Category: Monthly Updates

The Beastwood Files: May 2026

~ iambeastwood ~ Leave a comment

I survived my marathon, helped my son adhere hundreds of monster truck stickers to sheets of paper, took my mother to two doctor’s appointments, installed our window ACs, and wrote a few things here and there to boot. In other words, just another month here at Brian Eastwood Writes, LLC. (And I was named Employee of the Month AGAIN!)

Stuff I Wrote

Things I Did, Marathon Edition

  • Finish my 5th consecutive Vermont City Marathon (and 6th marathon since my won was born) within the two-minute time window of 3:24:31 to 3:26:31 (in this case, 3:26:23), which means I’m officially nothing if not consistent
  • Gather acceptable snacks to share with my son at the finish line, including slices of pizza, Nutri-Grain bars, and the all-important free underripe bananas that are the reason like 73% of marathon runners compete
  • Wear brand-new compression socks to recover from said marathon because I forgot to pack them and had to purchase a new pair the day before the race
  • Remember to pack everything else that mattered – including the cowbell than my son shook vigorously while in the hotel room but not (AFAIK) while outside cheering for runners

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • We completed / survived our first-ever Kid Race, which was a 1/2-mile loop in Burlington, Vermont’s lovely Waterfront Park. We also overcame our pre-race jitters, which were 100% attributable to the presence of mascots in unexpected proximity. We celebrated with pre-packaged trail mix and a sampling from a local ice cream truck.
  • We also experienced and enjoyed our first-ever roller coaster at a local fundraiser fair, though our favorite part very well may have been the fried dough. (Can’t argue with that.) We decided we didn’t like the teacups – and I learned I can’t handle the teacups as well as I used to – but did like the Ferris wheel (even if the waiting was the hardest part).
  • Yes, we heard the sonic boom from the meteorite that landed in the middle of Cape Cod Bay. No, we didn’t think anything of it at the time, especially as our neighbors are in the midst of a large renovation project and it hasn’t been uncommon to hear things get loudly dropped into a Dumpster.

Enjoy June and the beginning of summer. We’re gearing up for a pre-summer-vacation trip to Cape Cod , preschool graduation, and a trip to New Hampshire for the Fourth. We’re NOT going to New Hampshire in June because I told a story once about black files and now we’re convinced that’s when there are YUCKY BUGS in our neighbor to the north. I’m sure we’d have fun, as we talk about the YUCKY BUGS while laughing, but between Champy and the teacups, I’ve scarred my son enough for quite some time.

The Beastwood Files: April 2026

A panel on tough questions for healthcare marketers in 2026 at Swaay.Health LIVE
~ iambeastwood ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been able to take a bit of a breather over the last few weeks. The work schedule has lightened up (on purpose), the need to fill out and sign forms for kindergarten in the fall has abated (for now), and I’ve entered taper time for my spring marathon (which is Memorial Day weekend in Burlington, Vermont). I even had time to spend a day at Swaay.Health LIVE, catching up with old friends, learning a thing or two about healthcare IT marketing, and looking important sitting on a tall stool while moderating a panel.

Things I Wrote

Stuff I Did

  • Leave the house during the work week to attend a conference, which was such a big deal that I felt like mentioning it twice
  • Finish my darn eBook, which was also such a big deal that it warrants a second mention
  • Finally take a deep breath and schedule body work for our car after I was in a minor but embarrassing fender-bender in the preschool parking lot this winter
  • Help my son keep his secret about the Mother’s Day present he was making at school and the card he made
  • Continue to adhere the new household rule: Don’t get so much cereal that it doesn’t fit in the cupboard, Brian

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • We fulfilled a months-long dream and went to Monster Jam the day before Mother’s Day. We admittedly had more fun at the pre-show pit party (when you get to look at the trucks and meet the drivers) than during the show (when it’s loud and there’s a decent chance the trucks may flip over). We decided we prefer looking at pictures of monster trucks doing tricks in books than seeing them in person – though we do like stadium snacks.
  • Luckily, our monster-truck themed birthday party the prior week was much more successful. I made multiple large cardboard ramps for toy trucks to run down, and my wife and son worked together on crafts and decorations. Special thanks to Costco, Chewy, and especially REI for supplying our home with large boxes – the latter with a long, thin ski box that was just the right size for a single truck. Also, no one got scared when the toy trucks flipped over.
  • One of our birthday presents was a Big Boy Bike with pedals and no training wheels. Our first ride was quite successful until we bumped into a bridge at a park. I then explained to my son that Daddy did the exact same thing when he was leaning to ride a bicycle, only he was in his 30s and it therefore hurt a lot more. (I didn’t show him the scar.)

I hope everyone had a happy Mother’s Day. Ours was rather relaxing, which was entirely the point. I think our son was old enough to understand that’s what it’s all about. We’ll see if Father’s Day proceeds the same way…

The Beastwood Files: March(ish) 2026

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Coming to you on a Wednesday evening halfway through the month because I did the thing freelancers like to do where they take on too many assignments at a time – which, if it wasn’t bad enough, was made worse by the fact that I did this at the same time as 1) tax season and 2) try-to-figure-out-after-school-care-for-your-soon-to-be-kindergartner season. At least no one in the house was sick.

Stuff I Wrote

Things I Did

  • Celebrate Pi Day with some close friends, approximately one pie per person, and a rule that anyone in attendance was required to take home leftovers
  • Bake Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, a classic winter holiday staple, on the approximate Spring Equinox
  • Leave the shovel and rock salt on the front porch – because we all know the day they go in the basement is the day there’s a thoroughly unexpected snowstorm
  • Fail to take advantage of day-after-Easter candy sales (which frankly may have been for the better, as we still have Dark Chocolate Cadbury Mini Eggs, which are the better kind)

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • We revisited a past Pi Day tradition and made a Pie Shop from a gigantic Costco-sized box of paper towels, from which we dispensed dessert pies as well as pizza and seltzer (while supplies lasted). Why I neglected to take a picture of that and instead am tempting you with a poorly rotated, out-of-focus picture of cookies is something I’ll never be able to fully explain.
  • We made our first trip to the LEGO Discovery Center, and it went about as well as we could have hoped. If not for the next day’s visit from the Easter Bunny, we might even still be playing with the LEGO Delivery Van we got from the gift shop.
  • Speaking of the Easter Bunny … along with dutifully leaving some carrots for him to munch on, we pleaded with him to talk to his “friends” about not eating everything in our garden, please. This may come as a shock, but it didn’t work.
  • I made the mistake of telling my son that I occasionally spell my name wrong when I sign an email. Now, every once in a while, to crack himself up, he’ll just randomly blurt out, “Thanks, Brain!”

Happy spring. May the bunnies leave your garden alone. In addition, may your preferred baseball team remember how to hit the ball, which my team seems to have forgotten.

The Beastwood Files: February(ish) 2026

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The person in charge of maintaining my work schedule (me) gave me too many longform assignments in late February and early March, while the person in charge of maintaining my running schedule (also me) insisted I remain on track for my marathon on Memorial Day weekend, so (in what is beginning to be a recurring pattern) this post is appearing during the second week of the month.

Stuff I Wrote

Things I Did

  • Succeeded in getting my mother’s taxes done at the Senior Center in town (thanks, AARP volunteers!)
  • Went out of my way to participate in a social event (the annual party for the running club I recently joined)
  • Made Snow Mountain in the front yard amid two significant storms with “help” from my young assistant
  • Introduced my son to the concept of false spring during a 75-degree day in early March

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • A recent obsession with couch-cushion forts evolved into destroying said forts. It was determined that the dinosaurs living in the neighborhood should be made aware of the demolition schedule and potential for loud noises. “Be a news reporter,” my son said to me, not realizing just how prepared I would be for the moment. (Lest you think I’m a trombone player in my spare time, I’ve probably worn that fedora a half dozen times since buying it on our honeymoon in 2019 after failing to pack a hat for part of our trip.)
  • We all went cross country skiing for the first time (at Great Brook in Carlisle). My son took off on us as soon as he was strapped into his skis – which was great, except that neither of us were quite ready to chase him. (Not a bad problem to have, mind you.) We only went once this winter, but I’m pretty sure we’ll want to go again.
  • We spent quite a bit of time watching the Olympics, in part because it was 15 degrees out the first weekend of the Games. Our favorite sports were biathlon, bobsled, and ski mountaineering. I did not subject my family to watching the 50-kilometer cross country ski races in their entirety. We also really, really got into the ads.

Happy early Pi Day, which is one of the most important days of the year in the Beastwood household (because of pie, not math).

The Beastwood Files: January(ish) 2026

A makeshift computer my son made using a box from a Costco delivery.
~ iambeastwood ~ 1 Comment

The beginning of the year was, um, well, it was something, wasn’t it? I found it hard to be productive at times between the state of our nation, the pile of snow outside, the hole that has opened up in my schedule now that a retainer agreement is up, and the post-nasal drip that comes every winter but is still a heck of a lot better than the flu or COVID. (And this is despite my “assistant” building himself a “computer” to “do work” – complete with a “power source” he has the good sense to “unplug” when he’s all done, likely making the IT help desk veterans in my audience swoon.)

Stuff I Wrote

Things I Did

  • Succeeded in only having one coffee per day – and only occasionally hurting the tum-tum with too much black tea in the afternoon
  • Rediscovered salad kits as a good option for Busy Parents on the Go or Otherwise Unable to Locate Vegetables in the Refrigerator They Aren’t Already Sick of Eating
  • Failed miserably to put out a newsletter – though let’s be honest, 90% of it would have been the AI stories you already read
  • Learn what is a fatberg thanks to a children’s book about urban infrastructure
  • Read a book about Groundhog Day roughly eight times in the span of a week

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • During last month’s snow day – certainly justified, as we got close to two feet of snow – I found myself uttering the phrase, “If you want to interrupt Mommy’s meeting, she said it’s OK, but you need to put pants on.”
  • Also during said snow day, during my third trip outside to shovel, my son decided that we should have one big pile of snow next to our front walkway instead of two smaller piles. As a result, I dutifully spent an hour moving shovels full of snow approximately two feet to make Snow Mountain, which my son ascended and descended many times before it got too dark to keep playing.
  • We have discovered the Winters Olympics. Our favorite events so far are ski jump, ski and snowboard cross (with multiple simultaneous competitors), and biathlon (especially odd because we’ve never bene on skis and have never seen a rifle). We’ve also regaled our son with tales of how hard it was to watch Back In Our Day, when you were beholden to whatever NBC was willing to show you. This further reinforces my son’s proclamation at his self-determined conclusion of soccer (that is, not even halfway through the season): “I like watching sports more than playing sports.”

Happy rest of February. In case you’re wondering, People Who Prefer Summer: Yes, even though it’s very cold, I still prefer this to 85 degrees and humid, because in this weather I can bend over and tie my shoes without breaking into a sweat.

The Beastwood Files: December 2025

Mug that says "Brian Eastwood Writes" and has a cool logo that my wife designed for me
~ iambeastwood ~ Leave a comment

Are you back to work? Do you know what day it is? Does time even exist as a concept? I’m hitting the ground running in January, bearing in mind that most of my running is actually at an easy, conversational pace and followed by a nice snack and maybe some hot tea.

Stuff I Wrote

Things I Did, Christmas Edition

  • Left a trail of pine needles from the living room down the stairs and to the curb after failing to learn for like the 12th consecutive year that a Christmas tree acquired in late November is effectively dead well before New Year’s
  • Assembled lots of LEGO ay my son’s behest
  • Drank tea from a swanky mug with a logo my wife designed (she also made business cards and a T-shirt, which I’ll show off when it’s not so damn cold)
  • Gave my wife a nice stapler, which prompted her to say, “Go look for the gold gift bag,” which contained … a nice stapler that she’d gotten for me (Kids, getting old is so much fun, isn’t it?)
  • Signed up, once again, for the Vermont City Marathon in Burlington over Memorial Day weekend

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • I had a Proud Dad moment when, amid one of approximately 1,234 random conversations over the holiday break, my son described how turning off a toy and then turning it back on is a good way to get it to start working again. Kid, you now know how to solve 75% of IT Help Desk issues!
  • Amid a few of the approximately 1,234 random conversations, I introduced a topic called Real Talk With Daddy, which is when I address important issues in our lives. One was having sweaty feet. Another was the pros and cons of Diet Coke and coffee as sources of caffeine, especially relative to short-term impact on the digestive tract. A third was the quality of English food. Open to suggestions for further discussion points.
  • Like many parents, we spent a good chunk of the holiday break answering the question “What are we doing next?” on days we’d made it clear we had no interest in actually leaving the house. In jest, I repeatedly suggested that we alphabetize our socks. On New Year’s Day, my son called my bluff and said it was time to go upstairs and do it. (In case you’re wondering: You organize my color, then put the colors in alphabetical order.) We did NOT do this with Daddy’s socks, as they are either boring black and boring white, with maybe a couple navy blue for good measure.

Happy January. I’ve resolved to drink less coffee, use my downtime more thoughtfully, better focus on cross training, publish two eBooks (one being the patient engagement one I really should’ve finished last year), be more thoughtful about one-off projects, and continue to get rid of stuff I don’t need. Nothing is earth-shattering, but collectively I hope they will make for a better year. Well, that and more tea.

The Beastwood Files: November 2025

A very odd gingerbread house
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Coming to you at that lovely time of year when companies are either already hibernating until January or scrambling to finish things before Santa arrives. Meanwhile, I’m trying to operate somewhere in between – keeping busy yet attempting to shut things down roughly one week before Christmas. In that spirit, I’m writing this while wolfing down a sandwich at my desk

Stuff I Wrote

Stuff I Did

  • Spend a good chunk of the first week of November napping thanks to some viral thing that wasn’t serious enough to warrant taking time off but was nonetheless enough to make it hard to look at the ol’ computer screen for too long
  • Listened to my first holiday song of the season – Christmas Eve / Sarajevo from the Trans Siberian Orchestra, of course
  • Somehow – SOMEHOW – listened to The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald for the first time
  • Cooked a 12-pound turkey for seven people, two of whom didn’t eat any (one for dietary reasons, one because he’s a very picky 4-year-old), which left plenty for turkey soup (which is really what I’m here for, let’s be honest)
  • Bought a Christmas tree and immediately decorated it, because said 4-year-old is also not the best at waiting
  • Entered the season of “do the tires *really* need air, or is it just that the temperature dropped?”

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • We continued our annual tradition of making gingerbread houses. I fulfilled my patriarchal duties of taste-testing the candy. My son managed to decorate his house all by himself, coming up with his own ideas and drawing inspiration from Mommy as well as our friend who joined us for the evening. For some reason, my contribution – pictured here – didn’t inspire him. I don’t understand why.
  • After largely ignoring our balance bike for the better part of two years, we randomly decided to try it out again. We got the hang of it but also seemed a bit frustrated as to why we had to ride on quiet paths and not one of the most well-trafficked rail trails in the nation.
  • We’ve started to play a game where, when Daddy leans forward in his seat, we sneak behind him and yell, “Squish me!” I respond to this by saying, “Son, the first thing they told us in all the First-Time Parent classes was that you shouldn’t squish your baby.” I now use this to explain other, not-fun things that I do – e.g., “Another thing they told me in First-Time Parent class is that you have to make sure your kid wears socks.”
  • We have discovered the Magic School Bus. This is great, except that we’re ALL IN like a poker player who just wants to leave the table. We’ve checked close to 20 out of the library – apologies to anyone in Eastern Massachusetts who hasn’t been able to put them on hold – and read them I’d say an average of five times apiece. I’ve gone hoarse more than once.

Happy holidays, everyone! May you get exactly what you wish out of the season. Talk to you in 2026.

The Beastwood Files: October 2025

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Writing this one amid recovery from my first colonoscopy. As a few people told me, the prep was the most difficult part – in particular, trying to function without eating for close to 30 hours. I don’t know how people do this routinely. (I was ready to fight someone for a sandwich within seven hours of fasting, but it wouldn’t have been a very good fight because I had no energy.) All the more reason to 1) make less invasive options for cancer screening more readily available and 2) make sure people get the food they need.

Stuff I Wrote

Stuff I Did

  • Got my COVID and flu vaccines
  • Ran the BayState Marathon in 3:24:31 – the fifth marathon I’ve done since the spring of 2022 within a 2-minute range around 3:25, which if nothing else apparently means I’m consistent
  • Finally finished reading Barbara Tuchman’s The Proud Tower, which I started roughly a year ago
  • Started wearing a hat and gloves outside in the morning, which I’ll likely be doing until mid-April
  • Decorated several pumpkins, none of which stayed on our stoop for more than 48 hours because there are hungry rats in our neighborhood
  • Dressed as a car for Halloween to complement my son the crossing guard and my wife the crosswalk

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • The current phrase of the moment is A December to Remember. I initially said this in jest while fruitfully listing the months of the year, as I have no intention of ever buying my wife a Lexus for Christmas (nor does she), but it has since prompted serious conversations about what is and is not practical to give to someone as a holiday gift.
  • We have resumed the annual cool weather tradition of Family Star Pants, which is when we all wear navy blue pajama pants with white stars. (They’re from Primary; I’d add a link, but they don’t sell these specific pants any more). In an added wrinkle, I was asked to wear them to preschool drop-off. We walked. Did I mention these pants have no pockets?
  • We made it around the block for trick-or-treating. We’re still young enough to only pick one treat per house – and at half the houses, he picked either toys or candy that he knows other members of the family like. (Papa, for example, likes Peanut M&M’s.)
  • I made a group of tweens very happy on Halloween night at about 7:30 when I said, “I need your help. It’s time to put my kid to bed, and I want to turn off the porch light. Can you please just take the rest of the candy out of this bowl for me?”

The Beastwood Files: September 2025

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September was about puttin’ the nose to the ol’ grindstone after four weeks of being off more than I was on. I also intentionally worked half days every Monday last month, mostly to ensure I’d have time for my long runs and partly to help ease my way into the work week. (Garfield was right; no one likes Mondays.) Anyway, I have no lovely bylines to share, though I promise I was, in fact, working.

Also … as you may or may not have seen, I decided to start a monthly news roundup. The first post should go live in mid-October. As a result, I’ve decided to switch from Stuff I Read (which will be covered in said newsletter) to Stuff I Did. Is it as exciting? Probably not. Does it matter? Definitely not.

Stuff I Wrote

  • Custom content for clients in digital health, healthcare data management, enterprise resource planning, and more

Stuff I Did

  • I’m running the BayState Marathon in a couple weeks, so I devoted a good chunk of my non-working and non-catering-to-every-need-of-a-preschooler time to getting through the most important part of the training cycle. Now it’s taper time, which is when marathon runners rest their bodies and do their best to avoid every germ their children bring home from school.
  • I started writing to voters in California through Vote Forward. I did a lot of letter-writing while watching playoff baseball, because these days even when the Red Sox are playing I still have brain space left to do other things.
  • We have already done most of the stereotypical Fall New England Things: Go apple picking, buy several pumpkins, and run the heat and the air conditioning on the same day. (This is equal parts because of the weather and the insulation limitations of a 100-year-old house.) My wife had a pumpkin spice latte. I’ll break out the flannel soon enough.

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • Speaking of the Red Sox, my son and I went to our first game at Fenway Park back in August. It was roughly 90 degrees, and we lasted an hour. Highlights included the bus ride (we’re lucky enough to not need to take the very crowded Green Line), seeing Wally the Green Monster, and going to Ben & Jerry’s on Brookline Avenue once we decided we were too hot for the ballpark.
  • The other day, afternoon snack at school was pretzels, which my son doesn’t like. But instead of rejecting it, he asked to save it for me, since he knows I like pretzels. Kids, amirite?
  • I’ve been able to apply an important lesson in parenting to working with clients. Whenever my son is asking me to get him some milk and also read him a book and oh by the way throw away a soggy tissue, I tell him, “Daddy can only do one thing at a time.” This has helped me make sure I set priorities at work, too.

Happy fall. Happy Halloween. Happy conference season to my health IT friends. Until next time.

The Beastwood Files: August 2025

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Summer vacation is officially over. The Beastwoods have returned from a week in Portland, Maine and Acadia National Park, which came just a few days after our inaugural camping trip that wasn’t in Granny and Papa’s backyard. Both trips were indeed a success. Kiddo’s back in school and Mom and Dad are back to work. The cat, meanwhile, celebrated her 17th birthday with quite possibly the best gift we could have given her: A quiet, empty house.

Stuff I Wrote

Things I Read

I neglected to bring a book on vacation, assuming incorrectly I’d not have the energy to read after bedtime. As my wife likes to say, “We all make choices.” Instead, I treated myself to a few Wikipedia rabbit holes. What did I learn?

  • The northernmost point in Maine, Estcourt Station, is basically a sliver of a town in Quebec that was cut off when the international boundary was properly surveyed. The border crossing closes at 5 p.m. on Friday; after that, if you want to go to the “other” side of town before Monday morning, you apparently need to drive on hundreds of miles of gravel logging roads through the North Maine Woods. Plan accordingly.
  • Acadia is on Mount Desert Island, which is the second-largest island on the Eastern seaboard (to Long Island). It’s just a big bigger than Martha’s Vineyard, which is in Dukes County, Massachusetts. The county includes the Elizabeth Islands – most of which are owned by the Forbes family.
  • The largest park in the Lower 48 is actually a state park, Adirondack Park in upstate New York. It apparently has more than 100 villages inside it, as more than half the park is actually private owned. Most villages lack cellphone coverage. (The park’s actually held up as a good example of public-private partnership for the sake of conservation.)

Adventures in Fatherhood

  • To answer a question I posed on LinkedIn, I believe we have determined that Vermont (Ben & Jerry’s) has the best ice cream in Northern New England – or at least the most recognizable. That said, we did find a Friendly’s in South Portland. Everyone in the family enjoyed the nostalgia, though my son was a bit confused about why his sundae had a face.
  • Every once in a while, I talk to my son about Very Dad Things to Do. One is turning off all the lights before we leave the house. Another is telling a Dad Story, which is a lot like a Dad Joke in the sense that it’s not very interesting. On this vacation, the Very Dad Thing to Do to which I introduced my son was getting a giant wad of napkins from McDonald’s, putting them in the glove compartment of the car, and then forgetting all about them.
  • If you’re ever in Waterville, Maine, and it’s not Monday or Tuesday, stop by the Children’s Discovery Museum. I only learned of its existence while perusing Google Maps from the aforementioned nearby McDonald’s during our 10:15 lunch stop, and we ended up spending two and a half hours there. Highlights included the “pizza oven,” the “rooftop garden,” and the $2 globe stress ball that we may or may not have misplaced since we got home.