“Hey, Where’ve You Been?” One Reader Asked, So I’ll Answer That Question

Not that you care… unless you’re David Jastrow, then you care… but I’ve been busy of late. David took the time this week to ask how I’m doing. He noticed I haven't posted in a month and, with my recent health scare, was concerned that something bad had happened. 

I couldn’t be better, David. Thank you for asking.

Well, physically. Mentally, I'm probably experiencing the same fears as everyone else: I worry about life all the time, I overreact to just about everything, my mind wanders when I need to focus, I let people live rent-free in my head, and the list goes on. Additionally, I'm putting on a brave "everything is normal" game-face and wearing my heart on my sleeve, and there's no in-between.

While I've been out-of-sight, out-of-mind, it's been a two-way street, and I need to find a better way to stay in touch with people. It's a work in progress, and hopefully, some day, I'll get better at interpersonal relationships.

Meanwhile, here's a quick recap of where I've been, and why I haven't been posting as frequently as I'd like to:

The Work Front

The digital marketing team at ShelterLogic Group recently did a soft launch of its redesigned and restructured website. It’s a mobile-first ecommerce site, and it's designed to provide a better UX. It’s also designed for easier management by our lean, agile team.  

Anyone who has been involved in a project like this knows how exhausting the process can be. In my past work-lives, attempts to relaunch or re-platform sites have always been excruciating (Remember when the Multichannel Merchant website was down for an entire week... and, sadly, the switch on that replatform job was pulled on April Fools Day?), but this one - knock on wood - seems to have gone off without a hitch.

Was it challenging? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes. Did everyone on our team want to kill each other by the time we did the soft launch? Surprisingly, no! We play well in the sandbox together.

The Home Front

Weeknights have been filled with activities for my son: flag football, volleyball, the gym, and now track and field. 

Saturdays have been a day of either catching up on family time, (pretending to be) fixing things in the house, doing freelance work, and doing laundry. 

Sundays have been church, followed by grocery shopping for my mother-in-law, followed by visiting my mother-in-law and her full-time live-in helper, followed by a trip to Stew Leonard’s for our own groceries (and a pistachio froyo), followed by eating dinner with the family at home.

So, yeah, even though I work from home and I don't have a commute, it’s been busy, busy, busy! So busy that after a whole day of thinking, I’ve just wanted to shut the laptop down.

The Physical Health Front

I will “graduate” from Phase 2 Cardiac Rehab at Waterbury Hospital on April 19! I’ve been going three mornings a week (unless they were closed, and that one time I was sick) at the crack of dawn since mid-February, and have worked out for an hour while hooked up to a monitor.

Additionally, I have made much better choices with my diet about 90% of the time, and both my wife and my son have also reaped the healthy benefits. I’ve both seen and felt results, as I’ve dropped nearly 20 lbs. since I visited the cardiologist a week before Christmas. 

On Friday, I let the staff there know that I will not continue on to Phase 3 with them, as I joined a Planet Fitness closer to my home and have felt comfortable working out there so far. 

While I have some dumbbells and a treadmill at home, and some awesome places to walk in my spacious condo complex, the equipment there is better, and walking outside when it’s not between 60 and 76 degrees isn’t my cup of tea. So at $10 a month plus that annual fee that sneaks up on you, you can’t go wrong with Planet Fitness. 

When I broke the news today that I wouldn’t be continuing on to Phase 3, I was kinda surprised with the response. While they do not force you to attend Phase 3 with them, they do open it up as an option. I was told that they were going to recommend I join a gym instead, because I could get more out of a gym than I could if I continued with them.

That’s not to say that Cardiac Rehab is bad. In fact, I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to do it. When it comes to working out, I used to be a self-starter in my younger days. I really needed a jump-start on getting back into shape, and now that the healthy habit has been built, I’m all-in on continuing the early-morning workouts.

[NOTE: As I said back in January, if something doesn't feel right, it probably is not right, Don't try to be a hero and fight through it. Getting help can save your life.]

So, What Else Is Up?

Do you really want to know? I guess if you’ve come this far, then maybe you do. 

The early-morning workouts have caused me to go to sleep earlier than usual. And before going to bed, I’ve started several posts over the past month. There have been some that I’ve abandoned because I felt they needed complete rewrites, and others that I just straight-up never completed. 

Also, there are some posts that I’ve been afraid to post, thinking that maybe I was putting myself out there just a little too much, and maybe even insulting people in the process. 

So I’ve surfed the Internet a lot while I’ve watched network TV (even though I’ve got subscriptions to Prime Video, Hulu, Paramount+, Netflix, Disney+, and HBO+). While surfing the Web, I tinkered around with ChatGPT and Google Bard a bit, asked both a variety of questions, and even gave both some test assignments (like “Give me a 100 word history of Air Jordans” and “Tell me who I should embrace AI in 300 words or less.”). 

Coincidentally, one of the posts that I haven’t published yet has to do with AI, and how I don’t think it’ll put writers out of work. I was basically stuck on the conclusion (just like I am with this piece), and never went back to finish it up.

Also, for kicks, I was going to let Google Bard write a post for me, with full disclosure that it was an AI-generated piece of content. It may still happen, you never know!

Maybe I should let AI write a conclusion to this post...

And, Basically, That's About It

If you made it this far, congratulations! Please leave a Like, and say hello in the comments section. I'll do my best to get back on a schedule of posting relevant content soon.