Monthly Archives: November 2026

Chinese Takeout Thursday Rundown

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Let’s Go! November is another spectacular month with a lot to look forward to. Although a Thursday Rundown might not be one of those things, hopefully tonight’s five topics bring some enjoyment your way.

Trick-Treat-Goose – In my Halloween recap post, I mentioned that we closed up shop after surpassing 200 trick-or-treaters. The tally is below. But if you look closely, you will notice there is an additional tally for “Comments on Greta.” Our porch goose was at our side when we handed out candy and she received a fair share of comments from trick-or-treaters and their parents. Sloan decided to mark a tally each time someone said something. Greta was dressed to impress.

Our tally sheet that included a count for trick-or-treaters and a count for Greta comments.

Lecture – On Tuesday, I delivered a guest lecture to EWU’s Intro to PR class. The course’s professor, Jessica Boyer, asked me to speak to the class and I didn’t hesitate at the opportunity. Students are the reason why I have my job and any time I am given the opportunity to speak with them I seize it. I reserved the President’s Conference Room as the location of the lecture and afterwards I took the students on a tour of our University Relations offices. But for the lecture itself I laid out the organizational structure of our department, described the types of marketing we do, showed them examples of our work, and highlighted our internship program. I also took plenty of time to answer the many excellent questions that the students and Jessica asked. This opportunity energized me for the rest of the week!

It was a pleasure to deliver a guest lecture to Jessica Boyer’s Intro to PR class on Nov. 3, 2026.

Beau’s Candy Haul – Below is Beau’s candy intake from Halloween night. The combination of houses that are built close together along with the generous handfuls of candy distributed by the neighbors resulted in a full treat bag after only 30 minutes. Beau would like to proudly point out that he collected SIX full-sized candy bars.

A look at Beau’s 2026 Halloween candy haul. Notice the many full-sized Reese’s.

EWU vs. Montana Football Game – Before we hunkered down in our neighborhood for Halloween night, Sid and I had the opportunity to attend the EWU vs. University of Montana football game earlier in the day. We enjoyed the action from one of the end zone suites in the company of several of my colleagues and their spouses. The weather was perfect and the game was competitive. One of the true highlights was speaking with several of my former University of Montana bosses and co-workers who accompanied the Griz football team to Missoula. A couple of them I had not had the chance to speak with since I left UM more than 12 years ago. It was rewarding to let them know how they positively influenced my career.

Sid and I had a great Halloween afternoon at the EWU vs. University of Montana football game.

National Chinese Takeout Day – Today is technically National Donut Day but it seems like that day comes around multiple times during the year so I wanted to focus on National Chinese Takeout Day. Who doesn’t love receiving a packed, greasy bag filled with egg rolls, fried rice, and various meats from your local Chinese restaurant? Although driving it home is always so tempting and mouth-watering-inducing, there is nothing better than plopping on the couch with your family and pigging out while watching a movie.

Panda Express is a solid choice for Chinese takeout.

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Hope the first full weekend of November is a positive one. With the elections this past Tuesday, let us pray for an eventual peaceful transition of power from the unseated incumbents to the victorious challengers. Don’t Blink.

Not Loving Latest McDonald’s Decision

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I read the news last week that McDonald’s will phase out all self-serve drink stations. The implementation will be gradual as restaurants have until 2032 to be in compliance.

McDonald’s is supposedly making the wide-sweeping change for the sake of consistency across the entire brand. Why it can’t be consistent by having self-serve drink stations in all dining rooms I don’t know.

Beau and Sloan sip drinks inside a downtown Spokane McDonald’s. The self-serve stations are going away.

But I do have some thoughts about all this…

1. It is true, McDonald’s fountain sodas just hit differently.
2. I won’t miss the messes and “graveyard sodas” that are produced when my kids try to use the self-serve stations.
3. I will miss filling up my cup after we eat inside the dining room for the drive home.
4. New McDonald’s restaurants continue to pop up in Spokane and they are all very minimalistic—including early adoption of no self-serve drink stations.
5. This is just another reason why I constantly say that eating at Burger King is better than McDonald’s.

Do you have thoughts about the change? I think it does decrease the value of dining at McDonald’s but at the same it might cut back on some cavities. Overall though, I would have to say I’m Not Loving It. Don’t Blink.

2026 Halloween Recap

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It was quite the Halloween season.

Sloan and Beau pose with their cousins, Johnny and Mik, at the Mead High School trunk-or-treat event. Halloween 2026 was awesome for the Reser family.

In addition to trick-or-treating on Saturday night and their own Halloween parties at school, I took Sloan and Beau to eight different public community Halloween-related events over the course of a week and a half.

Because when you buy expensive costumes, you have to get your money’s worth, right?

I made sure Sloan and Beau maximized the time they had in their costumes.

But in all honesty, I just love this time of year and I love doing fun things with my kids. It also helps that this Spokane community is incredible and puts forth such a strong effort to serve the youth.

Spokane does so much for Halloween and I really enjoyed the chance to enjoy it with my kids.

This blog post would go forever if I broke down each event we attended so I will save the quick recap just for Halloween weekend. But I did want to mention one theme from this spooky season: haunted houses/mazes.

Sloan, Beau, my sister, and cousins wait outside a haunted house entrance. Beau had me hold him while Sloan didn’t go in.

Some of the Halloween events we attended offered haunted attractions which were very subdued to a horror-seeker like myself but a first test for someone like Beau. For the most part, he loved them and wanted to go again. In a couple other instances, he wanted me to hold him. Sloan? She stood outside the door and said “NO WAY.” 😂

Sloan preferred to refrain from the haunted house attractions. This photo is of her with two classmates.

I can’t express how nice our Halloween weekend was. On Friday we attended the St. Mary Catholic School Halloween Carnival/Trunk-Or-Treat. It was fun to watch our kids run wild with their classmates while also getting the chance to catch up with our fellow-parents/friends. Our school community is so awesome.

Beau does the cake walk at the St. Mary Catholic School Halloween Carnival in his t-rex costume.

After the school event, we headed to Red Robin for our Halloween evening. It was relaxing to sit down with my family after a busy day at work and enjoy delicious hamburgers. The main reason why we chose Red Robin was because everyone who showed up in costume received a free sundae. We told Beau he couldn’t go inside with his t-rex costume so he opted for his Stitch outfit.

Sloan and Beau show the sundaes they received for wearing costumes at Red Robin on Oct. 30, 2026.

On Halloween night I took Beau trick-or-treating for the first time in our neighborhood. It was our initial experience because before this past weekend, the ‘hood was in different stages of development. With it now pretty much completely built, it made since to stay on our home turf. In our neighborhood the houses are built pretty closely together so Beau could quickly go house-to-house. Or should I say driveway-to-driveway? Pretty much all neighbors set up shop outside as burned fires, grilled food, played music, and handed out LOTS of candy. Beau’s treat bag was practically full after only hitting up a fraction of the Elk Meadows houses.

Beau approaches a house that had a makeshift library set up for children to take a book (yes, they had candy too). The trick-or-treat vibe in Elk Meadows was outstanding.

With Beau not wanting to haul his bag around any longer, we returned home to pass out candy with Sidney and Sloan. Like our other neighbors, we stayed outside in our lawn chairs and distributed candy to the throngs of costumed kids/teens that walked up our driveway. It was a perfect family activity for the four of us to do. After we hit the 200 mark of trick-or-treaters—even though we had more candy to give out—we decided to head inside and close up shop.

It was a lot of fun handing out candy with Sid and the kids on Halloween night.

But just because we stopped handing out candy didn’t mean we ceased celebrating Halloween. We heated up frozen pizza and watched “Hocus Pocus” together. Once the sugar highs wore off, we turned off the movie with about 30 minutes to go and headed upstairs to bed.

I hope everyone else had a fulfilling Halloween. If we had the pleasure of hanging with you this month, thanks for being part of our spooky season. Don’t Blink.