I used to watch The Arsenio Hall Show on TV when I first came to America almost thirty years ago. With my limited English, I didn’t know what he was saying, but I liked his big smile and envied his perfect white teeth. I am so glad to see him performing standup on Netflix. After all these years, I now understand his jokes. From O.J. to Cosby, Rodman to Tyson, Snipes to R. Kelly, Hall brings back so many memories of the 90s. It’s nostalgic yet funny. Thanks for letting us taking a trip down memory lane.

Dear sons,

The last letter I wrote to you was three months ago. Time flies and you boys are growing up way too fast, especially our lovely little king.

Vương, you’re already walking, babbling, and playing with the big boys in just thirteen months. I still love your adoring smile. Please keep on smiling as you grow. Life will treat you much better if you give it a smile. I really enjoy hanging out with you at this age. You bright me pure joy and disconnect me from the digital world. I can’t even express how much happiness you have brought into our life.

Xuân, you are growing way too fast as well. I understand that you are in that terrible-three stage; therefore, I have to be tough on you. I cannot let you cry your way out of things. The world is not yours, buddy. We need to share. I have to admit that you are quite an eloquent three-year-old kid. You express yourself clearly like, “I hate your food.” You’re already using big words like impossible and professional. Thank you for calling me a “super professional” when I climb onto the roof. I was more like “super terrified” as I made my way up the ladder. Please be nice to your brothers, especially with Đạo.

Đạo, I understand your frustration with Xuân because you think that I always sided with him. I have explained to you repeatedly that he is only three years old and he is still your baby brother. I need you to be more patience with him. It drives me nuts when you said that you hated him. I am sorry for yelling at you last night about it and other conflicts between you and him. I do understand your point of view from an older brother, but I still cannot accept the way you treated your little brother. I am glad we talked last night until 10:40 pm, which was way past your bedtime. I promise you that I will do more activities with you. We will get a chance to bond one on one, but I need your help with your little brothers. You are a smart kid and voracious reader. I would really appreciate your help if you teach your brothers to read as well as you. I want to teach you Vietnamese, but I need to get Đán to up his reading skill.

Đán, it has been a pleasure reading with you at night. I am glad that you are trying and you have made tremendous progress. I have been tough on you because I don’t want you to make the same mistake I made when I was a kid. Like you, I hated reading. Everyone told me that reading was important, but I did not see the value of just trying to put the letters together into words. I thought reading was a waste of time until later in life when I was way into my 30s. I regretted that I didn’t find the joy and value of reading earlier. You still have time and I hope that I can help you to enjoy reading. As a brother, your love for Vương is unspeakable. I can trust him with you if you paid attention. You are great with Đạo even though you and him played rough at times. You are getting much better with Xuân. When you treat him nice, he wanted to hang out with you. He wanted to sit next to you at meal time like his big brothers. I am so glad that you have decided to play with him instead of against him. At school, you still have some trouble listening, but I believe that you will behave better. You’re a caring, charming kid. I love it when you pluck out my beard while I read. Sometimes, you stab me with a tweezer, which hurt like hell. Other then that, I find your service relaxing.

I love you four,

Daddy.

Over the weekend, my wife’s family gathered to celebrate the seventh anniversary of my father-in-law’s death. With nine adults and eight boys under one roof, the atmosphere got a bit chaotic. We can only talked to each other for only so much. Fortunately these days, each of us had our own device to keep us entertained.

Since my boys only get to use their iPad on the weekend, they tried to use up as much as possible with their cousins. It used to annoyed me how much time these kids spent on their devices, but I had learned to let them go. I could not control others’ activities. In the past, my three-year-old nephew who put his iPad volume to the max during meal times irritated me, now I had learned to ignored it.

All I can do is controlling my own impulse. I replaced my iPhone with a book. The only companion that had no digital device is my one-year-old. He walked around and just picked up whatever toys he could get his hands on. He was so cute and I loved the opportunity to focus on him. I am hoping that we won’t ruined him with a digital device so soon. I failed three times already; therefore, it is quite a challenge. I am determined to kick the screen myself. I can’t be worried about what others are doing. They are not without my control. I can only control my own mind.

I am still off Facebook, but somehow my account was deactivated. It might had reactivated itself after seven days. I went in to deactivate it again. I am done with the platform, but I need to keep my account for work. I am so fed up with Zuckerberg uses disinformation to make profits. Fuck him.

As I drove Đạo, Đán, and Xuân to get their flu shot on Saturday, Đạo started to sob. He repeated this behavior every year. His fear of the needle had an impact on Đán as well. I got frustrated because Xuân who is three years old could take the shot without fussing, fighting, or crying, but a ten-year-old can’t.

As I pulled into the parking lot, all I could think about was how to deal with this issue. I didn’t realize that a car parked next to my left was furious until I heard its horn. I rolled down my window and the man on the passenger’s seat rolled down his and told me that “I was a bit too close.” I asked him, “Are you trying to pull out?” The woman in the driver’s seat yelled, “No, you pull out?” I was a bit taken aback? Did this white-privileged woman just yelled at me? I was just going to turn off my engine and let her back out, but the man in the passenger’s seat gave her a hand gesture telling her to calm her nerves. I ended up backing out and took another parking space. If I had no kids in the car, I wouldn’t have backed down. Who the fuck did she think she was? It was not my fault that she was a shitty driver who couldn’t back her car out. I am a grown-ass man with kids, therefore, I didn’t want to lower myself on her level.

What bothered me about the incident was that I let some goddamn stranger yelled at me while my kids were in the car. They didn’t hear her, but I didn’t want them to get the impression that I was a coward after I gave them a lesson about being brave for their flu shot. Now that a day has passed and I am glad that I didn’t react with a negative attitude. It was such an insignificant incident that it was not worth sweating over it.

We’re living in the time that kindness seems to be gone. We can’t even be respectful to each other over a fucking parking space. I would have been happy to comply if she asked nicely, “Do you mind backing out?” My mom once told me when I was a kid that you can say the same thing in either a positive or negative way. Choose positivity.

Part biographical, part instructional, Rakim’s book tells the story of how a young boy from Wyandanch got his start in hip-hop and shares the lyrical techniques that earned him the name the God MC. As expected from a lyricist, Rakim’s prose is poetic and eloquent. His music-writing process is intriguing. I have tremendous respect for Rakim to stay true to himself and his music. An engaging and inspiring read.

I am still off Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg still has not learned from his mistakes; therefore, I have no hope for the platform to get better. I have deactivated my account, but I will not have any problem deleting all of my content on there. I need to hand the key over to someone else at work to maintain the Law School’s page. Until then, I just keep my account deactivated.

I have not deactivated Twitter and I am having a hard time staying off it. I keep logging back in to check for updates. I need to be more discipline with Twitter. I should just leave my my phone in my book bag instead of my pant’s pocket. That way, I won’t have access to it.

I read voraciously these days. I wake up at five in the morning and read until 7:30 before waking up the kids. At work, I read for half an hour or an hour during lunch. At night, I read again from 10 pm to midnight.

I am so zoned out of politics. It feels great not to get all worked up what that clown said or tweeted. Life feels much better without getting suck into his non-sense. Then again, I already have enough non-sense from my kids to deal with.

Have a great weekend, friends. I have Boyscott meeting, birthday parties, and a death celebration to attend. Life is never slowing down even on the days off.

Chăn lợn là một nghệ thuật. Bọn chúng không chỉ ăn no rồi ụt ịt cả ngày mà còn tranh đấu nhau mãnh liệt. Qua những chi tiết nuôi dưỡng lợn và những lời trò chuyện với bọn chúng, nhà văn Nguyễn Xuân Khánh dùng chất lợn để miêu tả những ô nhiễm của bản chất loài người. Những hư cấu đi quá xa với sức tưởng tượng của tôi. Tuy truyện khá thú vị nhưng tôi vẫn thích đọc sách phi hư cấu hơn.

Kantor and Twohey provide readers blow-by-blow behind the scenes of their investigative report into Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assaults. Their stories of talking to the sources as well as fending off the Weinstein army of lawyers and spies are fascinating. The book also covers Christine Blasey Ford’s account against Bret Kavanaugh. I have tremendous respect for both of these New York Times’ journalists. An engaging and enraging read, which caused me to stay up and get up early in the morning in the past three days to plow through.

A few months ago, a couple of young men knocked on our door during dinner time. I was about to send them away until one of them started to speak Vietnamese to me. He explained to me that he could get us a new roof from our home insurance if I let his crew inspect our roof. I couldn’t turn away a fellow Vietnamese so I agreed. They discovered that a hail storm sometimes in July had damaged our roof and they made a claim to our insurance. After they reached the deal with the insurance’s inspector, the insurance agreed to pay for our new roof as well as our shed.

Last Saturday, they came at 7:30 am and installed the new roof around 1 pm. I haven’t have a chance to go to the roof to check, but it looks good. They didn’t do the shed yet. I am hopeful that they will keep their word and come back to do it this weekend. Other than that I am satisfied with their service.

Update on November 3, 2019: Two weeks had gone by and they have not come back to do the shed. I called the Vietnamese guy last week and he he said this week. I am not going to waste my time complaining or making a big deal out of it. I am just disappointed. I also found a dozens of nail the left behind on the gutter. My wife found about a dozen on our yard. My son also found one on the driveway. Luckily, we didn’t drive our cars over it.

Update November 16, 2019: They finally came back to do the shed and they did a good job. I am not sure if they kept their word or they knew they wouldn’t get the second half of the payment if they didn’t finish the job. Early in the week, my insurance forwarded me the final bill they submitted claiming that the job was done, but I responded that they did not finish their job and told my insurance to hold off the payment. It turned out that the payment would go to me and I would pay the contractor. I would have refused to pay them if the job was incomplete. It’s all good now.

I recommend United Roofing & Exteriors after all.

It’s been only six months and I can’t even wait for our obligation to be over in another six months. I was expecting it, but it is getting way too uncomfortable. The level of awkwardness is getting unbearable. It is really a damn shame that it has to be this way. I hate to put a crack in a relationship, but we have offered what we could. We have done what we could, but we simply can’t change someone else’s thoughtlessness. It is what it is. I can’t do shit about it. I just have to patiently waiting it out.