Last night, my wife broke the chain when she tried to turn off the ceiling fan. We bought a new switch at Lowe’s for about $7. The replacement process takes 10 to 15 minutes. We use these fans in our bedrooms a lot because our second floor is always hot. Our AC unit doesn’t work too well. I am not sure how long we can ride it out before we have to spend about $15k. I just don’t want to think about it. Being a homeowner comes with too many responsibilities and I have very little skills to fix them. Oh well!

As I was debating whether I should spent over $50K to buy a new Toyota Sienna or fixing our 2011 Toyota Sienna XLE, I chose the latter. This time I chose the Auto Team in Manassas. One of the co-owners is a friend’s uncle. Even though it was my first time, I could trust him. He’s an honest mechanic. He replaced the front struts and sway bar links.

Parts

• Struts: $190 (2x)
• Sway bar links: $48 (2x)

Labors: $400

Total with discounts: $850

The AC is still not working. The sliding doors are still not fixed. Nevertheless, I can still use in in the winter to drive to Whitetail for work.

I do not condone gun violence. I condemn the assassination of Charlie Kirk. My condolences go out to his family.

Nevertheless, let’s not forget that Kirk was a right-wing provocateur who built his fame and fortune on abomination, disinformation, polarization, and radicalization. Kirk knew damn well what he got into when he boasted, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

America has a dead-serious gun problem and Kirk’s violent rhetoric only makes it worse. He normalized gun violence. He was a great political performer. He rose to the occasion and seized the moment. He was unstoppable until a bullet caught up to him.

Again, Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be shot and killed, but let’s not forget there was another school shooting on the same day at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado. Kirk’s death is heinous, but the lives of so many innocent children we lost to mass shootings are also tragic.

At this point, we still don’t know the motive behind Kirk’s assassination, but what we do know is that gun violence is neither a left nor a right problem. Gun violence is an American problem.

I still rollerbladed as much as I could. I hadn’t picked up any new skills. I skated for about half an hour at the skatepark and spent another 30 minutes on the basketball court simulate ski carving on my big-wheel rollerblade.

I played volleyball with other scout dads every Wednesday night. Three weeks ago, I hurt my right thumb and it hasn’t fully covered. I need to learn how to avoid finger injuries.

I also picked out a bit of pickleball. It seems like my wife enjoys pickleball as well so we can play together. I want to get the kids to give it a try as well. We’ll see.

Then again, I still can’t wait for the winter to come so I can ski and snowboard. These are still my favorite sports. They are even better when I get to do them for free. I hope the weather will stay cold and pray the snow god as well.

Yesterday, I decided to rework and refine the wordmark for Scalia Law’s Career & Academic Services. It is set in Acumin Variable, designed by Robert Slimbach, to give give a nice and balanced text block. The colors came from Scalia Law’s branding.

I cancelled Netflix. I only subscribed to Netflix so I could watch season two of Squid Game, but I kept it until season three released. I would have kept Netflix if my family were streaming it. Only Xuân watched Cobra Kai. After he finished all of the series, he stopped streaming. I don’t have much time to watch either. Netflix is overwhelming with content, and yet I just don’t know what to watch. I enjoyed stand-up comedy, but it didn’t have that many new specials. I watched a few episodes of Sex and the City and they were enough for me.

In a way, I enjoy reading more than watching. I have been wanting to subscribe to the New Yorker, my favorite magazine, but I am still holding off. I am just not sure if I want to read articles or just focus on reading books. I don’t have time to read everything and if I were to subscribe to the New Yorker, I would want to read everything.

I subscribed to the New Yorker a few years ago and the paper magazines were piling up in my home. I felt guilty for not be able to read them all. Maybe I just subscribe to the digital version. I do want to support the New Yorker.

Took three minutes voted for James Walkinshaw. He’s a Democrat. I can’t vote for any Republicans because they only work for one man instead of this country. So fuck them.

In the construction
of the chest, there is
a heart.

A boat
upon its blood
floats past

and round or down
the stream of life,
the plummeting veins

permit its passage
to admit no gains,
no looking back.

One steps aboard,
one’s off.
The ticket taker

signs the time allotted.
Seated, amorphous persons
see no scenery

but feel
a chill about their knees
and hear a fading cry

as all the many sides of life
whiz by,
a blast at best, a loss

of individual impressions.
Still I sit
with you inside me too—

and us,
the couple thus encoupled,
ride on into the sweetening dark.

Robert Creeley

Last night, the second automatic sliding door from our 2011 Toyota Sienna XLE broke. The first one broke about six months ago, but I hadn’t fixed it. One auto shop quoted about $2,000 to replace. That would cost $4,000 for both. Obviously, I am not going to replace them. I have no problem with using the manual sliding doors. My only concern is that the kids my get their fingers jam or their face smashed since the doors would slide very fast with the cables to hold them.

In addition, the back lift gate has no hydraulic. It keeps falling down and hit my head. The interiors are falling apart. The shock front driver side is gone. The steering post makes clicking noise every time I made a turn. The AC is out. The milage is about 210,000 miles. The only thing that still works well is the engine—for now.

Since I will be driving an hour and a half each Saturday and Sunday this winter to work, I will need a reliable car. I am not sure if it is worth it to fix the issues and keep it or buy a brand new Sienna. The price tag for 2025 hybrid Sienna XLE is around $50,000. I don’t want to spend that much money on a car. I want to see how much it will cost to fix the shock and the steering post. If it costs too much then I might need to get a new car.

First world problem, I know. Nevertheless, I still hate owning a car, but I need it.

From Vail Resorts:

Hello Donny Truong,

Congratulations! You have completed all Pre-Boarding steps for your role at Vail Resorts. You still have a few more actions to complete… Look for this message within two weeks of your start date, which we tentatively have scheduled for 2025-11-01.

Thank you,
Vail Resorts Human Resources

I am excited!