Happy Birthday To Max

September 30, 2025, at home

Revised Improv Video

Today's Date: September 30, 2025

Original Date Recorded: December 25, 2021

I decided to visually revise another one of my older piano improvisations and then upload it onto my YouTube channel: "Bill Santos: Piano & More." (length: 59 seconds)

I like to sit at my digital piano and just start playing whatever is in my head at that time. I make it up as I go along. This is my method with all of my piano improvisational videos.

Piano Improv from Dec. 25, 2021: revised (Sept. 30, 2025)

https://youtube.com/shorts/iMeUlNwlRC8?si=9Dkcv0jM3OzauGLn

Today Is ...

I don't chew gum anymore, maybe once in a great while. My favorite chewing gum is Teaberry. I also like Doublemint, Juicy Fruit, and Fruit Stripe. When I was a teenager in the late 1970s, I liked Gatorgum, a chewing flavored like lemon-lime Gatorade. It was discontinued in 1989.

September 30, 2025, at home

I like hot mulled cider, but I am surprised that the celebratory day is not later in the year.

September 30, 2025, at home

Prostate Cancer Awareness

September is National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.

1 in 6 men with have prostate cancer in his lifetime compared to 1 in 8 women who will have breast cancer in her lifetime. Yes, prostate cancer is more deadly than breast cancer. Federal funding for breast cancer research is 600 percent HIGHER than federal funding for prostate cancer research. That's SIX TIMES HIGHER !!! (That makes me sad.)

September 30, 2025, at home

World Heart Day

Today (September 29, 2025, at home) is World Heart Day, so I would like to (once again) tell you about my triple-surgical ordeal in 2022, regarding my heart. I am quite happy that I survived.

To see the photo below (if blurred by Facebook), just click/tap on "Learn more," then on "See photo," and you will be able to see it. The photo is of my wound four days after my third surgery of 2022 (May 29, 2022).

1st Surgery (March 9, 2022): I had quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery. As usual, a section of a vein in my left inner thigh was removed to be used in my open-heart surgery, which involved slicing my chest open vertically and breaking my sternum (breastbone) to access my heart. I had two drains installed in my belly. When I arrived home from the hospital, I engaged in physical therapy and occupational therapy (at home), followed by cardiac rehabilitation at a nearby outpatient facility.

2nd Surgery (May 19, 2022): A second surgeon removed the sternal plates from my first surgery that were holding my broken sternum pieces together from within my chest. The screws became loose. He also cleaned out much of a staph infection also from within my chest. A wound vacuum was then attached to my chest, sucking out the remaining infection and discharge, running 24 hours per day. My chest remained open for about a week with the wound vacuum constantly sucking.

3rd Surgery (May 25, 2022): A third surgeon closed my chest by attaching seven sutures, leaving me with eight holes in my body from my lower neck to my upper belly. The wound vacuum was reattached and continued to suck on my chest 24 hours per day for many more weeks with only 20-minutes-long dressing changes every two or three days. The vacuum's strong suction also served to pull my wounds together to increase the speed of my healing process.

Regarding my 2nd and 3rd surgeries, I entered the emergency room of the hospital on May 13, 2022, with severe chest pain, and I would not return home until July 21, 2022. I spent a total of seventy (70) days in the hospital and at a physical rehabilitation facility, the latter of which I entered on June 3, 2022. I requested to leave rehab because my pain was still rather intense which mostly prevented me from gaining any strength through my daily exercises there.

During the next two years, I would then have three more unrelated surgeries. I had two surgeries done on my spine: one to clean out an infected disk (September 2023), and one to attach a titanium metal rod to my spine that was "collapsing" due to a bone infection, as per my surgeon (October 2023). In April 2024, I had surgery on my right ankle due to a bone infection: bone biopsy, deburring, and fluid removal.

Coffee & VFW

I love an espresso, but my coffee of choice is a ristretto, which is a "short shot" of a more highly concentrated espresso. It is often enjoyed in Italy as a quick pick-me-up in the middle of a busy day. I am partial to espresso, perhaps due to my half-Italian heritage.

September 29, 2025, at home

VFW = Veterans of Foreign Wars

September 29, 2025, at home

IBEX !!!

YEAH !!! My wish came true !!! I got to play IBEX in a game of Words With Friends. It's a favorite word of mine. It's the name of a wild goat. I was able to play it in a game before, but that was years ago.

September 28, 2025, at home

99.9 Percent In Agreement

I agree with Trump at a rate of 99.9 percent. I disagree with four of Trump's policies: 1. I am not a fan of Bitcoin; 2. Trans-girls/women (boys/men) should be allowed to participate in girl's/women's sports; 3. Taxes should be lowered for the wealthy; Trump recently raised taxes on the wealthy; and 4. I am against the death penalty.

September 28, 2025, at home

Ice Growing In Antarctica

Ice in Antarctica is growing substantially, so, to the global-warming loons: No worries. Hey, remember, in the 1970s, there was panic about an impending new ice age. Many scientists believe that we are heading into a new ice age right now. Climate change is a natural phenomenon unaffected by the actions of humans.

September 28, 2025, at home

Sons & More

While I do not have a son, I am one. National Sons Day is celebrated on September 28 AND March 4.

(As I have mentioned many times, I have been a Men's Rights Activist since the early 1990s, when I was in my early 30s. So, of course, I promote everything male.)

September 28, 2025, at home

In July 1981, when I was 20 years old, I was a golf instructor / counselor-in-training at a golf school/camp for adults (one week) and for children (two weeks, ages 10 to 18) in Southern Pines, North Carolina. I attended this camp almost every summer from age 11 in 1972 to age 19 in 1980. (I was permitted to attend at age 19 even though I was technically too old.)

September 28, 2025, at home

Today is National Drink Beer Day. My favorite beer is Mohrenbräu, which is a famous Austrian beer. I first drank it in my Austrian cousins' living room in Dornbirn, Austria, in the early 1980s, when I was in my early 20s. I have enjoyed it on many subsequent trips to Austria. I have never found it in the United States. Mohrenbräu is brewed in Dornbirn in the westernmost Austrian province of Vorarlberg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohrenbrauerei

September 28, 2025, at home

This is definitely NOT for me. I really dislike strawberries. I also don't particularly like whipped cream.

September 28, 2025, at home

Get along.

September 28, 2025, at home

This Is True

September 27, 2025, at home

Today Is ...

Today (September 27, 2025, at home) is National Singles Day, the Saturday during Singles Week. I hope my cautionary tale helps anyone who is single and hoping to snag a little romance.

I used to celebrate National Singles Day/Week every year, when I was single. Now that I have been blessed with a wonderful wife, with me being married for the first and only time 22 days before my 45th birthday, since February 4, 2006, after about five years of dating, I fondly and not-so-fondly remember my single decades.

I am actually proud to tell you that I was without female companionship (between my only two girlfriends) from age 20 to age 40 (alone from February 1982 to November 2000) and not by choice, so I am quite intimate with the (good and bad) aspects of single life. (Please, no pity.)

During my lifetime (prior to my first date with my wife on November 10, 2000), I was rejected hundreds and hundreds of times by women. This includes 414 rejections by women in 18 months with a video dating service in northern New Jersey in the mid-1990s, when I was in my mid-30s. I still wear my rejections as badges of honor.

Almost all of these women chose the word "unattractive" on the form as the reason for not wanting to meet with me for a date. I was able to go on a few interesting, but unsuccessful dates, but when around 400 women described me as "unattractive," I will admit that I started to believe it.

I never judge anyone regarding their appearance. Being a journalist, I'll talk with anyone because everyone has fascinating aspects of their lives and because I always needed to have information to write articles for my jobs. As per romance, writing about chemicals for an international weekly magazine is not exactly a sexy job. I loved that job (from 1992 to 1996) because, as I partially jokingly say, it made me appear smarter than I actually am.

When I was single, I never totally abandoned the idea of romance. I always had even the slightest bit of hope, thinking that I would one day make some woman a good second husband. I kept on trying: reading books on the subject and thinking of innovative ways to get myself on the proper side of romance.

I even wore a fake wedding ring for a few months twice in the mid- to late 1990s to get women to be friendly toward me: once while living in New Jersey and working in New York City; and once living and working in Florida. Women seemed to be more friendly toward me, but not that friendly. When a man wears a wedding ring, he automatically becomes more attractive because he is viewed as "normal" by women. The ring lets women know that at least one other woman thinks of him as normal. He suddenly becomes less threatening.

I sometimes say that my only regret in my life is that I did NOT lie to women when I was single because I would have been able to go on more dates. Perhaps my fake wedding rings were an example of misrepresentation. Anyway, that method proved to be unsuccessful.

I never did find the Rosetta Stone of Romance. Luckily and fortunately, my wife answered my America Online (AOL) personal ad.

I must tell you that I recently discovered a fascinating piece of information that I wish that I had known during my romantically dry 1980s and 1990s.

80 percent of women compete for the same top 20 percent of men. It's called hypergamy. That means 80 percent of men are invisible to women. So, fellas, women aren't rejecting us. They just don't see us. We just blend into the background. They don't even know we exist.

(I fancy myself to be an amateur anthropologist.)

Thank you for reading. I just wanted to tell you of my romantic exploits on National Singles Day.

September 27, 2025, at home

I like chocolate milk, specifically made with Ovaltine or Bosco, because it tastes like my childhood in the 1960s and 1970s.

September 27, 2025, at home

I love corned beef hash and fried eggs for breakfast. My dad did, too.

September 27, 2025, at home

Forgiving someone is more for the person doing the forgiving than for the person receiving the forgiveness. Just forgive, and get on with your life.

September 27, 2025, at home

Today's date seems a bit early to be celebrating scarfs. I guess it depends on where you live.

September 27, 2025, at home

You can crush a can today, if you want.

September 27, 2025, at home

Abbey Road: Released

On this date in 1969, The Beatles released "Abbey Road," their last recorded studio album. Their album "Let It Be" was recorded before "Abbey Road" but released after "Abbey Road."

September 26, 2025, at home

Ferry's 80th Birthday

NOTE: That is NOT Ferry in the photo below.

Happy 80th Birthday to one of my favorite singer/musicians ever: Bryan Ferry. He was the lead singer, keyboardist, and song writer for the (mostly) 1970s glam/pop/rock group Roxy Music. He also has many solo albums. I attended two of his solo concerts in 1988: in Philadelphia and in New York City.

My favorite Roxy Music song is "Take a Chance with Me" which has been my favorite all-time song since its release on 1982's "Avalon," Roxy Music's last studio album. NOTE: This is NOT the ABBA song with a similar title.

My favorite solo Ferry song is "Driving Me Wild" from his 2014 album "Avonmore." (Click the link below to watch the official music video.) Trivia: Ferry's son Tara plays drums on this song/in this video. Also, the short instrumental song that ends Roxy Music's "Avalon" album is titled "Tara."

Many thanks go to my cousin Scott for introducing me to Roxy Music's "Avalon," which I didn't like until my third listen. This was the first Roxy Music album I heard. Shortly after, I purchased every Roxy Music album in a used record store.

https://youtu.be/T7UB_0AiLNU?si=lRGzhAcvPGzW1uW9

September 26, 2025, at home

Pancakes & Dumplings

I like pancakes, particularly chocolate chip pancakes, with real butter and real maple syrup. I also like blueberry pancakes.

September 26, 2025, at home

I do like those Chinese dumplings: fried, not steamed. I particularly like Japanese gyoza.

September 26, 2025, at home

In Grinzing

Throwback Thursday: Here I am at the apartment of my Austrian cousin Verena, her then husband Andreas, and their three children Johanna, Michael, and Julian in Grinzing, Austria, in April 2005.

Along with my then-fiancée, Debbie, the four of us would travel later that evening to nearby Vienna for dinner and a little gambling at the casino.

I proposed marriage on this two-week-long vacation across almost the entire northern part of Austria by train to visit with many of my Austrian cousins.

Composer Ludwig van Beethoven lived in several apartments in Grinzing because he was often evicted for non-payment of rent. Grinzing is also a famous winery town where much of Austria's delicious wine is produced.

September 25, 2025, at home

Funny Socks

This afternoon (September 25, 2025), I received a rather huge laugh, when I took delivery of three pairs of compression socks that I recently ordered on Amazon.com. Can you guess why I think this company's logo is more than humorous? LOL 😆😆😆