Weeknote #110 (20261101-20261107)

meta

Pretty great week, eh? Also, on a personal front, exhausting — I was on the road most of the week, Bay Area and Austin. It was pretty cool to end up in Texas the day after Election Day tho…

did

  • Sunday, drove up to PDX to fly down to SFO for a couple days in the Bay Area for work
  • Sunday evening, from the hotel, watched the Timbers whip Houston in the last home match of the year, pretty much locking in a playoff appearance
  • Monday night, had a very nice team dinner at The Barrel in San Mateo — recommended if you’re in the area
  • Tuesday night, ended up watching election returns from a small brewery that’s about a block from work, with a cohort of like-minded co-workers, including a couple of folks who live in Austin. Seeing them both go from dubious, “I’ve been hurt before” territory to jubilation was pretty great!
  • Wednesday, I flew SFO-SAN-AUS, which involved more delays than I preferred
  • Thursday, we had another lovely team dinner at Kalimotxo, which I cannot recommend highly enough — it’s worth planning a trip to Austin just to go to this restraint, y’all
  • I ended up switching up my flight and coming home Friday afternoon, rather than Saturday morning as I had originally planned — other folks were also leaving early, I was worn out, and I felt like I’d gotten everything out of the trip that I needed to
  • Saturday was just hanging out and relaxing, then watching the Timbers cinch the 7th spot in the West, beating Austin in the last regular season match of the year, avoiding the dreaded play-in match

read

  • There Are Four Lights

    We have all lived through so much—I’m reminded that one year ago was when ICE was at its worst right around me—and it would be so easy, so simple, to just fall for it all. It would be so easy to give up, to give in, and to admit that there are five lights.

    But of course I can’t, you can’t, none of us can. No matter how hard it gets—and whatever the results of the election on Tuesday it’s going to get harder—we can never forget the lesson that Patrick Stewart taught us: There are four lights.

  • The Rule of Nine

    Great re-cap of Portland’s last home match of the year, from last week. I loved this bit about Diego Chara:

    Naturally, this action had to involve the two players on the pitch who represented the extremes of the age spectrum. 16-year-old Matthew Arana was carrying the ball, and 40-year-old Diego Chara was running him down. Fischer was tracking the play with his whistle in his mouth and a hand on his shirt pocket. As both players kept battling each other for the ball, it was the 40-year-old captain who came out on top.

    This seemingly legitimate ball win was immediately whistled by Fischer. He had already made up his mind from the second the battle was engaged. Diego Chara was going to pay for this challenge by getting a yellow card. What followed was the complete opposite of normalcy. Fischer raised the card into the air, and was met with a roar of applause from the crowd.

    This might be the only crowd-pleasing yellow card that has ever existed. Fischer knew what the audience wanted. So he catered to the fans and gave them one last Diego Chara yellow card at home in 2026. This play would have never been worthy of a booking. By all rights, the stadium should have been furious. But it didn’t matter. This yellow card got a similar crowd reaction to some of the goals that the Timbers scored tonight. He is Diego Chara. He is the ageless captain. And he is the only person on planet Earth that can receive this kind of ovation for a purposeful refereeing mistake. There is only one Diego Chara. And there will never be another.

listened

Lots of new music this week — it was a Bandcamp Friday and I took the chance to load up on several things off my wishlist

looking forward to

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I’m headed out to the NYC/LI area to see Mx19 for the first time since they went back to school — very excite!