Stuffed Peppers

This afternoon (October 26, 2025, at home), my wonderful wife made bell peppers (green, red, yellow, and orange) stuffed with ground beef, Israeli couscous, onions sautéed in a little olive oil, minced garlic, dried basil, and ground black pepper, topped with tomato sauce, shredded mozzarella cheese, and grated Romano cheese, and then baked.

Mexican Grand Prix

I am watching live coverage of the twentieth race of the 2025 Formula 1 racing season on October 26, 2025. The Mexican Grand Prix is being broadcast on ABC TV from a feed from ESPN from a feed from Sky Sports F1. The 71-lap race started at 2 p.m. local time (4 p.m. Eastern Time, here in southeastern Florida, United States).

Below is a diagram of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City, Mexico (capacity: 110,000). Each circuit (track) around the world has a different configuration, therefore a different dynamic, regarding turns and elevation fluctuations.

This season's 24-race schedule is as follows: Australia, China, Japan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Miami (U.S.), Italy, Monaco, Spain, Canada, Austria, Great Britain, Belgium, Hungary, The Netherlands, Italy (different circuit), Azerbaijan, Singapore, Austin (U.S.), Mexico, Brazil, Las Vegas (U.S.), Qatar, and Abu Dhabi.

Before each race, there are two or three days of practice/qualifying. The races run every week or every other week from March into December, with a month-long summer break that starts after today's race.

In Formula 1 racing, there are 20 (male) drivers, with ZERO drivers from the United States.

There are 10 teams (with two drivers on each team), so not only do drivers compete against their rivals, but they also compete against their teammates. There are two championships: one for the drivers and one for the constructor teams.

The 10 constructors are Alpine, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Haas, Kick Sauber, McClaren, Mercedes, Racing Bulls, Red Bull Racing, and Williams.

This season, as with last season, there are three races in the United States. In fairly recent years, there were no drivers from the United States and no races in the United States.

Formula 1 racing is the only sport that I actively follow. I have been a fan for decades. I watched my first F1 race decades ago on television at the home of one of my many Austrian cousins while on vacation in Austria.

Austrian National Day

Today (October 26, 2025) is Austrian National Day, which is a federal holiday in Austria.

After World War II ended in 1945, Austria, which had been occupied by Germany, was then occupied by the United States, Russia, France, and Great Britain. Each country occupied a different section of Austria and of the Vienna, its capital city. I remember visiting the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum – Militärhistorisches Institut (the Museum of Military History) in Vienna and seeing on display a jeep with four seats, one for each soldier from the four occupying countries. That was done in an effort to better mediate disputes among citizens within the capital city of Vienna. Ten years later on October 26, 1955, Austria established its independence.

Part of my heritage is Austrian, so I celebrate every year.

I have visited my many Austrian cousins across Austria seven times since the early 1980s, and I have also been skiing with several of them in the Austrian Alps several times. I love Austrian food, especially Käsknöpfle and Tafelspitz. I also like the chocolate dessert called Mohr im Hemd; translated from German, it means "black man wearing a shirt" because that's what it looks like on the plate.

Also, since the early 1980s, I have been a huge fan of Austropop (Austrian popular music), including Rainhard Fendrich, Wolfgang Ambros, Georg Danzer, STS, Hubert von Goisern und die Alpinkatzen, Boris Bukowski, and more.

Rainhard Fendrich is my all-time favorite pop singer. I have 49 (yes, forty-nine) of Fendrich's CDs (48 music CDs and one interview CD). This includes duplicates of two of those CDs.

Fendrich writes all of his songs and sings all of his songs in the German language, with his earliest albums from the early to mid-1980s sung in the Viennese dialect of German. As he became popular, he wrote his songs using "high" German, which is the "textbook" version of the language, so more people could understand his lyrics.

I also have many of his vinyl record albums from the 1980s, which I purchased on multiple trips to Austria; several of his DVDs and videotapes; and two of his autographs, even though I have never met him. I also have a hardcover biography written in German.

I attended a Fendrich concert at the Stadthalle (arena) in Vienna, Austria, on October 30, 1997, with one of my many Austrian cousins, her husband, and more than 16,000 other fans. Here is a link to a video of a live performance of my second-most favorite Fendrich song ("Über Meinen Horizont") from the concert tour I attended. (The man in the photo below is keyboardist Gary Lux.)

https://youtu.be/zNOLTImfadc?si=tzIg4rg3bLZJtwZU

Also, at one time, I was the only non-European member of his official fan club. I lost that title when a man from Japan joined the club.

Mother-In-Law Day

Today (October 26, 2025) is National Mother-In-Law Day (fourth Sunday in October), so I would like to remember and honor my mother-in-law Lorna, who passed on February 16, 2011.

This is my favorite photo of her and me. My wife snapped it on July 13, 2008, in a coffee shop in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, when the three of us were on vacation, visiting my wife's family and friends in and around Toronto. I particularly like that she is small and is holding a big cup, and I am bigger and am holding a smaller cup.

She always encouraged me to become a better person with each passing day, while accepting me each day exactly as I was. For that, I thank her again. Lorna, you are sorely missed.

Today Is ...

My dad liked mincemeat pie. So do I.

October 26, 2025, at home

Lunacy & Hatred

This doesn't surprise me. The lunacy, delusion, self-righteousness, arrogance, and hatred within liberal white women are striking, ubiquitous, humorous, misandristic, and toxic.

"'No Kings' protests largely composed of people from one demographic: experts"

https://www.foxnews.com/us/no-kings-protests-largely-comprised-people-from-one-demographic-experts

October 26, 2025, at home

Gymnastics Loses

"US women's gymnastics team wins fewest medals at a World Championships since 2001"

one bronze; one silver; zero gold

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/us-gymnastics-team-wins-fewest-medals-world-championships-since-2001

October 26, 2025, at home

R.I.P. June Lockhart (June 25, 1925 – October 23, 2025)

October 25, 2025, at home

Today Is ...

October 25, 2025, at home

October 24, 2025, at home

Food & Bologna

I am more of a gourmand than a gourmet.

October 24, 2025, at home

My wife likes fried bologna sandwiches. I don't think I have ever eaten it fried. I prefer sandwiches with salami fried in butter, but not that often.

When I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s, for my school lunches, my mom would make me olive loaf and mayonnaise sandwiches on white bread. I still like them, but olive loaf has increasingly become difficult to find.

October 24, 2025, at home

SNAP ... EBT ... BYE

sad, but true

October 24, 2025, at home

The Radical Left

This is so absolutely true. Trump is a centrist, but liberals are so far to the left that he and MAGA Republicans seem radically right to them. MAGA Republicans can clearly see that it's the liberals who are actually the radicals. The MAGA Movement is the same as the "regular" Republican Party was just a few decades ago. Both parties shifted to the left, but now, the Republican Party has returned to where it was, but the Democrat Party is staying radically left by choice. I am a staunch MAGA Republican, which simply means that I am a Trad-Con (Traditional Conservative), and there's nothing radical about that.

October 23, 2025, at home

Where Are They?

October 23, 2025, at home

Antifa? Huh?

Fascism is left-wing. Antifa means anti-fascist, which means anti-left wing, which means pro-right wing. Antifa is against Trump, who is a centrist. You make sense of Antifa. I can't.

October 23, 2025, at home

Today Is ...

Today (October 23, 2025) is National Mole Day !!!

I certainly remember Avogadro's Number from my studies of chemistry in high school and at university.

The number 6.02214076 × 10²³ (10 to the 23rd power, in other words, 10 multiplied by itself 23 times) was initially chosen so that the mass of one mole of a chemical compound in grams is numerically equal, for most practical purposes, to the average mass of one molecule of the compound in daltons.

While I ultimately became a journalist instead of my planned medical researcher or bench chemist, I was quite fortunate in the 1990s to land a job in New York City where I could indulge my love of a topic that has interested me since I was a young kid in the 1960s playing with my chemistry set. From 1992 to 1996, I was a Reporter, Writer, Editor, and Researcher for an international weekly magazine on the financial and technical aspects of the chemical industry. This included agriculture chemicals, petrochemicals (aromatics and aliphatics), pharmaceuticals, flavors, fragrances, plastics, paints, coatings, oils, fats, waxes, surfactants, and more.

Yes, I'm a nerd ... and proud of it.

I am honored to have worked for one of the oldest publications in the United States. The magazine, initially titled "Oil, Paint, and Drug Reporter" and titled "Chemical Marketing Reporter" ("CMR") when I worked there, was first published in 1871. It was again renamed "Chemical Market Report" shortly after I left for a job as a reporter and writer for a wire service covering commodities trading (futures and options).

I still laugh at the title of my first position at "CMR": Oils, Fats, and Waxes Editor. It was my job to cover such products as castor oil, grease (both yellow AND white), carnauba wax, and much more from an industrial standpoint. I soon made the lateral move to Flavors and Fragrances Editor, then promoted to Heavy and Agriculture Chemicals Editor, and then majorly promoted to Market Research Editor.

I rank this job as my most favorite job since I became a journalist in 1982 partly because, as I still jokingly say, it made me appear smarter than I actually was. Also, my groundbreaking story on tung oil as a natural industrial lubricant in its infancy was cited in USDA and EPA governmental reports. My writings were also cited in the thesis of a university student.

While I was working for "CMR," I sent a copy of the magazine to my former university chemistry teacher from the early 1980s to let him know that I never lost interested in this subject and that chemistry was my professional life at that time. He wrote back, thanking me. He told me that a teacher usually doesn't know how far his influence on his students will go. He also mentioned that he had never heard of tung oil.

While I don't really like yellow cake, there is enough other stuff going on to distract me, so I enjoy it as a whole. I do like Boston Cream donuts.

October 23, 2025, at home

Today (October 23, 2025) is TV Talk Show Host Day. My favorite talk show host is Joe Franklin. He is credited for inventing the talk show format. Saturday Night Live even did four skits in the 1980s as an homage to Franklin. I remember watching them.

I often watched his show. It was a combination of relaxing (boring) and interesting. "The Joe Franklin Show" was broadcast on TV from 1950 to 1993. I often watched it during the late 1970s and in the 1980s and early 1990s, when I was a late-teenager into my 20s and early 30s.

I think his talk show was only broadcast to New York City and its environs. I lived on Long Island, New York, at that time, and later in northern New Jersey, so I was luckily able to watch it in the late evenings.

For many years, I thought Capistrano was in Italy or Spain. It's in California.

October 23, 2024, at home

Tinnitus

I have had tinnitus (ringing in my ears) for many decades. This video will show you what I hear constantly. It never stops. I don't hear it when I'm sleeping, just when I am awake. When I was a young kid in the 1960s, I sometimes would hear a group of soldiers stomping while marching.

https://youtu.be/jHhjWxBWLmQ?si=G2OqdFCYom-dacJd

October 22, 2025, at home

Ellipse Leg Exerciser

This morning (October 22, 2025), I ordered (for delivery) this Electric Ellipse Leg Exerciser (from Amazon). I haven't been able to walk for a few years due to six recent surgeries, even with subsequent occupational therapy and physical therapy at home and at physical rehabilitation facilities.

I am currently dealing with Congestive Heart Failure (heavily medicated); Restrictive Lung Disease (medicated, plus supplemental oxygen; lung exercises); Diabetes (daily insulin shots in my belly) with related Peripheral Neuropathy in the form of numbness and pain within both of my feet, all of which adds to my struggle.

All of this has caused my continuous weakness, although I am stronger than I was. I have been drinking Ka'Chava health supplemental shakes, adding separate liquid magnesium to heal the nerve damage within my chest and thighs from my surgeries and within my feet due to my neuropathy. My nerve damage isn't as bad as it was, but I still need more time to heal. I have noticed that drinking the daily shakes are helping me to regain my strength. Of course, my wonderful wife's delicious, healthy meals have definitely helped me. I also recently purchased magnesium cream in an attempt to restore more feeling within my feet.

I am hoping that this leg exerciser in conjunction with my other efforts will help to restore my strength and my mobility.

MY RECENT SURGERIES:

March 2022: my quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery (to remove a vein in my left thigh for the open-heart surgery, and to break my sternum/breastbone required to access my heart for main surgery)

May 2022: my 1st chest surgery (to open my chest to remove sternal plates holding my broken breastbone together due to loose screws and also to remove an infection within my chest)

May 2022: my 2nd chest surgery (to close my chest after my chest was open for about a week with a wound vacuum constantly sucking the infection and discharge out of my chest ... Seven sutures holding my chest wound together left eight holes in my body for the wound vacuum to continue sucking for many more weeks.)

September 2023: my 1st spinal surgery (to clean out my infected disk)

October 2023: my 2nd spinal surgery (to attach a titanium metal rod to my spine to hold my "collapsing" spine together due to a bone infection)

April 2024: my right ankle surgery (to perform a bone biopsy, deburring of the bone, and draining of fluid due to a bone infection from two recent fractures)

Today Is ...

My favorite nut for taste is filbert (hazelnut). My favorite nut for texture is cashew. Also, due to my Italian and Austrian heritages/upbringing, I love roasted chestnuts. I call them by their Austrian name: Maroni. In Italian, they are called castagne arrostite or marroni. What is your favorite nut?

October 22, 2025, at home

My favorite color is dark purple. What is your favorite color?

October 22, 2025, at home

Lesson In History

Basic History Lesson: Fascism is based on socialism. The United States doesn't have a socialist government. It's capitalistic with social programs.

October 22, 2025, at home

Blood Extraction

Blood Extraction (for testing), primary physician's office, 8:50 a.m. ET, today

October 22, 2025, at home

From Cardiologist To Home

After my appointment with my cardiologist this morning (October 21, 2025), I somehow decided to randomly record videos of parts of our journey back home and string them together to make this 57-seconds-long video showing slight portions of Delray Beach, Florida. Many heartfelt thanks go to my wonderful wife for driving us there and back.

I know that this video is not that interesting. I just wanted to create and upload another video onto my YouTube channel for fun.

From Cardiologist To Home (Oct. 21, 2025)

https://youtube.com/shorts/kp0Hso14h3I?si=7MXSp3_oQe6xonIb

Diwali Video Reposted

Yesterday (October 20, 2025), I posted a short video to wish everyone a Happy Diwali, the start of the Hindu New Year. I did not receive any views after many hours. That's rather odd. All of my videos that I have uploaded onto my YouTube channel have received at least a few views. So, I decided to repost the link onto Facebook to see if there is a glitch or if nobody has any interest, which is OK. Here is my original post from yesterday.

October 21, 2025, at home

***

I created and uploaded a short video onto my YouTube channel to wish you a Happy Diwali. (length: 1'47")

Happy Diwali !!! (Oct. 20, 2025)

https://youtu.be/LAq7jaRTWTk?si=q3DOYpKpWq7btB_u

October 20, 2025, at home: Happy Diwali !!! In other words, Happy Hindu New Year !!! I wish you much happiness, health, and spiritual and financial prosperity during the new year !!!

My religion is Gaudiya Vaishnavism, also known as Hare Krishna, which is a sect of Sanatana Dharma, also know as Hinduism.

Diwali, also know as Deepavali, is the five-day Hindu "Festival of Lights" which is celebrated this year from October 18 to 22, 2025. The third day (today) is the main day of the holiday, marking the start of the Hindu new year. Diwali, my favorite holiday, falls on a different date every year.

Today, on this day, October 20, 2025, leave your doors and windows open, and put a candle in the window, so that Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, can find you to bestow spiritual and financial prosperity during the coming year. My wonderful wife just purchased for me two battery-powered candles (typically used as Christmas decorations), which I will put into two windows of our home this evening. I used to use live candles, and then I switched to an electric candle for safety reasons.

Make sure your home is clean because Lakshmi visits the cleanest homes first.

On a practical level, businesses in India start their fiscal year on Diwali, so their fiscal year starts on a different date every year. Also, today is the only day of the year when gambling is permitted.

To celebrate, I will order Indian food for dinner from a nearby restaurant this evening, as I do every Diwali.

Incidentally, I brought two murti (small Hindu statues) with me into the operating room when I had my quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery on March 9, 2022: Lord Krishna, the main god whom I worship, for blessings; and Lord Ganesha, the elephant god, to remove obstacles.

PICTURE EXPLANATION: I found the picture below online. I liked it, so I decided to post it with this greeting. The "swastika" is a sacred symbol in the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religions. It is ubiquitous in India. The word translates to "good life." It's an auspicious symbol of good luck and prosperity.

Each cup is called a "diya" which is a lantern/light. A wick (string) and a little oil are placed within the diyas and then lit to celebrate the Festival of Lights. Sometimes, the diyas are arranged in the shape of a swastika.

So, now, I bid you: Hare Krishna (two names of God, both part of the maha-mantra along with Rama, as the third name of God) and Namasté (meaning, "The God/Light within me honors the God/Light within you."

Today Is ...

When I was a kid sometime between 1972 to 1974 (between the ages of 11 and 13), I had two pet chameleons in a terrarium. At one point, they weren't eating their regular food (live mealworms) for weeks, so I caught a bunch of monarch butterflies and put them in with the chameleons. Nothing happened. My dad suggested that I give my chameleons to my dear friend Dave who lived several houses down the street, which I did. I think my dad just wanted them out of the house ... or maybe it was my mom. I'll have to ask her. Months later, I found out from a book in a pet shop that chameleons sometimes go for weeks without eating. LOL ... (In the comment section below is an online photo of the type of chameleon I had as pets. The reptile in the main photo is also considered to be a chameleon.)

October 21, 2025, at home

I like Witch Hazel: the scented astringent and the Warner Bros. cartoon character. She's the green-skinned witch that Bugs Bunny encounters. For a short time, I splashed witch hazel on my face after shaving my face. It burned, but then softened. I soon switched to bay rum, which still burned and softened my face, but it smelled better. (You can see the cartoon character Witch Hazel in the comment section below.)

October 21, 2025, at home

I like apples in all forms, except raw. I like apple cider, apple cider vinegar, apple juice, apple sauce, baked apples, apple strudel, apple pie, apple crumb cake, apple crisp, apple butter, apple rugelach, Apple Jacks cereal, even dried apples, but give me a raw apple, and I will see how far I can throw it. It's probably because I hate the texture of a raw apple, and it's definitely because I absolutely HATE that "CRUNCH" sound when eating it. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard. So, if you eat an apple near me, don't be offended when I run away. LOL ... I do like eating raw pears. Go figure.

My favorite apple is the Granny Smith because it is sour and more importantly, it adorns many Beatles records.

October 21, 2025, at home

I am not a huge fan of cheesecake, but I will occasionally eat it. I do like my mom's famous pumpkin cake (chocolate chips and walnuts with a sugar glaze). I like pumpkin pie during the Christmas season, but as per a decades-old personal tradition that I l started when I was a young kid in the 1960s, I never, EVER eat it on Thanksgiving Day. Any other day during the year is OK.

October 21, 2025, at home