My Dearest Đạo,

I can’t believe our oldest son is turning thirteen today. It still feels like yesterday your mom and I brought you home from the hospital. I could never forget the feeling of how to take care of a tiny baby. What if I just slipped my hands and dropped you to the ground. If you got sick in the middle of the night, what would I do? Fortunately you were strong and resilient. You didn’t give me the anxiety that I had forecasted.

Being the oldest kid is not easy. You have to bear the responsibility of being an oldest brother. You used to complain that life was unfair, but now you seem to accept your role. I can see you are trying your best to care for your younger brothers even though they can get under your skin. No matter what goes on, no matter what happens, just always remember you guys are brothers for life.

Now that you are entering middle school, your academics mattered. My only goal is for you to be happy and for me the only path to happiness that I know of is to keep up your grades. Once you take full responsibility for your education, your mother and I will give you the freedom to be more independent. We don’t want you to screw up your life. With your voracious reading and fast learning, school work should not be too difficult for you. You just need to put in the efforts.

For sports, you love skiing and you are damn good at it. You’ve pushed me to a higher level: double-black diamonds. Today is your last day of the Learn to Play hockey program. You can join a hockey team after today, but I am not sure if hockey is the right sport for you. You are not the aggressive type of player. If you want to join the team, however, we will be more than happy to support you. I am also glad to see you picking up rollerblading again and joining me in aggressive skating.

Soon you will a like a bird flying free from home, but for now, you are still under our wings and we do all we can for you. I enjoyed every moment we spent together. I love you, son, and happy birthday!

Love,
Dad

I hadn’t had the opportunity to spend one-on-one time with Đán, my second son, too often; therefore, I was looking forward to our weekend camping trip together with his Cub Scouts. It turned out to be an enjoyable and memorable experience—at least for me.

Located right next to the skatepark, the Lake Fairfax campsite was a perfect spot for us. The clean family bathrooms were the bonus. On Friday evening around 5:00 pm, Đán and I drove to the campsite to check in and to put up our tent. Thanks to my wife for buying a CORE 6 Person Instant Cabin Tent with Wall Organizer, the setup was intuitive and easy. As someone who can’t put anything together, I guarantee that setting up a CORE tent is stress-free. After getting ourselves situated and setting up the zipline, we headed over to the skatepark around 6:30 pm to rollerblade and grabbed a quick dinner.

We returned to the campsite around 8:30 pm to join other families. While the kids were taking turns on the zipline, the parents gathered around and chatted. The kids and parents headed to bed around 11 pm, but I still sat around and chatted with a leader and another father. Out of all the parents, these two are my type of guys. We didn’t go to bed until 3:00 am in the morning. At night, the temperature dropped and it was too cold to sleep even though we had sleeping bags. Đán came close to me and told me I could hold him if I wanted. I was surprised because he rarely showed his affections. I wrapped my arms around him for a bit, but then I turned to the opposite side so that we didn’t face each other. I didn’t bring my CPAP machine; therefore, I didn’t want to snore right next to him. Still, I couldn’t sleep much.

Saturday was a busy day for the Scouts. They had many activities including setting up the tent, starting the fire, and cooking contest. They had their leaders running all the programs. The parents just observed and cheered them on. While the kids were busy with their activities, I went over to the skatepark for 30 to 45 minutes each time. One of the parents volunteered to cook phở and grilled BBQ. She had always been a great cook; therefore; her food had always been delicious. This time was no exception.

Later in the afternoon, I saw Đán sitting by himself on a rock. He used a stick to tap on the rock. I asked him what he was doing. He told me that he was practicing piano. After a while I asked him if he wanted to join me at the skatepark. He didn’t want to, but he wanted boba tea. I told him to hop in and I took him to Kung Fu Tea, which was about two miles down the road. After that, we joined the pack for dinner. The Scouts had more activities. Because I couldn’t sleep much the night before, I was sleepy and exhausted from skating. I went into our tent to rest and to take a quick nap. The kids were done around 9 something. We hung out for a bit and went to sleep around 11 pm.

We woke up on Sunday, ate breakfast, broke down our tents, joined the closing ceremony, cleaned up our area, then headed out around 10 am. Đán and I stopped by the skatepark before heading home. It was a great trip because we spent time outdoors and close to nature rather than sitting at home on our digital devices. Đán participated in all the activities and he made friends with his group, but he also seemed to be a bit distant at times.

Without his siblings, Đán behaved much better. I was so fed up with his constant fights with Đạo and Xuân. They got on each other’s nerves every five minutes. No matter how many times I explained to them the importance of bonding and getting along with each other, they never seemed to register. I was always upset and irritated to hear them insulting each other and to see them punching one another. At times, I wanted to beat some sense into them, but I knew I couldn’t. Banning them from their digital devices was my only form of punishment. When I was their age, I didn’t spend much time with my sister because she was already way older than me. On occasions she would slap me for doing something wrong. We didn’t have much memories together.

Forty-four years already. Time is moving fast, but life is great. I can’t complain. My wife and I are tighter than before. I still enjoy spending time with my kids. My career is stable for the moment. My health is still decent. I am more active now with skiing and skating. I still read voraciously. I still blog like words just roll off my fingers.

I am still a deeply flawed human being. I have my share of obsessions and even addictions. I am working toward being positive and optimistic. I need to let go of my worries. I want to have more compassion and empathy. I want to be less selfish and more self-control. I want to be more social and to reach out more to friends.

Life is too damn short. I need to treasure every moment of it. I want to live my life without regrets and without looking back to the past. Whatever mistakes I had made in the past, I cannot go back to change them. I can only move forward. I can’t bring my parents back. I can only care for my family and the people who care for me. I can only tend to matters within my control. Nothing else matters.

Adam Phan was my web design student and teacher assistant. He’s a charming and caring guy. In a recent fire incident, Adam lost his home and his belongings. He shares:

To be honest, I’m not all right as I witness my home and everything I’ve worked for go up in flames. It was traumatic and surreal. When I was finally able to walk up to my apartment building, it did not look anything like the home I had known.

It was dark, heavy with smoke and debris. My friend and I were escorted by some firemen up to the building. My building looked like a bomb had gone off in it. Inches of water mixed with wet drywall, insulation, burnt cinders and neighbors’ belongings. And when it came to my apartment—it was something out of a horror film. I woke up to a beautiful condo loft home and came back to a burnt down, flooded shell.

If you can, please help him out.

I went back on ice yesterday despite having pain on my right joint. The gout hadn’t completely gone yet. Since the loop jump required using my right foot, I was in so much pain. I skated for fifteen minutes and had to take a break to rest my feet. I continued today and the pain was tolerable.

I am making minimal progress on my loop jump. I could only make half of the rotation. My landing was still messy. I could not balance myself to check out. I was getting frustrated.

Learning ice skating required patience and persistence. I have been working on the loop jumps for days—an hour a day—and I am still struggling with it. I just need to find the rhythm and everything will click.

As WordPress moving toward full-site editing with Gutenberg, the software has become an expensive alternative to Squarespace or Wix. Developing a WordPress theme from scratch seems like a waste of time. The quick way to create a site using WordPress is to use an existing theme and make a bit of cosmetic changes.

I had seen web agencies charging $30,000 to $40,000 to develop a WordPress site. They simply bought a $59 theme and created a child theme to develop the site. They also added tons of plugins to meet their client’s requirements. As a result, the code is messy, the loading is slow, and the look is similar to thousands of sites from the same theme.

It’s a shame that WordPress has gone down this path to compete with Squarespace and Wix. WordPress is no about clean HTML markups and minimal CSS. The markups WordPress rendered behind the scene were just horrendous.

Our last ski season had turned me into a skiing fanatic. I wrote down my experiences on each trip we took, but I wanted to have a quick roundup of the resorts we had skied in. I’ll update it if our list grow in the future,

Attitash Mountain Resort

★★★★☆

Located in Bartlett, New Hampshire, Attitash has two mountains: Attitash and Bear Peak. Unfortunately, we didn’t venture out far since it was our first ski trip after two years on hiatus. We spent three days on Inside Out, which was the green trail near the learning area. It was definitely a great learning experience, but we need to come back to explore the advanced parts of the mountains. Attitash has a small learning area, which is not recommended for beginners.

Liberty Mountain Resort

★★★★☆

Located in Fairfield, Pennsylvania, Liberty is a nice little resort. Since it is only an hour and a half away from our home, our family skied here on weekends. It has a decent bunny slope for beginners as well as steep and mogul slopes for more advanced skiers. My favorites are the double-black diamonds: Upper Ultra, Upper Eastwind, and Upper Strata. I also like the blue Lower Eastwind to work on my mogul skills.

Mount Snow Resort

★★★★☆

Located in Dover, Windham County, Vermont, Mount Snow is a big resort. I took Vương on the Long John, which is a green trail, and we spent almost an hour on there. Skiing with a harness strapped on a three years old was not easy. We fell a couple of times and my feet hurt from plowing to slow him down. I went with Đạo, Đán, and Xuân on the black trails and we had fantastic runs. I wouldn’t mind going back to Mount Snow if it would not be too crowded. It has a huge learning area, which is great for beginners.

Okemo Mountain Resort

★★★★☆

Located in Ludlow, Vermont, Okemo is is huge resort. We went to Okemo when Đạo, Đán, Xuân, and I were already skied double-black-diamond trails at Liberty and Roundtop; therefore, we could take on most of the trails. What we loved about Okemo was that the trails were so long. We skied from blacks to blues and it could take us 15 to 20 minutes to ski. The trails were also wide; therefore, we had plenty of room to turn and to maneuver our way down. We hit double-black diamonds including Big Bang and Rolling Thunder, but they seemed easier than Gunberrel at Roundtop and Upper Strata at Liberty. We will definitely come back to Okemo when we have a chance. Okemo has a long belt carpet and learning area, which are great for beginners.

Roundtop Mountain Resort

★★★★☆

Located in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, Roundtop is fairly small. Since it is about two hours from home, our family skied here on weekends. Its learning area is tiny. I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners. It has two double-black diamonds: Upper Ramrod and Upper Gunbarrel. Upper Gunbarrel is my personal favorite. Its moguls used to intimidate me, but I found them fun after learning my way around them. In my experience, once you’ve mastered the Upper Gunbarrel slope, you can ski anywhere. Though I haven’t been to double-black diamonds on bigger resorts.

Whitetail Mountain Resort

★★★☆☆

Located in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, Whitetail is a bit bigger than Liberty and Roundtop. Since it is only an hour and a half away from our home, my family skied here on weekends. It has a sizable learning area, which is great for beginners. After my first skiing lesson, I went on Park Place, which is a blue trail, and skied straight down. Needless to say, I was falling like crazy. My personal favorite is the double-black Bold Decision. I also enjoyed the black-mogul Exhibition.

Wildcat Mountain Resort

★★★★☆

Located in Gorham, New Hampshire, Wildcat seems to be an adventurous ski resort. Unfortunately, we didn’t venture out too far. We stayed mostly on Snowcat, which is a green trail near the learning area, since we just returned to skiing after two years on hiatus. Wildcat has a tiny carpet belt. I wouldn’t recommend for beginners. We definitely need to go back to Wildcat to explore the rest of the mountain.

Simplexpression, the website for my wife’s tiny jewelry design studio, gets a refresh. The goal for the update was to replace the typeface. Previously, the site was set in Mrs Eaves, designed by Zuzana Licko. While I always love Mrs Eaves, I don’t want to be depended on Adobe Fonts to serve the font files. I would like the font files to be on the same server.

Warbler, designed by David Jonathan Ross, is a perfect replacement. Warbler is beautiful and elegant. In addition, it is designed for digital screens. Since Simplexpression doesn’t have much text, I only use the beta version of the variable font to take the advantage of optical sizes for text as well as headings. The new logo is also set in Warbler. If you look closely at the logo, you might able to spot the subtle play on optical sizes.

The detail pages were redesigned using CSS Grid to align the photos side-by-side on large screens. In addition, dark mode was added to match the users’ system preference. Take a look and see if you find something you like.

Before I started rollerblading two years ago, I didn’t even know that parks for skaters existed. Once I discovered one after another, my world opened up a whole new level. Nowadays, skateparks seem to be everywhere. Like a kid searching for his next playground, I always googled for a nearby skatepark when I traveled to new places. I used to take my kids with me to discover a new skatepark, but they had lost interest in rollerblading. I adventured out on my own instead.

Wherever I went, I always found the skateboard community to be welcoming and encouraging. Most of the time, I was on my own because I was the odd one out. In occasions, there would be one or two aggressive skaters. For the most part, however, I had always been the only old-ass rollerblader with a helmet and full protective gears. As much as I love skateparks, the fear is real. Dropping into a deep bowl could be quite dangerous. I fell a few times. The helmet, which cracked, saved my head. The knee, hand, and elbow guards saved my body. One time I fell on my butt and I was in pain for weeks. Another time, I twisted my right knee and that took weeks to heal.

These days, I am more cautious at the skateparks, especially the ones that I discover for the first time. I would study the ramps and the bowls first before diving in. Age is definitely a factor and I can’t take the risks. I still have responsibilities, but I love to add a bit of danger into my life. I am always fully-guarded just in case.

I am putting together a list of the skateparks I have visited so far. I might go back and add more in the future, but here’s the list:

Albert I Allen Memorial Skatepark

★★★☆☆

Located in Wildwood, New Jersey, Albert I Allen Memorial Skatepark has decent snake zones with bowls to drop in. I skated here every morning when we stayed in Wildwood for vacation. I am looking forward to going back this summer.

Fort Belvoir Skatepark

★☆☆☆☆

Located in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, this skatepark is small, which is good for beginners. Advanced skaters might get bored.

Herndon’s Skatepark

★☆☆☆☆

Located in Herndon, this skatepark is tiny, which might be good for beginners.

Lake Fairfax Skatepark

★★★★☆

Located in Reston, Virginia, Lake Fairfax Skatepark has a decent bowl and low ramps suitable for beginner and intermediate. It haas bright lights for late-night skating. My kids and I used to skate here quite a bit. They had lost interest though.

Lancaster County Skatepark

★★★☆☆

Located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, this skatepark is close to my sister’s house. It has a huge bowl and a snake zone. When mother was in the hospital in the last two weeks of her life, I came here every morning to clear my mind and to think about her. I cried and fell here by myself. This skatepark will always remind me of her.

Manassas Skatepark

★☆☆☆☆

Located in Manassas, this skatepark is very small.

Matt Hughes Skatepark

★★★☆☆

Located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Matt Hughes Skatepark has decent ramps and a half pipe for intermediate skaters. I skated here in the afternoons when we stayed in Myrtle Beach last summer for vacation. It was not bad.

Nags Head City Skatepark

★★★☆☆

Located in Nags Head, North Carolina, this skatepark has deep bowls as well as snake zones. It is geared toward intermediate and advanced skaters. When I visited it recently, which was a few weeks ago during our spring break vacation, the wooden ramps were not in good shapes. It needs some maintenance. My kids and I only skated here one time.

Overlook Skatepark

★★★☆☆

Located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Overlook Skatepark has ramps only. At the time, I could only skated around the park and small ramps. I’ll revisit it in the future to see how far I have come.

Powhatan Springs Skatepark

★★★★☆

Located in Arlington, Virginia, Powhatan Springs Skatepark has two bowls and a snake zone. I usually dropped in from the bowl of the snake zone. I tried the deep end of the smaller bowl and fell on my ass. I was in pain for weeks. I have conquered the smaller bowl, but I have not attempted the large bowl. I go to this skatepark about three times a week during my lunch break at work. It’s my afternoon exercise away from the screen.

Rodanthe Skatepark

★☆☆☆☆

Located in Rodanthe, North Carolina, this skatepark is small, but has high curved ramps to ride up only. It doesn’t have the top copping to drop down. I couldn’t do much here, but the playground nearby is very nice. The kids loved the playground. We biked here every morning on our recent spring break vacation. The kids hit the playground and I hit the skatepark.

Schuyler Hamilton Jones Skatepark

★★★☆☆

Located in Alexandria, Virginia, Schuyler Hamilton Jones Skatepark has straight and curve ramps. They are high enough to drop in and skate around. My kids and I used to go here on occasions. They used to love it. Even Xuân liked riding his scooter here. Now they are no longer interested.

Scott D. Eagles Skatepark

★★★★☆
Located in Woodbridge, Virginia, Scott D. Eagles Skatepark has the highest half pipe I had seen yet. It also has a steep bowl. The only area I could skate was the street course.

Shaw Skatepark

★★★☆☆

Located in Washington, DC, I only went here a few times during my lunch break. It has a small bowl and a few ramps. It was usually a bit crowed when I went there during lunch hour. I don’t mind skating here once in a while.

Van Dyck Skatepark

★★★☆☆

Located in Fairfax City, Van Dyck Skatepark is perfect for beginners. I learned to skate down straight ramps, curved ramps, and quarter pipe in this skatepark. This is also where I twisted my knee trying to ride the quarter pipe. I still go to this skatepark whenever I can because it is the closest to my house. My kids used to join me in this skatepark. These days, they rather go to the playground areas.

Wakefield Skatepark

★★★★☆

Located in Annandale, Virginia, Wakefield Skatepark is a step-up from Van Dyck Skatepark. It has three areas from beginner to intermediate to advance. I started off at beginner then moved to intermediate. I never thought I would ever go near the advance area. One morning I decided to drop in from the highest curved ramp in the park and hit my head on the concrete. I was blacked out for a minute. The helmet cracked, but I survived. If I didn’t have my helmet, I would have been in trouble. These days, I have conquered my fear and dropped in from that highest ramp. Wakefield is a bit further from my house, but I go here whenever I could. My kids used to join me here, but they don’t like going to this skatepark anymore.

Walker Mill Skatepark

★★★☆☆

Located in Walker Mill, Maryland, this skatepark has a nice variety of ramps and a bowl. I only skated here once since it is about 45 minutes away. My sons liked it, especially Đán when he was on top of of his game.

I didn’t hit the ice rink for almost two weeks. I returned in the past three days to learn the loop jump. I am still struggling with the landing. I kept losing balance and had to put my free leg down. It’s quite a challenge, but I have confidence that I will be able to make it. I just need more time to practice. My only focus now is to nail the loop jump.

For rollerblading, I am practicing the power stop on both my left and right sides. I want to be able to stop at a faster speed. My T-stops aren’t so good either. I need to work on those as well. I also need to pump higher to get myself on top of the half pipe. Dropping in is the only skill that I am getting good at, and yet I haven’t had the confidence to drop in from a steep bowl. I just can’t afford the risk at this age.

Đạo and Đán had completely lost confidence in dropping in. After Đán fell off a high ramp and had a few scratches on his arms and legs, he doesn’t want to go near it again. Đạo is just too intimidated because he hadn’t skated much in a while. Both of them aren’t interested in rollerblading anymore. They rather sit in front of the screen than skate outside. I miss having them at the skateparks with me. I just go alone these days. I am disappointed, but I don’t want to force them to do what they don’t want to do.

Last week, I listened to an interview with Ocean Vương on NPR and he shared that his mother gave him no pressure. She was not the typical Asian tiger mom. She let him do whatever he wanted to do as long as he was happy. If all failed, he could always work at the salon with her. She gave him the ultimate freedom to explore, but he insisted that it was to serve her, not him.

Vương’s story gave me a pause and made me wonder if I have been too hard on my boys. Should I give them the same freedom Vương’s mom gave to him? If I do that, they would just fry their brains in front of the screens and not do much else. I don’t want them to serve me. I just want them to serve themselves. I don’t think Vương’s mom wanted her son to serve her either. He just took it that way.

Of course I wanted my sons to be happy and success is the key to their happiness. My role as a father is to guide them in the right direction. I don’t need to take the credits for raising them well. I don’t care if people would criticize me for my parenting failure. When I was younger, I cared too much about how people perceived me. I was sad and even depressed when I heard people talk shit about me. I worried words would get to my mother. As I was going through my mother’s belongings after she passed, I came across old letters my family members had written to my mother to advise her not to be down about my failures. I don’t know if she took it to heart or not because she never told me. My mother never said to my face, but there were rare moments she revealed that she was proud of me. That was all that mattered.