It’s not a secret that I like to drink. I drink to accompany my meals. I don’t like drinking to the point that I have to throw up and get a hangover. I like to drink enough to take my mind off reality, but still have control of my consciousness. The sweet spot for me is to have just enough alcohol to relax, to leave my worries behind, and to not give a dam for a few hours.

How do I know when I reach that state of mind? It is usually after three bottles of beer, two shots of Patrón, or two glasses of gin and tonic. Anymore than those would send me over the regrettable mindset. What do I do when I reach that sweet spot? I like to drive and pump rap music at the maximum volume on my stereo. The recent album I had been enjoying was Ye’s “Yeezus.” “Hold My Liquor” and “I’m In It” got me tripped up every time.

This past winter, I hit the slopes when I reached my sweet spot and I could ski like a fearless motherfucker down the steep slopes. The feeling of letting myself fly down the slopes was just sensational. Of course, I was still able to control my skis to not let myself get into accidents. I also did it on rollerblades. The adrenalin rush of dropping down the half pipe was as exciting as it was scary as fuck. If I fell, I would be done, but I only live once.

I am obviously a bit drunk as I am writing this post. Writing while under the influence is just pure joy, but it could also get me into trouble. Then again, if you can’t be honest with what you are writing then what’s the point of blogging?

What the fuck was wrong with Will Smith? He bitch-slapped Chris Rock on live TV. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air lost his cool. While Will’s action was not acceptable in any shape or form and he should apologize to Chris, his rage was understandable. He didn’t want Chris to talk shit about his wife even it was just a joke. Unlike Ted Cruz who let Trump shit on his wife and father, Will stood up for his wife. Not only Ted didn’t stand up for his wife and father, he also attempted to fight for the guy who insulted his love ones to stay in power. It is hard to believe that a Senator of the United States is such a bitch-ass pussy.

My supervisor exited the building for two weeks. I miss her every time I walk by her office, but my role hasn’t changed much. In retrospect, she had been hands off in the past few years and let me handle my business. My interim supervisor is one of my colleagues. She is super chill as well. I hope she will take over the role to lead the talented team that I am proud to be a part of.

One of my colleagues who works closely with me on a day-to-day basis is technical savvy, detail oriented, and reliable. She only started a few months ago, but she already knows the ropes and how we operate. She handles most of the tasks on her own, unless she has questions for me. I am so happy that she has come on board and I hope that she will stay. We work so well together.

So far my role and responsibilities seem to work out well. I am not sure about the future, but I am treating my job as a job. Everything happens for a reason. I can’t control what I don’t have the power to control. I am just going with the flow to see where life takes me.

Dù bộc lộ tình cảm, tình yêu, hay tình quê hương, lời thơ của ông Đặng Quang Chính giản dị, dễ hiểu, và dễ gần. Chẳng hạn như bốn câu “Mơ về nắng đẹp”:

Vần thơ trao đổi nắng mưa
Vần thơ làm bạn dỗ dành trái tim
Đọc xong con mắt lim dim
Mơ ngày nắng đẹp lần tìm gặp em.

Một giấc mơ nhẹ nhàng của một người xa quê hương. Ý thơ của ông dễ đọc nhưng phần typography quá tệ. Phông chữ dấu Việt bị nhiều lỗi. Tác giả chỉ chú trọng vào lời thơ chứ không để ý đến cách trình bày và nghệ thuật chữ Việt cho những tác phẩm của mình. Hơi đáng tiếc.

According to my Epic Pass at a glance, last season I skied 23 days on 20,839 vertical feet at 7 resorts: Attitash, Liberty, Okemo, Roundtop, Snow Mount, Whitetail, and Wildcat. I had the Northeast Value Pass, which cost $495. The lift ticket ranged from $80 to $100 a day. Let’s do the math: $80 x 23 days. That’s $1,840. I saved $1,345. My three older kids had Epic Local Passes for $311 each. They saved $4,587.

In addition to saving almost $6,000, Epic Passes allowed us to skip the purchasing line, which could be long on weekends. The equipment rental lines were even worse. I heard people stand in line for two hours. An equipment rental at the resorts costs $45 a set. For our boys, we rented a snowboard set and two ski sets for the season at Sun & Ski. The used equipment cost $150 to rent for each set. We decided to rent for them instead of buying because they grow too fast.

For me, I am not growing anymore; therefore, I bought a pair of used Head skis for $50 and a pair of used ski boots for $40 through Facebook Marketplace. I spent an additional $75 to get my skis tuned, waxed, and adjusted to fit the boots. When I filled out the form, I checked myself as a beginner; therefore; they made my bindings easy to pop off when I slipped or fell. When I skied steeped slopes, my skis would pop off if I couldn’t control myself. As a result, I had to learn to ski well in order for my skis to stay on, which was a good thing. I kept the binding setting as it was even though I advanced to double-black-diamond slopes. I am not sure how old my skis are, but I love them. Head seems like a good brand.

Through my experience, I learned that you don’t need expensive skis to hit all the terrains. You just need to get over your fear and embarrassment. I felt no shame when I fell. In skiing, falling is part of learning and growing. Before I started skiing, I didn’t understand why people paid so much money to just go down the slopes. After I joined in, the feeling of skiing down the mountains was just incredible. The adrenaline rush was indescribable. You just have to feel it to get it.

Skiing is, no doubt, an expensive sport, but you can make it affordable and enjoyable. We spent a bit up front, but we didn’t have to think about it for the entire season. Epic Passes were definitely worth the investments for us. It is a fantastic sport to do with your family. We also saved money by packing our lunches and drinks. Sandwiches and noodle cups were all we needed. We are now ready to look into getting Epic Passes for next year. I am glad that my wife is doing all of the purchases. If it weren’t for her, we probably wouldn’t end up skiing so much last season. My goal for next year is to get her on the green slopes.

Replaced four brand new Michelin Primacy Tour A/S Tires for our 2018 Toyota Sienna SE at 40,000 miles. The tires were purchased from Costco for $970. Then performed wheel alignment at Ourisman Fairfax Toyota for $140. Another day, another grant spent.

Total cost: $1,110.

In this painstakingly beautiful novel, Elinor, half-white-half-Asian model-turned-writer, returns to her hometown, North Dakota, to cover the oil boom for a magazine article her professor who she had an affair with passed on to her. She set out to interview the workers in the small town and unearthed deep layers of classism, racism, and sexism. Yun’s writing is engaging, compelling, and devastating. She taps into the unmistakable American story—a heartbreaking, breathtaking read.

I was frustrated with my regression in learning figure skates. In the past few weeks, I could not even begin to attempt the toe loop jump. Even yesterday, my right inside 3-turn was so bad that I could not gain enough speed to initiate the jump. I was about to give up the whole sport. Figure skating isn’t for me anymore. My kids already quit. It must be time for me to throw in the towel as well. I told my wife I was done. She didn’t have any reaction. She knew too damn well that I was just venting out of frustration.

After skiing season over, I was a bit depressed because I need to be constantly learning or progressing. Before taking up skating and skiing sports, web design was my professional as well as personal development. I used to sit in front of the computer as much time as I could have to myself. These days I haven’t kept up with the latest technologies. I just picked up whatever skills I needed to do my job and to continue my passion projects. I rather spent time with my family when I was not working.

My kids and I used to go ice skating rinks and skateparks together. These days they only like going to mountain resorts for skiing, but spring is here and the snow is gone. Now is the perfect time to get back to rollerblading and ice skating, but my kids have moved on. I knew the time would come when they started to have their own interests. I am still glad that we had spent a chunk of time together learning these sports. I will always treasure those moments, including all the ski trips we had taken this year.

Even though I no longer have my kids to motivate me, I am still holding on to ice skating and rollerblading to keep myself active. If I don’t do these sports, I would become a lazy-ass old fart. Today I hit the ice rink again to give the toe loop jump another shot. Instead of using the right inside 3-turn to initiate the jump, I switched to the backward crossovers to give me more speed. That was all I needed to complete my toe loop jump. I still needed more practice to refine my jump, but I am thrilled to be able to get myself inspired again.

Cách đây hai tháng, tôi đọc quyển sách Vietnamese Stories for Language Learners gồm những truyện dân gian được ông Trần C. Trí và cô Lê Trâm dịch sang tiếng Anh. Ở những trang cuối của sánh có phần mục lục những câu thành ngữ tiếng Việt. Tuy không đồng ý với một số câu chuyển ngữ của dịch giả, tôi vẫn lấy làm thú vị nên thiết kế một trang mẫu để đưa vào quyển sách Vietnamese Typography của tôi. Mời cả nhà xem thử trang “Vietnamese Idiomatic Expressions” tôi vừa thiết kế xong.

Calling it theatrical all you want, but I am continuing to mask up in public. I encourage my kids to do the same, but I don’t force them. Fortunately, they still want to mask up on their own. Đán wears his mask almost everywhere, indoor or outdoor. Đạo and Xuân only wear a mask in class and anywhere they feel necessary. In fact, Đạo has been the only ice hockey player who still wears a mask on ice. As long as he’s comfortable with it, I am fine with it. I wear one on the bench as well. Vương wears a mask when he sees all of us masking up, but he also takes it off whenever he feels like it. We’re cool with it.

It is such a damn shame that wearing a mask has been politicized and become such a divisive issue. Has masking worked? Maybe we’re lucky thus far, but our family has not contracted Covid and masking might have played a huge role in that. I spent weeks with Covid victims and stayed in the same room for hours with my mother when she had Covid. Masking had saved me from contracting the virus.

As masking has relaxed and most people have dropped their mask, we do not want to let my guard down. Covid is here to stay and we have to live with it. I don’t even know how long we can go before we get infected, but we do the best we can. We continue to mask up in public places.

I understand the hypocrisy of masking up and then taking it off when eating, but I am cool with it. Not everything has to be yin or yang all the time. On his show, Bill Maher keeps repeating his irritation about outdoor masking. People wear masks outdoors not just solely for Covid reasons. They may want to prevent dust and pollution. Nothing wrong with wearing a mask outside. He doesn’t want to wear it, that’s fucking fine. People want to wear it, let them be. Just fuck off.