April Madness

…and some monkey business!

Floater’s Blog: Icy Lake Date, April 7th, 2026

This is ridiculous and I’m mad about it!

Here in Toronto, it’s the first day back to work for most folks after the Easter weekend, you know, when tulips are popping up in gardens and buds are opening on trees. Wrong!

It’s freakin’ freezing out! We had a thunder snow-storm last night and it’s the first week of April. This is madness. In sha’ Allah!  Any thoughts of checking out some local waterways for a wetsuit float will require an ice saw to create some open water. That’s not going to happen. However, for the sake of a photo op, I did find a little lake just north of the city which made an excellent setting for a pose with only a short amount of temperature suffering.

I definitely cut my travels too short this winter and due to my inability to enjoy a proper float my response is to morph this Floater’s Blog into a rant, I mean a more tempered, Monthly Musing. So, from my post icy lake float fireside perch, I pontificate with these thoughts.

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Just like ‘October Baseball’ finished in November, ‘March Madness’ has just concluded in April. Congratulations to the University of Michigan Wolverines on winning their second NCAA championship.

Here in hockey crazed Canada, at this time of year, games are running out for teams fighting to take the last few available playoff positions. To that end, one thing is guaranteed on a yearly basis, the lowly Leafs will not win the Stanley Cup – again, which you can add to the previous 58 years in a row in which they came up short. At least we are more recent champions than the NFL’s Detroit Lions, the NBA’s Sacramento Kings or the very unfortunate Cleveland Guardians in the MLB.

Speaking of hockey, it irks me to see so many top NHL players wearing their mouth guards incorrectly.

But it likely irks the parents of this girl even more because she was emulating the pros and suffered the consequences.

These players are mostly young themselves so I can understand their immaturity in realizing the influence they have on our young and impressionable sports enthusiasts. Maybe the NHL needs to enforce a penalty for improper equipment to set them straight.

If you have any kids who play hockey or any other sport which requires protective wear, please reinforce how to wear or use the equipment involved, or be prepared to lose a smile.

Share this image with other parents in your children’s league - or just share this blog with everyone you know! Sorry, cheap self promotion.

With this cold weather I was pondering the idea of grabbing a flight down to Nicaragua to get warm again but then I remembered Trump just put the price up on anything that requires fuel. Instead I did some visualization of taking the seven minute walk from The Villa down to the beach. Down the road just a mere 100 meters a little bakery opened up last year which catches your attention when you walk by, due to its aroma.

I think I have seen a change in the people who live around the bakery and that change is bigger bellies. I kind of feel sorry for them, they can’t help themselves; it just smells so damn good!

As nice as experiencing that little walk would be my calendar is full at the moment. It feels like I’m living in a quick cut movie scene with all the whirlwind catching up I’m doing with folks I haven’t seen in a while. For example, the other day I went to my friend Tiffany’s place for breakfast. She has a new pet fish called Wanda which she got as a support system to help her try to forget her old girlfriend Sarah Marshall. The usual suspects were there like Mickey with the blue eyes, mighty Joe Young, Hannah and her sisters and even my cousin Vinnie but there were also a few guests I didn’t know. Her cousin Ella was enchanting. I met Joe Black and a guy named Luke who had a cool hand when we shook. Too bad Edward wasn’t there, he always cuts me up. Next weekend I’m going to my buddy Bernie’s.

At the breakfast I spoke with another friend who was telling me about a scientific study about how people seem to smile more with a dog in the house. In a romantic relationship they smile even more with a dog in the house so he says he's going to become extremely happy by starting a romantic relationship with a dog. To each their own.

An obvious topic of conversation which arose was World War III and we all started dissing on El Presidento Trump. However one guest said he is actually very happy with him being in power because he has subscribed to the MAGA Insider Trading Bulletin on the dark web. He found it just before Don and his pal Rob Kennedy were falsely announcing how Tylenol use during pregnancy was linked to autism. He said he sold all his Johnson & Johnson/Kenvue stocks and then bought back in after they plummeted; reaping huge gains after the truth brought the value back up. Recently he has made a killing since his acquisition of shares in various munitions manufacturers.

Finally, I have been trying to figure out how to get an experience I witnessed in late January in Kathmandu Nepal into a blog and this seems like as good a time as any.

During a guided day trip I visited Swayambhu Mahachaitya which is a hillside complex on the west side of town featuring an iconic Buddhist stupa, various temples and a multitude of shrines. It is also in habited by dozens of Long-tailed Macaques. To some these monkeys are considered sacred as descendants of the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman.

The thing which made these particular animals stand out is their affinity for water which includes swimming in a little man made pool on the premises. Apparently these are not the only variety of monkey which swims but it is certainly not the norm.

Now if only I can figure out how to arrange a beerfloat with these fascinating creatures. But not in January, not in the cold and definitely using all the safety equipment at my disposal.

Corliss

beer float.calm =beerfloat.netnot beerfloat.com