Archives April 2026

I thought that I have pretty much dog proofed the main living space through trial and error, the errors being pointed out when Elsa or Mia do/destroy something they shouldn’t. Toilet paper is stowed away, hand towels are placed out of reach and all doors to the bedrooms and office are securely closed. Well yesterday they made me aware that leaving a paper plate that I had Mia’s food on unattended was a chink in my armor.

When I got home I saw small pieces of blue cardboard scattered about both on the floor and on the sofa. It took a few seconds to click as to what it could be. I then realized the paper plate was blue. After consuming whatever food was left on it the plate then became a chew toy which they surely ingested some of. I was annoyed and frustrated but the fault ultimately was my own. Mia’s food now will only be on a normal plate if it’s going to be left unattended. I have two Ring cameras monitoring their activities. When I reviewed the footage I could watch the paper plate carnage transpire in real time.

I saw the massively cringe inducing clip of Trump making a call to the astronauts that had just completed their historic circle around the dark side of the moon. After Trump made some odd rambling statement that was supposed to be complimentary to Canada by name dropping Wayne Gretzky the astronauts just sat there and stared at the screen. They say sat there without speaking on mic for around a minute, it was extremely awkward yet obviously intentional with that intent to let the entire planet know their feelings about the man on the other end of the line. What an embarrassment.

So cringe is one thing, stating a “whole civilization will die tonight” is outright heinous and something that nobody should be excusing/condoning. This is not locker room talk where you joke about sexually molesting women. This is describing genocide. The guy has lost any remaining thin tendrils of connection to reality. The fact that this has been allowed to continue to escalate to this point without somebody stepping in blows my mind. Many adamant Trump supporters have woken up and realized that this is a genuine four alarm fire going on in the White House.

Iran however is not running scared and appears willing to call Trump’s bluff. Doing so backs him into a corner. If he would actually destroy civilian infrastructure he would be committing war crimes at a level that Russia would only hope to aspire to. If he does not follow through he is once again exposed as the loud mouthed, ignorant, insecure, weak, thin skinned paper tiger that he really is. The guy needs to be grabbed by the scruff of his neck and dragged out of the White House kicking and screaming like the tantruming 79 year old child that he is.

Instead of playing pickleball Saturday morning I went on a 15 mile ride on my Veteran Patton while my girlfriend rode the F7 E-bike for the first time. We rode from the house all the way to the beach and back. We went at a slow and steady pace as my girlfriend preferred to ride mostly on sidewalks where as I am accustomed to riding in bike lanes with traffic nearby.

There was a funny incident where we had to go through a tight section that leads to the pedestrian underpass. Evidently the hotel there has had too many issues with people going through that section on bikes and having accidents with either other bikes or possibly pedestrians.

In an effort to curtail this they put two large speed bumps at the entrance and exit to this area along with a sign that tells bikers that they must walk their bikes. I have ridden through this spot for years and never saw this before so it must have occurred recently.

So although I saw the sign, I ignored it. My EUC is maneuverable and has suspension so the speed bumps didn’t provide that much of an obstacle for me. Once I got through I waited for my girlfriend who walked her bike through as indicated. When we got maybe a half mile further toward the beach we were stopped when she told me the one hotel employee was very angry that I just rolled on through. She said he asked her if she was with me, she said she was. He thanked her for walking her bike through the area but that she should tell me to fck off. LOL. I weighed the idea of riding back that way and riding through the obstacle course again to piss off Mr Fck Off but I didn’t. My girlfriend would have not endorsed that idea either.

Should I have gotten off and walked through that spot? Probably. I have had incidents where clueless pedestrians stop abruptly in the twisting tight corners which could definitely cause an accident. Still, going straight to FCK OFF was more than was necessary IMO.

The rest of the ride was very nice. The E-bike seems pretty great for the money. The thing can go over 30 MPH although my girlfriend barely went half that speed. It has a full color display, LED headlights and tail lights, front suspension and evidently gets great range. After doing 15 miles the battery indicator was still showing full. I look forward to doing more tandem rides with her going forward.

My Easter was very mundane. We went to the gym Sunday morning where I did a more condensed version of the HIT circuit. Instead of 400 total reps it’s only 150 and it’s only pull ups and push ups. The goal is to do 50 pull ups and 100 push ups as quick as you can. I opted to do 10 sets of 5 pull ups and 10 push ups. Even though the total rep count is way less I was still sucking major wind with the only difference being I was only doing it for 15 minutes instead of 40. I have a considerable amount of shoulder pain right now so I thought dialing things back a little made sense.

We did an Easter brunch sort of deal at a local place which was the extent of my Easter celebration. It rained most of the afternoon so it curtailed plans we had to take the dogs out for an extended walk. Despite my non-celebration of the day the same cant be said for the hundreds of people that jammed the nearby catholic church. The cars exploded out onto the median and side streets for parking. I don’t recall ever seeing it so full.

It was nice to see a warm and encouraging message from DJT Easter morning. Of course I am kidding. Just when you think the bar has been set in embarrassing, childish, ignorant and blasphemous statements by Big D he goes and surprises you. I never thought I would see the day that a US President would do/say the things this man does. Just imagine the example he is setting for a generation of malleable young minds that see this garbage spewing from what is supposed to be the “leader of the free world”. I keep waiting for enough is enough sort of accountability to finally be administered to this man-child. I don’t know if that will day will ever come or instead we will just have to wait for the grim reaper to do it for us.

Last night after work I tasked myself with putting together the electric bike that showed up a couple days prior. For the past 10 years most personal electric vehicles I have purchased have only had one wheel with the exception being a couple electric skateboards and electric scooters.

The listing for this bike on Amazon stated the bike was 90% assembled. I was skeptical of that but once I opened the box I was a believer. Everything was very well packed and by the time I got all of the protective materials off I only had to put on the front tire, the pedals and a couple other small items. It was a total piece of cake. I will get the hang of how everything works this weekend before letting my girlfriend get on there so I make sure she is safe. It seems like a real nice bike for the money.

This Easter weekend will likely be a non-event around here unless we decide to do some sort of lunch/dinner on Sunday to mark the occasion. Easter in my lifetime has never meant much of anything except a possible meal with family members. I’m fine with it.

Oh Pam Bondi got blown out yesterday. That was fun news. Hopefully Patel is next. Soon Don will be out of sacrificial lambs.

I was locked in to watch the Artemis II launch last night. Cloud cover in our area made the possibility of seeing the smoke trail on the horizon impossible but watching it on TV was fine. The anticipation of the countdown was intense. The way the rocket accelerated off the pad was surprising. It practically leaped into the air at a pace much faster than the SpaceX Starship launches I have seen. They will spend a few days circling the Earth running a number of checks and tests before they hit the gas to accelerate to 27,000 MPH to escape Earth’s orbit and head for the moon. It’s going to be an exciting 10 days. Things have started just about perfectly, let’s hope it ends that way.

This morning as I was getting ready I saw this out my bathroom window. It was so beautiful that I threw on my pants and took a picture out of my garage. The skies in Florida are beautiful both at sunset and sunrise, one of the many reasons I never have regretted moving here.

Yesterday a large box was delivered to my place. In it was an e-bike I bought for my girlfriend. The thought is she will be able to use it to accompany me on some of my EUC rides. I need to put it together yet. From the video I saw it should not be a very difficult task to do so. It will be fun to have her along for the ride once in awhile.

Today Artemis II is scheduled to launch. Setting a launch date of April Fool’s day seems less than well thought out to me. This will be the first time astronauts will have circled the moon since the early 70s which is crazy. The program has been riddled with setbacks, delays and large cost overruns. It was originally scheduled to launch in 2016, yes, 10 years ago. The intent of the program is to establish a lunar base at some point, which again, was supposed to have been well underway at this point.

Much like the original Apollo program, the Artemis program is mostly motivated due to competition with another country. Back then it was the Soviet Union, now, it’s China who is pushing to establish a presence on the moon. There is a lot of pressure for this mission to go well. It’s been a long time since NASA has been in the spotlight. SpaceX has gotten almost all of the attention since the shuttle program was put to rest.

Being a space enthusiast I am very interested in this event however it seems like I am in the minority. In this 6 second attention span society we live in I bet you would be lucky to get 10% of the population that even knows what Artemis is. I think it would be amazing if we had a consistent human inhabited base on the moon. I hope today’s launch is the first step in making that a reality.

Happy April Fool’s day. I heard we were celebrating by having the biggest fool of all embarrass himself and the nation once again by doing a live address where he will explain how bigly we are winning the war. I saw a post on X from a former huge Trump supporter that not only voted for him three times but donated heavily to his campaign. Like many he is finally done with the circus and never ending stream of lies and broken promises. He ended his post by saying “The only ones left supporting him are MAGA always Trumpers who place the man above the policies and our country.” Amen. That is what cult members do, blind, undying obedience. Just ask Jim Jones followers that drank the poison Kool Aid.