Archives 2026

The last two years has been a political circus that has reached levels unheard of before in history. It all revolves the magic con-man/cult leader Donny Trump. If you attempted to list all of ridiculous/insane/criminal/embarrassing acts that have happened since he took office 2 years ago you would have a full length novel in no time.

With as terrible as his first four years were you would think the bar could not have been set much lower. Big D somehow managed to bring that bar into subterranean levels. In case I haven’t been clear, I think he is an awful human being and the fact that he somehow got elected by this country not once but twice is a testament to just how f’d up our society is.

I don’t care that he is a republican, I care that he is a terrible person who preys upon the darkest parts of human beings, fear, greed and anger. He lies with reckless abandon, confident that his followers will swallow and believe every word of it like a baby bird eating a worm from it’s mother. It’s crazy to see this type of blind loyalty in individuals in 2026. I remember thinking at one point of my life that human beings have evolved to the point where maniacal leaders could no longer control minds through propaganda. Wow, was I wrong.

So anyway here we are at the mid-term elections, an opportunity to neuter Trump’s ability to do even more damage, at least somewhat, over his last two years. There are so many members of congress who behind closed doors will admit they think Trump is a mess but publicly they are forced to toe the line else feel the wrath of the extremely stable genius. They are loyal via fear not because they are acting on behalf of their constituents.

Of course the root cause of the disaster which has been the American political system was the Supreme Court Citizens United ruling in 2010. This allowed a constant and unlimited stream of money to be funneled by corporations to support candidates that were willing to carry out their agendas. This IMO was the worst ruling the court has ever made. Individuals are limited in the amount they can donate to a candidate because we didn’t want wealthy individuals to have undue influence. Why does that not apply to Super PACS? It makes absolutely no sense and is the biggest reason that we are in the boat that we are in today. Until Citizens United is overturned/eliminated this country is destined to keep sliding down the hill towards absolute chaos. Will it ever happen? I doubt it because the money that controls everything doesn’t want it to.

I know there has been erosion in Trump loyalists, the people that woke up to the reality that almost every promise that was made by Big D was a lie. I commend them for doing so. It isn’t an easy or pleasant thing to admit you were fooled by somebody. Trump basically wants people to believe it’s raining while he pisses on their back. He asks people to not believe the news, not believe their bank accounts, not believe their very own eyes as to what is going on in the country and the world. Some do exactly that but hopefully a large enough portion of the population have awakened from their trance to allow us to vote out some of the cowards that have supported this terrible leader.

I have been waiting for the concept of accountability and consequences to be applied to the executive branch of government for a very long time. Perhaps this can be the start of it. Please vote.

I had my first live stream in a month on Friday night. I started early and kept it to two hours because of the pickleball tournament on Saturday. The stream was not really announced in advance so turnout was light.

The tournament on Saturday overall was a disappointment. We finished 4-1 in our pool and made the playoffs but then lost both of the playoff games to finish 4-3 for the day. The first playoff loss was against a team that was blatantly sand bagging, the second loss for the bronze medal was against a mixed team that we should have beaten. As is usually the case, unforced errors were the biggest issue. I don’t mind losing a point when the other team hits a good shot but when the point is lost just because you didn’t execute a pretty basic skill it frustrates me.

I have gotten better over the years at not getting as pissed off as I used to when I make a mistake. I know that carrying that mistake over to the next play makes more mistakes probable so I try to flush errors out of my mind but it still affects me more than I would like. I didn’t walk away from the tournament with a great feeling, knowing the outcome could have been better. The biggest positive was although my knees were somewhat sore, overall I came out of the tournament physically in much better shape than the last time. I was ok enough to do a 7 mile bike ride yesterday morning.

Saturday night we went to see Street Fighter, a movie based on the very popular fighting game that I played a bunch of in my younger days. It was corny and silly in many ways but I still found it entertaining. My girlfriend liked it too despite knowing zero about the video game. I’d give it a B. They did a good job of bringing elements of the game into the movie.

My Sunday for the second week in a row was pretty low key. Besides the bike ride I just took care of tasks around the house. I got to wrap up my weekend by watching the Eagles once again shit the bed, losing 27-10 to the Redskins who had one win coming into the game. The team is lost, they are ineffective in all aspects of the game. The special teams gave up big kick and punt returns and then after making a 36 yard field goal the points were taken off the board after a 5 yard penalty and a re-kick that hit the post.

The offense scored 10 points in the first quarter and nothing the rest of the game. Tanner McKee is a pocket passer with very limited mobility. He also doesn’t seem to be very good stepping up into the pocket as edge rushers collapse. But to be fair the offensive line is awful too. Number 72 who is something like 6’9″ and 340 pounds was being run over all game. The Redskins were blitzing all game and the Eagles were defenseless. It was hard to watch. Saquon Barkley is trying to play but you can tell his injuries are slowing him down and the O-line sucks at run blocking as well.

The defense was better than last week but overall still were bad, allowing the Redskins to run and pass effectively most of the game. Giving up 27 unanswered points is a pretty good indicator of where this team is at, lost. Siriani looked like a he had nothing in his eyes on the sideline. He looked clueless and low energy. In his post game interview he came off as a defeated man. The Eagles have a bye week coming up. I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of activity before the trade deadline as it has become pretty clear that the 2026 version of the Eagles is not going anywhere.

I was saddened to see that Patrick Stewart died. He was best known for his role as Captain Picard in Star Trek Next Generation. IMO he was the best captain of any Star Trek series. He also played Professor X in the X-men movies, another favorite of mine. I was surprised to hear he died of Alzheimers and “lewy body dementia”. He has a role in the yet to be released Avengers Doomsday. If he did so while also suffering from stages of alzheimers that would be crazy. He was 86 years old. I’ll miss him.

Tomorrow I am throwing my hat back into the pickleball tournament ring. This comes after getting more or less smoked in the last tournament we played. There were reasons for that though. My back was really bad at that time so it affected my mobility. We also played at night at a facility that had poor lighting which made it very hard for me to see after the sun went down. Don’t get me wrong, neither Brian nor I played well but in normal circumstances I think we would have won a few more games than we did.

So we are dusting ourselves off and trying again tomorrow morning. Tomorrow happens to be Halloween so there may be some people playing in costume. I won’t be one of them. I am hoping for a more competitive day.

We don’t have any big Halloween plans this year. The pumpkins we carved Sunday are already looking pretty sad. I thought they would hold up better but I guess I need to wait until closer to Halloween to carve them. Last year we walked the neighborhood with Mia and Elsa, both of them in costume. With Elsa not being here anymore it just would not feel the same and bring more sadness than joy..

I got my results from my Rythm blood test incredibly quick. I dropped off the blood sample to Walgreens Tuesday morning and had my results already last night. I was happy to see the cholesterol numbers that I have been concerned with have come down since my insurance blood test several months ago. My LDL cholesterol was now at the very high end of the normal range and my overall cholesterol had dropped from 220 something down to 201. The four tests that were outside of average range but not terribly so where the cholesterol, ApoB, Remnant cholesterol and surprisingly, cortisol. All of these were only slightly out of range but it’s good to know as it provides reinforcement for making better choices.

I have been considering if I want to start applying large lump sum principal payments towards my mortgage to get it paid off prior to retirement. My interest rate is on the higher side at 6.25%. I owe around 100K on the house so getting that paid down in four years seems doable in my mind. On the flip side, the mortgage payment on that 100K is very affordable so I am weighing if it’s better to have that money in reserve, especially in the environment we are in where it seems like we could slip into complete chaos at any moment. Like a lot of big decisions I will probably just pull the trigger when the time seems right.

My girlfriend and I got out to see Heart of the Beast last night. It is a movie about a retired military dog and his handler, Brad Pitt whom get stuck in the wilderness. I had hesitation to see it in a theater because dog movies typically pull at my emotions and even more so now with the passing of Elsa. I also like pretty much any movie Brad Pitt is in. He is such a good actor IMO. I don’t want to give anything away so I will only say it was really, really good. Yes it made me emotional at times. It’s solid A film for me.

So I watched the Eagles/Cowboys game into the fourth quarter. I turned it off after McKee threw the interception with about 7 minutes left and the Eagles already trailing 28-21. Evidently somehow the Cowboys tacked on another 10 points in those last 7 minutes to crush the Eagles 38-21. To be honest the score could have been worse than that. There were multiple times early in the game the Cowboys extended drives for the Eagles with dumb penalties. Without those the Birds could have scored 10 points less probably.

The offense did some good things, putting on a number of long drives, one of which was 17 plays at the beginning of the third quarter. McKee was ok and the Eagles ran the ball effectively for a good part of the game. That is the end of any praise I can offer for this effort though.

The special teams sucks for some reason this year. They gave up another touchdown on a return which was negated by a holding penalty. I don’t understand why there are all these huge holes for other teams to run through. But of course the biggest SUCK award goes to the defense.

Most of the season the narrative has been the defense was pretty good. This was said despite time and again the defense collapsing at the end of games to allow opposing teams to win. The truth is they were the 27th ranked defense coming into the game and surely slipped a couple more spots after last night. Being “good” for half of a game is not being good IMO. Well last night they were bad the entire game. Hell I don’t know that Cowboys punter even took the field. The Cowboys marched up and down the field the entire game.

They allowed the Cowboys who were the 31st ranked rushing team to amass over 200 yards on the ground. They didn’t sack Zak Prescott at all, hell they hardly touched him. Most of the game the Eagles only rushed four, refusing to blitz to get some pressure. Their secondary got torched repeatedly. With no pressure on Zak he was able to find holes in the Eagles zone easily. For whatever reason Cooper DeJean looks absolutely lost in his third year and has played terribly all season. The defensive lineman are all underperforming. It was just a mess. Where does the team go from here? I have no clue. Their next game is another prime time game against the Commanders who actually have a worse record than the Eagles. If they manage to lose that game as well, the season will be all but done for this team.

This morning I did my first blood collection using a service from Rhythm. Ever since my last blood test that was taken for insurance revealed my cholesterol had jumped quite a bit I have been concerned. This is an at home blood test where you extract a small vial of blood which gets sent in and analyzed within a couple of days. You then get all of the data which is tracked and managed in their app.

They set up the subscription so it’s monthly but you can skip a month or cancel completely very easily. Right now I imagine myself doing this every 2-3 months. Data and knowledge is crucial in being proactive about your health, especially as you get older. I am hoping to see that LDL number come down. Seeing the cold hard numbers on a regular basis is good motivation to keep making better choices. The test is around a $100 which includes a prepaid Fedex envelope to send the sample back in.

The entire process this morning took maybe 20 minutes. The extraction device gets attached to your upper arm, an odd place to me. They advertise the extraction process as pain free and I can confirm that is the case. It seems like there is a very small blade which breaks the skin. The longest part was waiting for the vial to fill which in my case took 8-9 minutes. The stream of blood is small. I dropped off my sample at Walgreens this morning which is a FedEx collection point. I have been trying to modify my diet somewhat ever since I saw my LDL was high. I am hoping my numbers have started to creep down as a result. Knowledge is power.

I signed up this morning for another small pickleball tournament with my buddy Brian on Halloween. Our last tournament did not go well but I was also playing that one with a very sore back. I am hoping for better results this go round.

My Saturday was quite busy. I started with a pickleball session where I played six or seven games with the same group of people. The games were close and well played, mostly. I still make more unforced errors than I should but I will keep plugging away. My game improves at a slow pace. The only way I could accelerate that is if I went all in by doing a lot of drilling sessions where you do nothing but work on certain skills. My time and desire just do not match up with that path.

I got a lot of stuff done around the house on Saturday, the most notable was fixing three of my ceiling fans. All three of them exhibited the same problem, the fan itself no longer turned. When I contacted support they agreed to send me three new wireless receivers which I was skeptical about. I didn’t think that would fix the issue. I was wrong, all three fans are now spinning and as a bonus they have much brighter lights as the manufacturer sent me the upgraded version of those for free as well. I haven’t done a home maintenance video in awhile so I made one.

I also went out on another “real” bike ride Saturday on my mountain bike. I have found myself appreciating the simplicity of hopping on the bike and rolling at an enjoyable pace. I think we did somewhere around a 6 mile ride in the beautiful weather. I am hoping the motion of cycling is a positive thing for my knee. In my mind pushing the ROM of my right knee should be a good thing.

Saturday night I went to my first hockey game in a long time. We had good seats, 7 rows up from the ice. For whatever reason the environment made me hungry. This happens sometimes when I drink alcohol but I didn’t drink any. My consumed food items included a mushroom swiss burger, hot dog, soft pretzel, and a good amount of popcorn. I washed it all down with not one but two sodas. It was definitely a very dirty evening of eating. The game was a good one. We left after two periods but enjoyed ourselves. I see more ice hockey in our future, just with less gluttony.

In contrast to Saturday which was pretty jam packed, Sunday was much less so. With the Eagles not playing until tonight I had no need to watch football. We did get two pumpkins carved. The plan is to keep them inside until a few days prior to Halloween.

I have been having a hard time not thinking about last Halloween when Elsa was still with us. We dressed her up in a costume and walked the neighborhood Halloween night. I have a feeling these types of thoughts are going to be pervasive for quite a long time. They are good memories but they bring negative feelings.

So I have been trudging through the week dealing with cold symptoms which have been a congested head and a nasty sounding at times cough. But since my energy level has not been cratered I have tried to continue on with business as usual, utilizing Dayquil and Nyquil to help manage things. I played pickleball Wednesday, went to the gym yesterday where I matched a recent 1RM on my bench press and plan to play pickleball today. I feel fortunate that this hasn’t slipped into flu-like symptoms like what happened a couple months ago.

I sent in my mail in ballot this week for the mid-term elections. It seems that republicans seem very interested in making voting less accessible by making mail in voting more of a PIA along with reducing the amount of early voting days. Ironically Big D is supposed to be in SW Florida this weekend to help whip up whatever remains of his MAGA cultists to support Byron Donalds for governor. It would be quite an upset to have the democratic candidate David Jolly win since a democrat has not been the governor in Florida for 30 years. Who knows though, Trump’s hardcore base has eroded thanks to his constant stream of blunders, lies, broken promises and embarrassments in his second term. Hell even Byron Donalds himself has toned down his “I’m with Trump” rhetoric because it is no longer a benefit to do so. Aligning with an 80 year old ego maniac just doesn’t get the votes it used to.

This weekend I may be going to my first minor league hockey game in a very long time. Hopefully by Sunday evening the symptoms I have been dealing with are fading fast.

Yesterday a four alarm PHP patch alarm went out over the internet advising you to patch your PHP installations asap. The blog you are reading runs on PHP as well as other systems that I manage. Luckily I host on GoDaddy. Although they have not fully updated their PHP installations they have mitigation in place to prevent an exploit from occurring until they are fully patched. I recently installed Wordfence on several of my WordPress sites, a firewall plugin. It gives great visibility to the non-stop attempts at hacking that are going on around the clock. It’s insane.

Yesterday I started to feel better energy-wise, good enough that I played pickleball at lunch. Although my energy is better my symptoms remain. I still seem to have an unlimited supply of mucus in my head and some of the coughing fits I have make it sound like I am dying. I have been managing the symptoms with a Nyquil/Dayquil combo. I am hoping by the weekend the symptoms fade.

Yesterday Troy and I headed to the Bonita Poker House, the place that was built after the old dog track was torn down, a place Troy and I visited a long time ago. We weren’t going to play poker but to bet on horse racing which they also have there. As we were sitting at the bar and eating lunch I was telling Troy about my ex-employee that retired. I mentioned how he is real big into poker and that he sometimes plays at this venue. No more than 10 minutes later I look to the right and see Mike grabbing a beer.

He didn’t see me sitting there and was very surprised. He didn’t have much time to talk because he was in the middle of a 50 person hold em tournament. He said he was doing well so far as he had reached top 5. After he finished, where he got third he stopped back and talked with us some more. He did really well, turning his $125 buy in into more than 1K in prize money. He showed me how he is ranked number one regionally in some bar league he is in and number five nationally. Mike definitely seems to be enjoying his retirement.

It was very cold in there as I sat in my shorts and t-shirt. I was cold enough that I overpaid for a Poker Room hoodie to keep me warm. My horse betting did not go well. I lost every pick I made except one but the good news is I was only down $17 when I cashed out. There are some “interesting” characters that we saw at the venue. The hardcore horse race betting crowd is an older generation for sure.

I dropped off Troy and said my goodbyes as he flies back to PA this morning. It was good to see and spend time with him. I spent the rest of the day descending deeper into illness. This is feeling very similar to the last time I got sick which was only a couple months ago where it came on very slowly but settled in to the point where it felt like full blown flu. I am hoping to not get that bad this time around.