A Bob's Life: Monday Musings

Monday, January 5, 2026

Monday Musings - January 5, 2026

1. Happy New Year again. Welcome to the first Monday of 2026. We have a whole year ahead of us along with 51 more Mondays.

Out the Hotel Window
Port Canaveral, FL
January 5, 2025

2. Today we board Utopia of the Seas for a week of fun and a visit to the Bahamas! I am awake this morning looking out on a foggy Florida morning. I was happy to be able to charge the car for free at the hotel!

3. NFL Family Football Report. The regular season is over and only one family team made the post season. Congratulations to the Steelers and the game ending missed Ravens field goal. Collectively, the teams finished a dismal 43-58-1, .426, for the season.

Ravens (8-9) lost to Steelers (10-7), 24-26

Dolphins (7-10) lost to Patriots (14-3), 10-38

Commanders (5-12) defeated Eagles (11-6), 24-17

Cowboys (7-9-1), lost to Giants (4-13), 17-34

Chiefs (6-11) lost to Raiders (3-14), 12-14

4. I am very conflicted this morning. I am appalled that international law and the Constitution were so blatantly ignored with the "arrest" of Maduro and his wife. I was further shocked that the Attorney General talked of the full "wrath" of American justice. I thought justice was blind and fair in a country governed by the rule of law. And I am further distressed by the Republicans talking on FoxNews (yes I watched) and not addressing the legality of the actions, but rather condemning Democrats who are concerned about the law, the state of our country, and are concerned that the veiled arrest is really a land and resource grab form a sovereign country. How is this different from what Putin did to Ukraine? And now Trump is talking about Cuba and Colombia next!

5. Today in History. On January 5, 1933, construction begins on the Golden Gate Bridge, as workers began excavating 3.25 million cubic feet of dirt for the structure’s huge anchorages.

Following the Gold Rush boom that began in 1849, speculators realized the land north of San Francisco Bay would increase in value in direct proportion to its accessibility to the city. Soon, a plan was hatched to build a bridge that would span the Golden Gate, a narrow, 400-foot deep strait that serves as the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, connecting the San Francisco Peninsula with the southern end of Marin County.

Although the idea went back as far as 1869, the proposal took root in 1916. A former engineering student, James Wilkins, working as a journalist with the San Francisco Bulletin, called for a suspension bridge with a center span of 3,000 feet, nearly twice the length of any in existence. Wilkins’ idea was estimated to cost an astounding $100 million. So, San Francisco’s city engineer, Michael M. O’Shaughnessy (he’s also credited with coming up with the name Golden Gate Bridge), began asking bridge engineers whether they could do it for less.