end of each of the three dock pieces with two people on the other end, but that’s fine. I am the only one who doesn’t need to get into the water to put in or remove the dock. We install it in April and usually remove it in November. This year, the weather was great, low 60s and sunny when we arrived around 5:30pm. We installed the dock in 15-20 minutes, which included carrying each piece down two sets of stairs. I mention this because the next day at work, I trained a 13-year-old. I have found that if I do the workout with him, he stays engaged. This means I end up burning a fair amount of calories while being paid. What am I getting at? Well, at least for this time, I burned more calories training my 13-year-old than I did installing the dock. Not sure what that says about either situation, but I found it funny because you’d think the dock install would be harder work. Nope. Training a 13-year-old is.


7. A Not Safe For Work but hilarious story. When training any of my teenage clients, I never assume that they have absolutely no knowledge of fitness. Before showing them an exercise, I will ask them: ‘Do you know what...is?’ It could be bird dog, Bulgarian split-squat, pallof press, etc. Typically, they don’t know, so then I go on to explain while I demonstrate. This week I had a 19-year-old in the gym. As I said, I asked him if he was familiar with Exercises A, B, C, etc. Then we came to a bit of interval training to help him with his cardio. I asked him ‘Do you know what a snatch is?’ He did not. It is a legit exercise using a dumbbell or a kettlebell. But in my mind, I immediately thought of the 90s slang for, well, you know. Or maybe not? A female body part. Being 19, he wasn’t well-versed in my GenX slang, so it flew right by without a cross look. I thought that it sounded like the way some 1980s Afterschool Specials would start. Some kid coming home and telling his parents, ‘The teacher asked me what a snatch was today.’ The funniest part was that I told the story to a pair of coworkers. The one who is in her 40s, like me, immediately started cracking up. The other, who is in her early 20s, had no idea what was so funny. Then we had to explain it, which was another hilariously awkward conversation. Stupid exercise. I guess it could be worse; instead of it being called a snatch, it could have been named a cooch or some other slang term from my childhood.




8. I’ve had credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, supermarket rewards cards, Sub Club cards, and so many other random cards. Now I can add a laundromat card to the list. I’ve been doing my laundry at a laundromat for the last few months. No big deal. You go in, pay, wash, and leave. Sure, it’s more expensive than I remember, but what isn’t? This week, I went to do my laundry when I noticed two things. First, the cost of a load of laundry went up $1, which immediately sucks. Next, there was no slot to insert money into the washer. Suddenly, the man who owns the place came up and explained to me the card system. There is a touch screen where you enter cash, and it, in turn, puts that amount on your card. Then you place your card on a reader on the washing machine and hit start, and the washer starts up. You got all that? If not don’t worry, it is needlessly complicated, and I have no idea why a laundromat that looks like it still exists in 1985 needs a touch screen card system for their machines. That flippin’ card system is likely why we’re all getting charged more per load. It just makes me laugh because as this guy was explaining the new system, all I could hear in my head was ‘Why?’ The dude will probably be driving a Porsche in a few months thanks to the ‘new system.’

All that sweet laundromat card money...

9. Flattery will get you everywhere. This week at work, a patient was there who hadn’t been in over a year. She was sitting in the therapy room while I was standing at my desk. I said hello to her and asked how she had been. Then she won the day in my book by asking if I had lost a ton of weight. I haven’t lost ‘a ton,’ but as I mentioned earlier, I have dropped 14 pounds in 2026. But since she hasn’t seen me in over a year, it makes me wonder if I was even heavier the last time she saw me, and if I have dropped more weight? Not sure on that, but another day this week, my mother remarked that she could tell I’ve lost weight, so that means it is noticeable. Despite that good news, I feel like I’m about halfway to what I want to lose, so I’d say another 16 to get me to 30. First though, I’ll make the push for 20.


10. I mentioned in a blog months ago that I am so old now that visiting supermarkets, which I don’t go to often, is considered exciting. This was not the excitement I had in mind. I stopped at a supermarket, which I visit maybe once a year at most. I won’t name them because it is not a good story. I was looking to grab something quick for dinner on the way home from a video shoot. While walking the back wall, near the freezer section, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. It was something small and brown, and it was scurrying its way along the floor. Yes, it was a mouse, out in plain view in this store. Now, I’m not saying this is a reflection on their cleanliness because it could have just been a one-in-a-million moment. But I will say in my life, I have visited probably dozens of different supermarkets in a bunch of states. I have never, not once, seen a mouse ever, anywhere else. This was the first. So maybe it is a coincidence, maybe I have been around mice in other supermarkets and not seen them. Or maybe this place needs to hire an exterminator and be glad I didn’t whip out my phone and film it and then tag it online, because the mouse was visible long enough that I could have.


11. Although the weather has been the typical bipolar spring we get on Cape Cod, things are starting to bloom. I ventured to a church garden I like to go to for flower photos and videos. It’s not as great as it will be in a month or so, but the daffodils were starting to spring up. I had an idea to use my selfie stick to create a unique perspective. I would hold it low to the ground and navigate it through the field of daffodils from underneath. My experiment caught the attention of a woman and her two granddaughters. They were really nice and actually asked if they needed to be quiet. I laughed and said I had started taking photos at the other end of the garden so I wouldn’t bother them. I showed them my raw video and explained what I was doing. The two girls, who were probably 6 and 8, didn’t care much. After they left, I became obsessed with trying to get a video of an elusive chipmunk that kept coming close but then running away when it saw me. My solution? Set the camera on a tripod and stand as far away as I could, where the Bluetooth shutter would still work. I ended up with about 5 seconds of footage of it running to and from my camera, but now I want to try to get nature spy shots like that of more creatures. Knowing my luck though, a hawk will think my phone looks like food and swoop down and grab it.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #115: Sickness Jinx, Tax Fun, Hey I Know You, etc.

1. I have been pretty vocal about the fact that I haven’t gotten sick in close to two years. It might be minor, but I think it’s finally caught up to me. My coworker was out for a few days with the flu, and I was still feeling good and confident. Then my head started hurting, and my body felt weak and heavy. It wasn’t enough to keep me from working, but it was enough to make a few days feel pretty rough. I was lucky to not have any throat, stomach, or diarrhea issues. It was just the aches in the head and body. I don’t play, though, when it comes to being sick. I went to the store and grabbed Emergen-C for my immune system. Even if it’s a minor inconvenience compared to having the flu, I still hate being sick and will do the equivalent of dropping an anvil on an ant hill to feel better as fast as I can.


2. Some people either have no filter or don’t know how to read a room. At my job this week, I had one of the weirdest interactions yet. A woman came in to use our PEMF (pulsed electromagnetic field) mat. I put a link in there for you to look up what it is if you’re curious. Anyway, she’s lying on the table on top of the mat, and I begin to turn up the intensity. Unprompted, she remarks about a sign above my desk that says ‘Attempted Murder’ and is a picture of two crows. Because a group of crows is known as a ‘murder.’ That’s not the weird part. No, that came when she said, ‘every time I come in here and see that sign, I think of my three friends who were murdered.’ Like, wait, what? You had three friends get murdered? I don’t know why she brought that up to me. I don’t know her well and focused on getting the PEMF up and running and returning to work. How do you respond to that? It’s like, think of the most awkward thing you could possibly say to basically a total stranger. Hey, that sign there makes me think of my three friends who were murdered. Yay, thanks. I’m not taking the sign down, so you’re gonna have to close your eyes every time you come in.

The exact sign above my desk

3. There are few sounds more terrifying than the sounds of your pants tearing as you squat down. I was in the middle of training someone, and I demonstrated a squat, and I could feel something give way. The last thing I was going to do was immediately reach into my crotch to see if what I heard was real. I had to just hope my face didn’t give it away. Once I got home, I did in fact find a nice tear in my jogger pants. In fairness, I have had them for a few years, and I have worn and washed them a ton. I did get my money’s worth. But still, this is not like high school, where I’d wear my torn jeans until they basically floated away like dandelion spores. Nope, those joggers were into the trash, and I was off to Marshalls to find some new ones.


4. Something that was brought to my attention this week was a possible new side gig. Airbnb Experiences is where people offer services in areas where rentals are on the site. You know, like a wine tasting in Napa Valley, etc. Having seen how much interest my Cape Cod content has received, especially the lesser-known places, putting together some kind of experience-based content around that might work. I can’t take credit for the idea, which belongs to my friend and coworker Heather, whose husband, Aaron, recommended it to me. Now, before you go booking your Cape Cod escapes with me, there are a lot of steps between now and then. I need a name, an actual itinerary, pricing, figuring out logistics, and crafting a proposal for Airbnb. Maybe it happens. Maybe it doesn’t. People have suggested for years that I do some sort of Cape Cod tour focusing on the lesser-known places and connecting it to my 12th-generation lineage. It all comes down to time and money. If I put in all of the effort of putting this job together, and then it doesn’t pan out, who knows how much money I’ll have spent? Of course, I’m only in the early brainstorming stages, so there will likely not be any news for a few months.


5. I’m not famous by any stretch of the imagination. So when I get recognized in public for my work, it’s both thrilling and surprising. I was in a supermarket at night this week. I got to the self-checkout, and a woman came up to the next register. Out of the blue, she said, ‘I follow you on social media.’ She told me how much she enjoyed my Cape Cod videos, which I’ve been sharing on Instagram, and that she shared them with her son, who lives in another state. She was very nice and complimentary, and part of me didn’t know how to respond. Mostly, what I mean is I didn’t want to get too excited that someone followed and enjoyed my content. My happiness couldn’t be contained, though. I just thanked her and told her I appreciated her kind words. I think part of it is that I am naturally introverted, so I tend to not initiate conversations with strangers. The fact that she took that risk and approached me, I respected, and I did my best to be outgoing but not pompous or anything. Act like you’ve been there is the phrase. Can you tell I overthink things? Anyway, it was a great experience, and I am so grateful to anyone who takes the time to check out my videos, blogs, books, podcasts, etc. Thank you.


6. Finally, I got around to watching the fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie on Netflix. I had so many shows I needed to binge that I totally forgot I wanted to check it out. It was definitely a fun, nostalgic ride for me, who is a big fan of the first two films in the series. They even brought back basically everyone who they could to be in this film. There are a few new, younger characters to freshen it up, including Taylour Paige, who plays Axel’s estranged daughter. She plays Charlotte Hanlon, Will’s mother, in IT: Welcome To Derry. The famed Axel F theme song was all over the movie, and many other songs from the movies got sprinkled in. If you enjoy the classic 1980s Eddie Murphy, you’ll like the fourth Beverly Hills Cop film. Sadly, John Ashton, who played Taggert, died shortly after it was released, so the fifth film, which apparently is already in development, won’t see him in it. I’m doing my best to not spoil anything for anyone who is going to watch it, but just know I thoroughly enjoyed it.

7. There are few things I enjoy less than doing my taxes. When I was younger and actually got refunds, I was first in line, or online, to get them filed and to get that sweet refund money. Since Massachusetts made it a penalty to not have health insurance, I routinely have to pay state taxes. That, plus I get some money from my book sales. I have to laugh because health insurance is so damn expensive, and my job doesn’t offer it, so I choose to go without it. I’m sure it isn’t the best option, but when money is tight, you take the devil you know (paying a penalty) versus the devil you don’t (paying a monthly insurance premium). Anyway, I chose to leave TurboTax and to try Free Tax USA, mainly because I saved about $100 in costs to file my taxes. Luckily, besides my book royalties, my taxes are pretty simple, so I don’t worry about making mistakes. It’s literally just my one job W-2, and a couple of 1099s for writing, no real funny business. So there you go, if you haven’t filed your taxes yet, try Free Tax USA over Turbo Tax.


8. Now that I am doing way more in the world of content creation, my mind is always going to where I can stop and grab a few quick videos when I am driving somewhere. A benefit of having lived on Cape Cod most of my life is that I know pretty much any spot that might fit that bill. This weekend, while driving home from Market Basket (always a fun field trip), I stopped at the beloved Sandwich Boardwalk. The plan was to walk the entire length of the boardwalk and shoot it in 4K. I did that, but was not expecting the cuteness overload that happened twice. There was a family there trying to skip rocks in the marsh creek. It was mom, dad, a little boy, and a little girl. The little girl was maybe two years old at most, and she came literally toddling toward me on the boardwalk. She had one of those adorable knit hats with little round ears on the top. When she came up to me, she had the biggest smile and was waving. I asked her if it was cold at the beach, and she just smiled. On I went. When I was coming back, the family was heading in my direction, and again the little girl stared, smiled, and waved. I basically ignored the parents to make sure I said hi again to the little one. I do it because I enjoy little kids. I also imagine that at a young age, when they’re still forming views of people in general, I’d rather become a positive memory of theirs than some buried trauma that comes out in therapy in 30 years.

The end of the Sandwich Boardwalk

9. Easter is an interesting holiday. I don’t think I’ve gone to church on the holiday since I was a kid. For me, it was always all about the family celebration on the day. When we were little, way back in the 1980s, we’d have Easter egg hunts. These were always fun. My Nana’s house would see the eggs scattered around her yard. My sister Kate and cousin Ryane would have baskets, and I believe that we each either had a specific color egg we had to find, or they’d have our initials on them. Believe me, if it were just finders keepers, I’d have cleaned up. I remember one year, my Aunt Kelly and her then-husband Mark set up the most challenging egg hunt ever. There are photos of me scaling trees and crawling out onto branches to grab eggs. It was a different time back then. Just put the eggs anywhere, no matter how dangerous, we GenX kids were tough enough and didn’t care. However, when I think of Easter, the very first thing that comes to my mind is my Nana’s cheesy hash brown potatoes. She’d put them together every year, only on very special occasions. It began with one large pan of them when I was really young. As we kids grew up, and the popularity of those potatoes grew, it ended up being two monstrous pans. As my Nana got into her 80s, she commissioned my Uncle Bob to take over the recipe. It’s been at least 15 years since I’ve had those potatoes, but I can still see, smell, and taste them. It’s a childhood memory I hope I never lose.

Scaling the tree for an Easter egg

10. Food comas can sneak up on you. This year, for Easter at my mom’s, I filled up on pot roast and desserts slowly but steadily. I felt like things would be fine, and then suddenly my stomach was angry. All of the food was amazing, but I have a tendency to eat too much too fast on holidays. I had to fight to stay alert and engaged with everyone. Eventually, it got to be too much, and I had to say my goodbyes and head home. First of course, I had to stop at the beach in the rain to sit, relax, and enjoy a little time to myself. It wasn’t walking to the cranberry bog like we used to do after Easter at my Nana’s, but wandering along the beach as it rained had to do. I hope everyone who celebrates had a Happy Easter!

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #113: Wicked Insurance, Construction Woes, Avert Your Eyes, etc.

1. In an interesting turn of events, I briefly had two different auto insurance policies out for my car. I had my original one, which was through AAA. But AAA was switching to a different carrier. They sent me an email, probably a month ago, explaining the change on their end and what I had to do to keep current with the new policy. Around the same time, my original insurance company, the one AAA was leaving behind, emailed me separately to tell me how to keep up with their policy. I was busy at work that day and mistakenly thought they had been sent by AAA and that it was all one and the same. Nope. I got a call saying my AAA policy was going to be canceled because I was reupping with the original company. Now I was more confused. Luckily, I contacted AAA and was told that if I made a payment on their insurance policy, it would stay current. To further solve things, they called the other insurance company and got my first payment through them refunded. That means there was a period where my car was double-insured. I mean, I love my car, but it doesn’t need two insurance policies. All of this was more confusing than some football plays you see scribbled out on a chalkboard, if they still do that.


2. I can only speak for myself, but I feel like once the blizzard hit southern New England on February 22nd, it basically turned my winter blues up to 1,000. It only got worse when we had temperatures hit 60 and then dive back down to around freezing. I had enjoyed the weeks of cool ice content I got on Cape Cod, but once that had run its course, I was all in on winter ending. Instead, it was a piledriver of snow and then just enough warmth to remember how spring felt, and then wham right back to cold. Once I got the taste of spring weather, I put my heavy winter coat away for good. Even if it’s below freezing in the morning, I’m heading outside in my spring hoodie. Looking ahead, the first week of spring includes highs in the mid 30s a few times and at least one possible chance of snow. My energy level has been in the trash for the last several weeks. Hopefully, once spring really begins, I can shake off the winter blues that are beating the hell out of me currently.


3. I’ve wanted to be a writer, or do something in a creative field, since I was 8. If I told my younger self that someday he’d have published 10 books, done speaking events, radio interviews, been on television, hosted a podcast, acted in a film, co-produced a short film, and was getting set to produce a feature-length film based on something he’d written, he’d probably ask me how big my mansion was. This isn’t humble bragging because then reality sets in. Despite having on paper a pretty impressive portfolio, I still have to work a full-time day job just to pay my bills. Success can sometimes be subjective. I am lucky and blessed to have a roof over my head, a job that pays my bills, and the freedom and physical health to be able to still chase my dreams at this stage in my life. I’m sure that along the road of life, I missed exit signs that could have gotten me to what I would consider success sooner. You can’t live life looking backward, though. You have to keep moving forward. You have to keep sharing your gifts, sharing your creativity, and put together such a massive portfolio of content that your success becomes inevitable and undeniable. So yes, I have accomplished a lot in terms of creative endeavors, but I also have quite a ways to go to become successful. It keeps me focused.


4. A recent viral craze on social media is ‘X, what were you like in the 90s?’ People my age and older share photos and videos of themselves from back then. Loads of celebrities from the 90s are doing it as well as ordinary, everyday people. Of course, having a creative mind, I couldn’t just post a few photos. It needed to be unique. What I did was dress in an old flannel and a fedora and act like an old man while a narrator off-screen (also played by me) asked me what I was like in the 90s. It segues into a montage of photos with Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit playing. When the video comes back to me, the narrator makes sure to remind me that the 90s ended 27 years ago. This causes old man me to cry that he’s wrinkled like an old piece of fruit (a nod to Grampa Simpson) before collapsing on the ground. The best part was that I did this in an empty parking lot across from a museum. I had to wait to begin filming because a large group was getting ready to go into the museum, and I didn’t want to act all foolish for their amusement. Also, I lost the remote shutter for my tripod briefly, which was what I used to capture myself driving my car into the scene. I actually accidentally filmed myself frantically searching my car for it for a minute. It had fallen behind the front seat. Nice.




5. My first acting gig, Cape Cod Cthulhu, is now available to stream for free. It’s actually a pretty good turnaround. I shot my scenes basically one year ago to the day. It’s a feature-length film, roughly 75 minutes. The fact that it was shot, edited, released for sale on Blu-ray, and then put up for streaming, all within a calendar year, is impressive. Considering that I’ll be working with a lot of the same crew, it gives me hope that my feature-length film, The Cabin, which we’ll be shooting this August, will be released in plenty of time before my 50th birthday in November 2027. Of course, that project will be a lot more work for me since I’ll be producing and acting in it. In Cape Cod Cthulhu, a campy low-budget horror movie, I only had 3 scenes, so it was pretty simple. Obviously, I wouldn’t mention that you could stream the film and not put a link to it. Check it out, it’s a breezy, fun watch.

6. Where I live on Cape Cod, I am pretty much surrounded on all sides by seemingly never-ending construction projects. I have to choose my driving routes very carefully to avoid stops and detours. While those are annoying, the real issue comes from the terrible conditions of all of those same roads, plus many more. It’s nonstop pot holes, some a few feet wide and probably up to a foot deep. I bet the roads in most major cities are better than ours are currently. I have to bob and weave while driving just to avoid the parade of hazards on the roadways. I am actually begging for the day that a cop sees me weaving to avoid these holes and pulls me over. Then, when I ace their breathalyzer, I can inform them that I’m not going to ruin my car thanks to these crappy roads. Because if I blow tires or destroy my suspension, I guarantee that the town won’t be helping me pay the bill. So why the hell shouldn’t I try to avoid doing that at all costs? By the time the construction that’s going on is done, there will be fifty other projects starting in other areas nearby.


7. I didn’t start my Saturday thinking I’d end up with over 21,000 steps. I played basketball for the first time since the fall and then had a pair of long walks. Those things made up most of it. The steps didn’t take into account walking on sand, over rocks, and up and down hills. It was a marathon day that left me exhausted. Not too exhausted to go walk the flats and get some great sunset photos. A neat thing I found out is that my Fitbit buzzes not just at 10K steps, but every 10K steps. So when I hit 20K, it went off again. The last time I hit more than 20K steps was January 2024, so it’s been a while. I’d like to say it’s a sign of things to come, but we have to wait to see how my knees feel.


8. I tried to get away with something, and craziness ensued. At the supermarket, there were these great Oikos Flip yogurts, the ones with mix-ins, that had $1 off two of them coupons taped to each container. I grabbed two. When self-checking out, I used the coupon, and when trying to shove it in the coupon slot, I saw that the tape on it had gotten it stuck to the side. Figuring why not, I tried to use a 2nd coupon for the other yogurt. The register ended up alerting an employee. I quickly folded the coupon and tried putting it in the slot like I was destroying evidence. The employee came over, and I showed him the stuck coupon. He then said, ‘avert your eyes.’ I turned my head but noticed him whip out a box cutter to slice the coupon free. Just foolishness all around. Oh, but the register did accept the coupon in the end, so I ended up paying about $1 for both of the yogurts.


9. There truly are very few places on Cape Cod that I have not been to. When I find a place I haven’t been, or a different way to see a spot I am familiar with, I jump on them. One such place came up this week. There is a tiny dirt parking area in Orleans called Priscilla Beach. According to Google Maps, I should be able to walk along the shore from there and come out far north of the Nauset Beach parking lot. It was about ½ mile walk, sometimes over rocky and unstable ground. Once I walked out onto the beach, I was close to a mile north of the main parking lot. I had never been to the part of Nauset Beach, and then it got better. I crossed back over the dunes after walking about another ½ mile north. It was calm and quiet as I faced the Nauset Inlet. I had never been there either. I took a very slow walk back to my car, savoring every moment in a new place. What was meant to be a quick stop took 1 ½ hours, and I had to skip a few other places I was meaning to see, but it was all worth it.


10. One sight on my walk out to Nauset Beach was a hawk hovering above. It was in an updraft, floating and looking for something to eat in the shallow waters. Armed with my phone and selfie stick, I was able to get a high-quality video of the hawk using 4K 60fps quality. As I spun around, trying to keep the hawk in frame, I ended up staring right into the sun briefly. Luckily, I didn't fall over or anything. I did, however, spin around and come face to face with some guy wandering toward me from the beach. Maybe I had seen him but hadn’t paid any attention, but it was definitely creepy how he just appeared. He was interested in the hawk as well, although he thought it was a vulture. I wished him a good day and kept moving, making sure to put distance between us pretty quickly. Even though there were houses up on the bluff, they were 40-50 feet up and likely were unoccupied at this time of year. So if the guy decided he wanted to turn me into a skin suit, I’d have been in trouble.



11. The Red Maple Swamp trail in Eastham is worth checking out. The White Cedar Swamp trail in neighboring Wellfleet is much more well-known, but the Red Maple deserves some love. It’s a little under a mile and is a boardwalk over the swamp. At this time, though, a month out from the major blizzard we had on Cape Cod, there are still a good number of fallen trees. I had been walking for several minutes and remarked how there weren't any downed trees. Then it was like a switch flipped. There were a bunch of trees down, a few right across the path. I bumped into a younger couple at an intersection. There was a gigantic tree down. They offered to let me go first, but looking at the tree and not knowing how much effort it would take me to climb over it, I let them go first. I figured if I went first and flipped over onto my head, I’d go viral for the wrong reason. I did end up getting over the fallen tree; it did take a bit of effort, though, so I was glad I let the couple go ahead.