🌫️ Week Notes 081
🗓️ // Jul 12, 2026 - Jul 18, 2026
Worked the first half of this week as normal and then started my 11 day staycation on Thursday. Plenty to do around our house in the next couple of weeks and this was a very busy week for the girls as well. The younger two had Totus Tuus down at the cathedral during the day and then S had the same thing in the evening. They had a great time, the only pain point was all the back and forth transportation I had to provide between our house and downtown.
⚽️ The World Cup semifinals were partially enjoyable. I enjoyed seeing Spurs defender Pedro Porro get man of the match as he helped lead Spain past France. On the other hand watching England squander a 1-0 lead and end up losing 1-2 to Argentina because they stopped attacking was downright maddening. I'd love to see Spain take care of business at this point because Argentina's sore winner act really detracts from Messi's greatness.
🚙 As I mentioned I had to do a lot of driving in the second half of this week. Thursday required three down and back trips to downtown Spokane for the cathedral. That translates to two and a half hours of driving time and basically the equivalent of a week's worth of commuting all in one day. It definitely got me thinking about finding ways to not have to drive home in the evening now that Nathan is driving into work and we could carpool. Bike commuting home after work when I don't care about getting sweaty or how long it takes is completely doable.
🌫️ Yesterday we had our first really bad air quality day of th summer thanks to wildfire smoke that moved west from the Coeur d'Alene area (Mary mentioned is being an issue on Thursday). Not sure where it originated, but we were getting 250 ppm ratings in places when we woke up Friday and it ultimately led to the girls' Friday evening soccer practice being cancelled as well.
Playing
- 🧙♂ Did a few more Marvel Super Heroes Premier Drafts with generally mixed results with roughly a 6-6 record across three drafts. Completed the Avengers achievement and a few others. Will keep working on MSH Drafts this week while I'm on vacation, but feel like luck hasn't been with me despite drafting serviceable limited decks.
Watching
📺 The Rising of the Shield Hero S1E1-3 👍 Decided to give a few fantasy anime a try on a whim and enjoyed the setup of this one where the protagonist starts out being unfairly screwed over and hated. Unfortunately the way he acquires his first ally is fairly problematic, as she's a child slave that he purchases. Even though he nurses her to health and treats her well it's not really great that she has no choice but to join him in a life of violent adventuring. It sounds like the rest of season one is decent and I'll probably finish it eventually, but things really drop off in the later seasons.
📺 Frieren: Beyond Journey's End S1E1-12 👍👍 Amazing genre bending Fantasy - Slice of Life series about a long-lived elf mage who has already defeated the big bad long ago and now must come to grips with what her short-lived human companions past and present actually mean to her and how she lives her life going forward. I knew this one would be brilliant based on the recommendation of John Siracusa and others, and I wasn't disappointed at all.
📺 Welcome to Wrexham: S5:1-3 👍👍 The reason this show continues to be great is that Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds completely understand that Wrexham IS the story. They keep the people of the community and the club front and center and have really scaled back their presence. Was particularly psyched that episode 3 gave some coverage to the revamped women's team (with new manager Jenny Sugarman) as I did a full FM26 season play through with that team and even won the Welsh Cup.
📺 Star City S1E8: The Wolves 👍👍 Tense and thrilling conclusion to a banger second half of the season. Lots of open-ended questions and predicaments so I really hope this one gets a second season. I honestly think there's a lot of stories left to be told between where this left off and when Earth finally reaches Mars, particularly if they don't limit themselves to the one decade per season formula that For All Mankind follows.
Reading
📚 Blue Box Ch. 250 👍👍 Satisfying conclusion to the high school sports romance series that I discovered via the anime, and immediately fell in love with. Looking forward to season two later this year.
📚 Dandadan Ch. 1-194 👍👍 Such a crazy and fun series. I discovered this series via the the anime when it first came out a couple of years ago but only started the manga this week and it's flat out incredible. I'm in awe of how mangaka Yukinobu Tatsu keeps ramping up the paranormal chaos and adding cool characters and crazy scenarios for Momo and Okarun to deal with.