Thank you for visiting Don’t Blink on this last day of July. I hope your month has been exciting and your summer refreshing. Let’s jump into my latest five topics.

Pro Soccer – This past weekend, I took the kids to ONE Stadium in downtown for the Spokane Velocity soccer match. The Velocity compete in the United Soccer League (USL) and have quickly found a fan base in our soccer-crazed city. Beau and Sloan had a blast. They went on the field for pregame introductions, made cheer signs, ate stadium food, and watched a very closely contested soccer match on a beautiful evening. Unfortunately, the Velocity fell to Sacramento Republic FC, 1-0. Special thanks to the Spokane County Library District. Because the kids reached their mid-summer goal of 300 minutes of reading, they were each given a free ticket voucher from SCLD for the match.

We had a really nice time at the Spokane Velocity game!

Southern Style Snowballs – A story in the Spokesman-Review last week caught my eye. It was about a guy from Louisiana who worked with his young son to create Southern Style Snowballs, a Spokane business that serves shaved ice treats from a truck. His recipe is New Orleans-inspired and that piqued the interest of my very Southern wife 😉. So, last Friday we went to the Spokane Valley Farmers Market where Southern Style Snowballs was a registered vendor. Sloan chose a blue raspberry snowball, Beau opted for blue raspberry, Sidney selected fuzzy navel, and I sampled them all. Although I wouldn’t say it was better than the shave ice I had in Hawaii, the treats offered by Southern Style Snowballs were still above and beyond anything you can find here in Spokane.

I took this photo of the back of the Southern Style Snowballs truck at the Spokane Valley Farmers Market.

Nice Ride – I am not a big car guy but I know some of my readers are. You might be interested to know that my brother-in-law recently acquired a 1966 Chevelle. He was nice enough to take me for a spin in it this past Sunday. Let me tell you, when you ride in that thing you get a lot of looks! We hadn’t even exited the car at the gas station before someone was already asking us questions about the year, speed, history of it. Anyway, the joy ride was a lot of fun—it might have been the fastest I have ever gone in an automobile.

My brother-in-law’s 1966 Chevelle. This is after we parked it at the gas station.

Ugly Hands – On this date nine years ago, I wrote about a less than becoming body feature of mine—my hands! For most of my life, they have been plagued with bulging callouses. However, I can report almost a decade later that those callouses aren’t as pronounced as they once were. I still exercise every week day but whether my workouts aren’t that intense or the equipment at my current gym is more forgiving, my hands don’t scare away 3-year-old anymore 😂.

I have always had calloused hands but they are starting to get better.

Rigged – Thought I would end with this Family Circus strip from yesterday. If you have a young kid, you know how they turn any game of chance into a racket. Beau will challenge me to rock-paper-scissors or ask me to call a coin in the air (the worst!) and he will very non-discreetly rig it. When it comes to what the boy is doing in the comic, if this was Beau, he would simply transfer the object from his left hand to his right hand if I correctly guessed his left hand. Hard to get a fair shake with kids these days.

This “Family Circus” strip is from July 30 and as a father of young children I can relate!

—————-

With that, let’s put a fork in the final July rundown of 2025. This weekend I have Seattle in my future and I hope you embark on an adventure as well. Don’t Blink.