Soccer, vibe coding, and DadStats


Last summer, Julia and I drove to Bryson City for her first club soccer team practice. At the time, it felt like a huge moment–our daughter was a rising freshman, but in our minds she was still very much a middle schooler. And now, suddenly, I was dropping her off at a field an entire county away so she could go try out for a team with a bunch of high school kids.

Those high school kids looked decidedly older.

My nerves, my word, my nerves. Every sense of athletic inadequacy in my body welled up to see her jog out onto the pitch and start passing the ball around. What on earth are we doing here? I wondered.

Snow Weekend Notes


This weekend Sylva had an honest-to-goodness snow event. Starting overnight Friday, fluffy snow blew in from a nor’easter that spun to our south and then off the coast. The snow kept up all morning Saturday and well into the afternoon. By the end of the day, we had 6.5 inches in many places.

The entire state got a healthy treat of snow, too. Mom and Dad saw plenty in Taylorsville and Hickory, and Carl and Dianne had a good measure in Statesville.

Helping out matters was a pretty cold bit of air that had been in place all week following last weekend’s ice storm. That one missed us completely, but there were still plenty of covered, frozen streets back in Iredell County, where they didn’t go to school all week.

Strife Closed in the Sod

The Calling of the Disciples. Eugene Higgins, 1874-1958.

“He was a good man.”


This weekend, in Minneapolis, an American citizen was killed in broad daylight by federal agents. It was the second such killing this month.

Saturday’s murder claimed the life of 37 year-old Alex Pretti, a nurse who worked at the city’s VA medical center. Pretti was on the street documenting ICE agents with his cell phone camera, following them as they continued their weeks-long mission to capture and deport undocumented immigrants.

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