My wife knows how much I love skiing and snowboarding. Even though we already spent an entire week at Stowe, she encouraged me to check out Laurel Mountain, Hidden Valley, and Seven Springs while I was still on vacation. I felt a bit guilty when she had to stay home to take care of the kids. I missed them while I was on the trails and I was so excited when they came to join me. I got to spend time with Vương on the bunny slopes. Soon I will take him on the green slopes. I also spent time with the older three boys on the blue and black slopes.

My wife knows how to save my face. When my friend came to visit from Canada, she let me spend all night singing and drinking. She even reminded me to take the Lyft home instead of driving. Even though I could drive, I definitely couldn’t afford a DUI. I could only pull a few all-nighters in a row. The drinking and lack of sleeping put a toll on my body, but I had so much fun singing while my friend accompanied me on the keyboard. I loved sipping the Yamazaki 12. It’s my favorite Japanese whiskey. I will stop buying cheap liquor and just save up to buy expensive ones. It will help cut down my alcohol consumption. When I was skiing or snowboarding, I didn’t have a drink at all.

My wife knows the flexibility. My buddies often wonder how I get to go out drinking and partying without her. I would love for her to join me like other couples, but she doesn’t like socializing. She rather stayed home with her mom and our kids. I respect that and she also respects my social life. I need to get out every now and then to clear my head.

My wife knows my loyalty to her. I appreciate her trust and would never do anything to jeopardize our relationship. Once the trust is broken, nothing will be able to repair it. As a man, of course, I am attracted to beauties and my wife is beautiful in her own way. She is all that I need. I love the fact that she got a mind of her own. No need to shop around I got the good shit at home. I love you, boo!

Đạo uses his blog to vent his frustrations. I appreciate and encourage that since I can’t get much out of him when we talk face to face.

Recently I wanted to implement time-limit programs on their devices, especially Đạo’s and Đán’s. I don’t want to control what they do, but I want them to manage their time. Without time limitations, they don’t stop. Even when his mom and I asked them to turn off and go to bed, they still linger on after many hours of usage.

They have 24 hours a day. At least 8 hours are reserved for sleeping. The rest of the hours need to be balanced out with off-screen activities, and not just phone and PC. They need to be able to switch their minds off.

When we went to Stowe for a week, Đán wanted to go home on the first day as we took the first chair lift to the top of the mountain. He hadn’t even started to snowboard yet. We paid all this money and drove almost 12 hours so we could have a nice ski trip together. Yet all he could think about was spending time on his PC? That just made me want to take away their devices for good.

Đạo goes everywhere with his phone and spends hours on it, even when he uses the bathroom. He used to read voraciously. Now I hardly see him hold a book. It breaks my heart. He used to be socialized. He could talk to anyone. Last week, I took him and Đán to a seafood buffet with my friends and their kids. All they did was glued to their phones even though I asked them to put them away and talked.

As for Đạo’s grades, my wife has to constantly check his work, remind him to do his assignments, and retake his tests. If he is allowed to retake his tests, he should not get anything below a B. In fact, he should be able to get all A’s. The issue is that he isn’t being on top of his school work. They aren’t his priority. Digital screens take over his academics.

We had a discussion on time limitation and they both strongly opposed it. I made them a deal. I won’t put on a time limitation. I won’t ask them to turn off their devices. I asked my wife not to remind them about their assignments unless they come and ask for help. I want to give them an opportunity to prove themselves that they can manage their time. If the next quarter report comes in, Ðạo gets below a 3.5 GPA and Đán gets more than five 2’s, their devices will be gone for the entire quarter. Freedom comes with responsibility.

My wife, her mother, and our youngest son went home after we checked out of the hotel. I took the three older kids back to Seven Springs for a few hours.

The crowd today was as bad as yesterday. We waited at the Polar Bear Express for almost 30 minutes. We took the green trails to warm up. Xuân got hungry so we took the North Face Lift up to Tahoe Lodge for lunch. The wait was about 15 minutes. We didn’t want to go back down and have to wait for another 30 minutes at the Polar Bear Express. We did a run on the North Face, but the boys got bored waiting. We waited another 15 minutes to get us to the top and we skied back to the main base.

Before heading home, I got them to take Cortina for a run. We spent 3 hours (including lunch) for 4 runs. We headed out around 2:30 pm and called it the day. I don’t like weekend skiing. Way too crowded.

My mother-in-law, wife, and kids joined me today at Seven Springs. I wanted my boys to experience the night-skiing scene; therefore, we didn’t need to get up early.

After having breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the resort around 10 am. It was snowing. Our mini-van struggled to get up the mountains. We were going around 15 miles per hour with a few cars tailgating behind us.

At one point, I thought we would just skid backward. I prayed to my mother from above to save us and her respond was immediate. Just a few minutes later, a snow-plowing truck pulled out in front of me and cleared the way for me to drive all the way to the resort.

I skied with Vương at the bunny slopes. After the disappointing all-day group lessons at Stowe, I decided to teach him myself. He could now go straight down hill and pizza to slow himself down. He did a great job today.

I skied with Đạo, Đán, and Xuân on the blue and black slopes. Around 4 pm, I called it off. I didn’t want to risk driving back in the dark with my whole family in the back.

We went out to have dinner at Ruby Tuesday and went back to the hotel to chill out. I am debating whether we would go straight home or go ski for a couple of hours before heading home.

Damn, I am exhausted today. Spending 10 hours a day on the slopes is wearing me out. I have been running on coconut water, croissants, smoked salmon, and instant noodles. I had Nantucket Cod at Eat’n Park two nights in a row. They were pretty good.

I started out skiing this morning. I finally figured out how to carve. I practiced carving and fixing my inside legs on the green trails. I also tried to keep my legs closer together and parallel. My new skis make carving a bit easier. I enjoyed skiing today.

I only did a bit of snowboarding before I had to leave to meet my family at the hotel. They came a bit too late for night skiing. Hopefully they’ll get to experience it tomorrow.

I am running out of steam. I hope I will be able to recharge tonight and hit the slopes again tomorrow.

Around 10 am yesterday, I headed to Hidden Valley to check it out. It only had 5 trails opened. Before I put on my ski boots, I gave my feet a good massage. I also skied gently for the first couple of runs. My feet were less in pain than the day before.

At noon, I went to Seven Springs. I took a short nap in the parking lot because I had trouble sleeping the night before. I put on my snowboard boots and hit the trails. I only did 3 runs and decided to switch back to ski. I started to get a hang of my new skis. They are a bit longer (159 cm) and faster, but steadier and easier to turn. Seven Springs was pumping lots of snow all day long and I could ski on blues and black terrains easily. I am going to spend more time honing my ski turns.

Around 7:00 pm, I was exhausted and a bit sleepy. I was going to call it the night, but I switched to snowboarding and did a couple more runs until the North Face lift closed.

After I showered and changed, I fell asleep immediately. My wife and kids are coming later today. Can’t wait to spend a whole day with them on Saturday at Seven Springs.

Yesterday morning I drove Đạo to school and headed toward Pennsylvania for a few days of skiing and snowboarding. My first stop was Laurel Mountain. I arrived around noon. Laurel only had four trails opened and the conditions were very icy. I started out skiing with the Rossignol Experience 88 TI, which I just bought brand new.

My skiing skills are getting rusty. I couldn’t parallel on both feet. Worst, my boots were hurting my feet. After the first run, I sat on the lift as if I had two dumbbells under my feet. I couldn’t wait to get off the lift. Once I was off, I had to go into the lodge to take my boots off and gave my feet a message. The second run was still still painful. After the third run, I was done with skiing. I switched to snowboard and did three runs. My feet felt comfortable and snowboarding on crunchy ice was not as bad as skiing.

Around 3:30 pm, I wrapped up at Laurel Mountain and headed over to Seven Springs. Unlike Laurel Mountain, which only had half a dozens of skiers and snowboarders, Seven Springs were a bit more crowded. I imagined weekends would be worse. Seven Springs had better conditions and more trails. I didn’t know where I was going. I just followed the lift to where it took me. I went to the green slopes and landed on the terrain park. I took the North Face lift and headed into the North Face Black Diamond trail, which had moguls. I stayed there for a while trying to learn to snowboard around the mogul terrain.

I loved night snowboarding. The vibe was just awesome. I left around 8:30 pm to a hotel about half an hour a way my wife had booked for me. Isn’t she just great? She let me enjoy the last few days of my vacation before I go back to work next week. I hope she and the boys will join me on Friday for a weekend of skiing and snowboarding. I am pretty sure they will enjoy Seven Springs.

Two years ago, my oldest sister blocked my calls and my messages. I still don’t know why she shut me out of her life, but I respect her decision. I stay out of her way until she lets me back in.

She and I haven’t been close. She’s my half sister and she left Việt Nam when I was a kid. Our mother was the only reason she brought me to America. Our mother wouldn’t leave Việt Nam to come to America without me. Regardless, I will always be thankful to my sister for giving me the opportunity to live and thrive in America.

It’s such a shame that our relationship had fallen out, but I hold no grudges against her. I do take issue that she didn’t bother to attend our mother’s death anniversaries. Our mother had given birth to all of us. The least my sister could do was to burn incense or show respect.

I am disappointed to witness my sister has turned cold and heartless. Well, you know what? Fuck her.

I read 92 books this year, which is 45 more than last year.

The volume jumped almost double because I read quite a bit of poetry books. I wanted to delve deeper into poems, particularly in English. In the last month or so, however, I picked up a handful of poetry books in Vietnamese. I enjoyed reading poems because they were shorter and I could finish a poem when I had a few minutes here and there.

I continued to attempt switching from fiction to non-fiction. I read quite a bit of Vietnamese-American authors including Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, Việt Thanh Nguyễn, Mai Nguyễn, Beth Nguyễn Cường Lư, Tranh Thanh Trấn. I also read Vũ Trọng Phụng’s classic novels.

For 2024, I want to return to thicker books and less poetry. Then again, it doesn’t really matter as long as I am reading.

Check out my reading record.

My favorite sports start with an s:

• Soccer
• Skating (figure)
• Skating (aggressive)
• Skiing
• Snowboarding
• Sex

Each sport needs dependency. Soccer depends on the team. Skating (figure) depends on the rink. Skating (aggressive) depends on the weather. Skiing and snowboarding depend on the snow. Sex depends on the partner.