I liked playing pickleball. It made me sweat. I just didn’t like the competitiveness of it. Pickleball players are also snobby as fuck even within my own circle of friends.

I hadn’t played all winter because I was focusing on skiing and snowboarding. Now that the winter is over, I wanted to get back to playing pickleball. The guys I used to played with honed their skills everyday. They are now on a higher level. Whenever I played with them, they seemed to be forced. They didn’t want to put any efforts into it. They were stuck up and condescending. I stopped coming out.

Instead of helping beginners to improve, they looked down on them. I got bummed out and bored. Maybe Vietnamese people are just too damn competitive. They are not team players. Maybe I should join an American pickleball group to see if it is any difference. Or maybe I should refocus my energy on rollerblading and skateboarding. At the skatepark, people never looked down on beginners. In fact, they encouraged beginners.

The same sentiment goes for skiing and snowboarding. We also helped beginners to learn. When I first learned snowboarding, I was falling on the bunny slopes like crazy. I almost quit, but then a young snowboarder in his 20s came up to me and told me that I was doing great. He told me not to give up. Just his encouragement alone had kept me thriving. Now I even become a snowboard instructor.

Maybe I like sports in which I can progress on my own. From ice skating to rollerblading to skiing to snowboarding, these sports allow me to work on my skills. I don’t have to compete with anyone else. I just need to compete with myself. With pickleball, it is not easy to work on my own. I need 3 more players or at least another person to play against. Also playing for points changes the game. Instead of playing just for fun and to get some exercise, people get really competitive about it and we don’t even play for money or cups.

I am just going to stay out of pickleball.

My Facebook timeline now has one post from friend and the rest from ads or the people I don’t give a fuck about. The algorithm is getting worst. I have been refrained myself from posting on Facebook as well. I posted videos and photos during the ski season. It felt like showing off. People don’t read long posts on Facebook; therefore, I just focus on posting on my own blog here. This is still a quiet space for me to write. No ads. No other people contents. Just my own thoughts.

I haven’t deactivated Facebook yet because I am still using Marketplace to sell things. I noticed that when I deactivated Facebook, I lost some friends. I don’t if if they unfriended me when I deactivated my account or Facebook does it automatically. In any rate, I just keep my account, but stop posting. I glad I got rid of Twitter many years ago. I haven’t missed it. I lost my Twitter account.

LinkedIn still seems to be relevant. I only posted work and design promotions. I might just keep doing that and not checking in the timeline. I might just do that for Facebook as well. I am growing tired of social media, but not my blog. I must confessed. Facebook has been pulling my attention away from reading. I keep on scrolling instead of reading and that has to change. I need to get back to reading more, not less.

I get a headache and loads of regrets after scrolling through Facebook. All that time should have been used to read a handful of pages instead. I have been listening to long essays in the New Yorker app while doing chores like folding clothes, washing the dishes, or tuning skis and snowboards. I have the entire basement to tidy up. It has become unbelievable disorganized. There are so many things that I want to give or throw away. I just need to plow through them.

As we are moving off spring and into summer, I have tons of shit to do around the house. I need to devote more time on those tasks. I will take time away from going to the skatepark even though I still want to rollerblade and skateboard. I will also stop going to pickleball—more on this in another post. I want my sons to help me cleaning up the house, but they rather spend time on their computers instead. After asking them, telling them, and yelling at them many times without they actually wanting to do anything else other than spending time on their digital devices, I just give up. I just let them do what they want to do. I am tired of repeating myself.

It’s such a relief to get my first colonoscopy done and over with. Everything turned out fine. The procedure was not as bad as I had expected. Even the preparation was doable.

Two days before the procedure, I had a big dinner—grilled shrimps and steaks. The day before the procedure, I went on a liquid diet, which was challenging. Without solid food, I couldn’t focus on anything. I even had a headache. By noon, I had to take ginger ale to give my system some sugar. When the kids came home from school, my wife baked them pizza. The smell made me miserable. I shut my door and tried to sleep.

At 5 pm, I started my first dose of SUPREP. That solution worked like a charm. An hour after taking SUPREP, I ran for the toilet. The cleansing process began. After many visits to the toilet, it started to feel like anal sex: pain in the fucking ass. I set the alarm for 2:00 am in the morning to take my second dose of SUPREP. I didn’t need the alarm to wake me up because I was not sleeping. Around 3:30 am, I tried to catch some sleep, but woke up around 6:00 am.

At 6:30 am, I woke up my designated driver and got ready to head to Gastro Health for the scheduled procedure at 8:30 am. Mad kudos to Dr. Vishant A. Ramadorai and his excellent staff for making the procedure as smooth as possible. The anesthesia knocked me out almost immediately. The anesthesiologist told me to dream about a place I wanted to visit. I told him I wanted to snowboard in Colorado. Before I could start dreaming, someone called my name to wake me up. The procedure was done.

Dr. Ramadorai informed me that he removed a rectum for biopsy. I will need to come back in 5 years instead of 10 years. I am OK with that since the procedure was not so bad. If you are still holding out on your first colonoscopy, I recommend it. If you live in Fairfax, I highly recommend Gastro Health with Dr. Ramadorai.

After we left the endoscopy center, I told my driver, my wife, to take me to Phở Thìn. I needed a good bowl of hot soup. Because I was told not to eat any raw vegetables yet, I just ordered a small bowl with just noodles and beef. I was not impressed. The broth was dark and a bit salty. I still missed the street phở in Hà Nội. The simplicity of northern phở is so hard to find in the States. The broth was clear, savory, and piping hot. The beef was tender and juicy. I wanted to go back for more.

Thanks to my wife for encouraging me, setting up the initial consultation for me, and driving me to the center and back home. Couldn’t have done it without her.

I have been into Japanese literature. I wish I can read Japanese, but I can’t; therefore, I have to go with translations. I just finished reading Fumio Yamamoto’s stories. Brian Bergstrom has done an excellent job of translating the stories into English. These aren’t short stories, but more like novellas. I enjoyed each character-driven novella, which revolves around the struggles of women. I also learned something new about “Planarian.” Here’s an except:

“I don’t really know the technical details, I just think it would be really cool, you know, to have a body you could cut up all you want and it would grow back! Like, I had breast cancer, right? If I’d been born a planarian, I could have just cut off my breast and it would have grown back, no fuss, no surgery, no bother!”

Here’s an except from “Naked”:

He was such a nice guy, I thought, remembering my ex-husband. The only son of a landlord in Shitamachi, he had a certain absent-minded way about him but was a quality person. He was optimistic to the core, considerate, and patient. Unlike me, he didn’t hold grudges and never had a bad word to say about anyone. I’d loved these things about him at first, but after a while, they began to wear on me. Had his being so easygoing led to me becoming inconsiderate? I’d ended up assuming that the things that made me happy made him happy too.

Another except from “The Dilemmas of Working Women”:

I’d told him he was my first, but in truth, I hadn’t actually been a virgin. I’d had a boyfriend in high school, but when we did the deed it just hurt and made me feel embarrassed, and I grew tired of being pestered for it at the end of every date. I concluded then that sex simply didn’t suit me. But once I started working, I was shocked to find myself wanting to go bed with Õishi, the designer. I realized I could enjoy sex—but only when it was carefree, with someone for whom I had no romantic feelings at all. It was a surprise to discover that I possessed sexual desire after all, even if it was a bit off-kilter. I had to imagine Asaoka-kun had made a similar discovery about himself at some point.

This collection makes a great summer reading.

I woke up this morning feeling fine. I took my older kids to school and headed to Home Depot to pick up some supplies to fix the leaking kitchen sink drain. I drank only water.

After the repair job, I took my second son to the orthodontist. It was only 10:30 am and the weather was already hot. My car has no AC. I started to get a headache. When I got home, I started to drink ginger ale. I needed some sugar to keep me from feeling hungry. I tried to read to keep my mind off food.

At 2:45 pm, I went to pick up the kids. The heat was up to 90 degrees. I fell asleep in the car without AC. I woke up at around 3:30 and my sons didn’t show up. They were supposed to be here around 3:00 pm.

I went back home and the headache escalated. I tried to relax in bed, but the smell of pizza in the oven was killing me. Not having eaten anything all day made me miserable.

At 5:00 pm, I took my first dose of SUPREP. An hour later, I ran for the toilet. The first few times, it felt like diarrhea. After that, it felt like I was peeing out of my ass.

The stomach is empty. My head is aching. I can’t focus on reading. I can’t go to sleep because I would shit in my shorts. I am writing this to distract myself.

I have to take one more dose of SUPREP at 2:00 am in the morning. Then I have to wait until 8:30 am for my procedure. I can’t wait to get this colonoscopy shit done and over with. Let’s hope everything will be fine.

Our kitchen sink drain has been leaking for years. It was just a drop here and there and yet I hesitated to fix it. Over the years, the zinc nut was getting rusted. This morning, I determine to fix it once and for all. I was having trouble unscrewing the plastic slip joint nut; therefore, I also had to replace it. It should have taken about 10 minutes, but took me half an hour. It was a small job, but it made me happy that I fixed something.

Parts:

• Everbilt 1-1/2 in. Sink Drain Pipe Zinc Slip-Joint Nut with Rubber Reducing Washer: $6
• Dearborn 1-1/2-in Plastic Slip joint nut & washer: $4.

Cajoled by Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump went to war with Iran. In just six weeks, the Trump war has killed thousands of lives, cost billions of dollars, caused chaos across the Middle East, and crumbled the world economy. Trump attacked Iran then begged for peace. Unlike the sycophants surrounding Trump, Iran isn’t bowing down to him. Now all he does is shit-posting. The whole world is now watching a social-media president who is displaying his dangerous incompetency.

I am going to have my first colonoscopy on Thursday. I must admit. I am a bit nervous and stressed out. Tomorrow will be the prep day. I just can’t wait to get the procedure done and over with.

Nhóm Phocal với thành viên Thủy Bùi (vocalist) Hoàng Tùng (band leader/guitarist), Ken Nguyễn (double bassist), Duy Phúc (pianist), Đỗ Mai Sơn (drummer), và Bùi Hoàng An (saxophonist) ra mắt album Hanoi Jazz Vibes đầu năm 2026 với những ca khúc jazz ballads được dịch sang lời Việt.

Album bắt đầu với ca khúc “Tạm biệt nỗi buồn” (“Bye Bye Blackbird” của Ray Henderson của Richard Rogers và Lorenz Hart) qua phần thể hiện của Thủy Bùi và Hồng Khanh. Ca khúc được mở đầu với tiếng hát nhẹ nhàng cùng với tiếng đàn guitar điện. Tiếng double bass tham gia vào và cả band trở nên swing. Hoàng Tùng đánh solo, rồi đến tiếng saxophone của Bùi Hoàng An. Lâu lắm mới nghe band nhạc Việt chơi theo phong cách improvisation của nhạc jazz. Lời nhạc của Thủy Bùi của thú vị: “Chim đen xin hót vang bài ca đến nơi huy hoàng / Đưa ta đến nơi khung trời tự do”.

“Trăng xanh” (“Blue Moon”) được chuyển sang giai điệu bossa nova lả lướt. Hằng Du và Huy Khanh hát đối với nhau (call and response) nghe lãng mạn: “Và nàng chợt nhớ cơn gió khẽ lạnh / Một vòng tay êm như chiếc gối mềm / Lời ngọt ngào bên tai ‘Hãy đến bên em’”. Duy Phúc đánh một bài solo có chất blues say sưa và Bùi Hoàng An thổi tiếng sax bay bổng trong đêm.

“Thân tâm” (“Body and Soul” của Johnny Green và Edward Heyman) dịch sang tiếng Việt không hề dễ nhưng Thủy Bùi và Quân Phạm đã vượt qua được thử thách đó. Chỉ hai câu đầu đã nghe phê rồi: “Chìm trong buồn bã và cô đơn / Thở than vì em chỉ có riêng em thôi”. Tiếng sax của Bùi Hoàng An khi đệm cho đôi song có một thoáng của Coleman Hawkins. Phần solo của Bùi Hoàng An nghe cũng khá đậm chất trầm của Hawkins.

Từ cách hát đến phần improvisation, Hanoi Jazz Vibes rất đúng jazz standards, chỉ hơi thiếu phần scat. Đến bài cuối của album, “Gọi tên anh” (“Let Me Call You Sweetheart” của Leo Friedman và Beth Slater Whitson) mới xuất hiện phần scat. Thủy Bùi và Hằng Du cùng scat với nhau qua nhịp điệu samba vừa sexy vừa thuần thục. Khâm phục, khâm phục.

Lúc mới qua Mỹ, tôi rất ngưỡng mộ anh Công Thành. Chẳng những anh hát cũng khá và nói chuyện duyên dáng, mà anh có một người đẹp tóc vàng luôn sát cánh bên anh. Chị Lyn không chỉ đẹp mà còn hát tiếng Việt. Lúc mới đặc chân trên đất Mỹ, tôi cũng ao ước được một cô bạn gái tóc vàng. Tuy sau này tôi thích bạn đời mình là người Việt, tôi vẫn khâm phục anh. Nghe tin anh qua đời, tôi cũng bùi ngùi cho dù tôi chưa bao giờ gặp anh và anh cũng chẳng biết tôi là ai. Dù sao đi nữa tôi cũng cầu mong cho anh được yên giấc.