Pour out some liquor and I reminisce
’Cause through the drama I can always depend on my mama
And when it seems that I’m hopeless
You say the words that can get me back in focus.

When I was sick as a little kid
To keep me happy there’s no limit to the things you did
And all my childhood memories
Are full of all the sweet things you did for me
And even though I act crazy
I gotta thank the Lord that you made me.

There are no words that can express how I feel
You never kept a secret, always stayed real
And I appreciate how you raised me
And all the extra love that you gave me.

2pac Shakur (an excerpt from “Dear Mama”)

Today we went to a Bangkok 54 for the first time and I ordered its Mai Tai, which came with a flame. Looking at the glass of cocktail made me reminisce of my mother who would turn 85 today if she was still alive. Thinking of my mother immediately brought me to 2pac’s classic “Dear Mama.” The lyrics still burned in my brain. I made a YouTube Short. Happy birthday, mama!

My cousin’s Vietnamese name was Hoa Thúy Huỳnh, but Americans kept butchering her name as Hoa Thúi (rotten flower). When she was sworn in to become a U.S. citizen, she changed her name to Karen Huynh. Out of all my cousins, I have tremendous respect and admiration for Karen. She is thoughtful, generous, and confident. She also graduated from F&M with a bachelor’s degree in business. Most important of all, she always believed in me.

When I first arrived in America, she took me, our nephews, and niece to Friendly where I first tasted the Jim Dandy. When my mother called my sister and I stupid, which was typical in Vietnam, she would defended us, “Antie Four, please don’t call them stupid. They are very smart.” Just that remark alone had left a positive impact on me until this day. Karen was the cousin to go to when I needed someone to talk to. I trusted her.

When I was applying to college, she told me about La Salle because I had a passion for music. I imagined myself as a sound engineer. I had no clue what a communications major was, but it sounded really cool. When I visited La Salle, I fell in love with the sound control board in the studio. Even though communication didn’t work out for me, I was glad that I went to La Salle based on her recommendation.

We didn’t keep in touch much after I went away for college. When I came back, Karen had become a completely different person. I noticed the change in her when her only son was diagnosed with severe autism. She blamed the vaccines for her son’s autistic behavior and went down the path of conspiracy theories.

These days Karen and I are on the opposite end of medical, political views, but we have a mutual respect for each other. We agree to disagree. The last time we sat down and talked was a few months ago when Uncle Six passed away. We had a few exchanges on Covid vaccination. I just mostly asked her questions about her anti-vaccine position. I just wanted to know her sources. Even though we were not arguing and fighting, she made sure that we didn’t let our differences in opinion ruin our relationship. I assured her that I won’t let that happen. It is definitely not worth it. I love my cousin too much to let politics screw up our relationship. I learned my lesson and avoided discussing politics in public.

I am thrilled to see a design book written in Vietnamese, but the unfortunate title sounds like a porn film: Emojism. Is it just me? Since the book is published in Vietnamese, I wonder why they didn’t pick a Vietnamese title instead.

In his latest Netflix Special, SuperNature, Ricky Gervais pushes some hot buttons. In claiming inclusivity, he mocks obesity, Chinaman, and transgender. The trans community has already spoken up about the transphobic issue. The fat-shaming and racist jokes are equally offensive, but no one has spoken up. Gervais knows damn well he can get away with these three minority groups. The bloke is a damn good comedian, but he understands his limitations. In his next special, I dare him to take on Black Americans and see if he can get away with the N-word joke. If he stays true to his words as a comic, he shouldn’t have a problem with it. Until he could make fun of every group, he is not as inclusive as he has claimed. He only picks and chooses his targets.

Jennifer Haigh’s novel aims to provide different perspectives on abortion; therefore, the book includes many characters. I could not keep all the stories straight. Claudia is the only character that I could follow. Haigh’s writing is excellent though. I love her take on white trash:

She can still remember the first time she heard the term white trash. She was nine or ten years old, watching a stand-up comic on television, and she understood immediately that he was talking about people like her. Her family drank cola with dinner, store brand. They ate off paper plates as if each meal were a picnic. This was not a whimsical habit, but a practical one: her mother sometimes couldn’t pay the water bill, and for a few weeks each year, there’d be nothing to wash dishes in. The per plates came in cheap hundred-packs and were so flimsy they used two or three at a time, and as a result they produced vast amounts of garbage. Behind the trailer, under a carport of corrugated plastic, their trash barrels overflowed with it. In summer the smell was overpowering: soggy paper plates and food scraps rotting in the can. As a family they were both an environmental catastrophe and a sanitary one, as poor people often are.

When Claudia heard the words white trash, that is what she thought.

I wish the storytelling was simpler and straightforward.

On Wednesday I went to Wakefield skatepark to rollerblade around and to do a few drops before it would be closed for renovations. The skatepark has been in a bad condition for a while. Since it was built in April 2004, the woods are aging and the screws are popping off everywhere. A major renovation is a must. I will miss skating there over the summer, but I can’t wait for the new park to complete. The new design looks pretty sweet. In the mean time, I’ll just go to Van Dyck or other skateparks.

I still enjoy rollerblading. I try to skate at least 30 minutes a day. I still drop in and pump out. I try not to push the power stops too hard because my wheels have been worn quite a bit. I am learning to do fakies as well as jump turns on the half pipes. I have not worked up the courage to drop into the deepest end of the big bowl at the Powhatan Springs Skatepark. At my age, I no longer wanted to take the risk. I am just taking it easy.

As far as figure skating, I am still stuck on the flip and loop jumps after months of learning and practicing. I am starting to straighten out my landings, but I often landed to a stand still instead of checking out nicely. I still have a long way to go on both of these techniques, but I am in no rush. I am going to take as much time as I need. The ice rink is close to my workplace; therefore, I have been using my lunch hour to skate. Spending $15 for an hour public session is a bit too pricy, but the trade off is that the rink is usually empty. Sometimes there were only three or four skaters.

At home, I had set up my tuning station and I have been tuning up our skis to get them ready for the winter. I am taking my time with them. I just work on them when I have a few down hours on the weekends. I sharped the edges, removed burrs and rust, and repaired the bases. I am going to try waxing next when I have free time. Somehow I find tuning up skis satisfying, especially seeing the end results. Because I take my time with them, I do more thorough job in the details than the ski shops. They have way too many skis and snowboards; therefore, they have to plow through them quickly and their prices aren’t cheap. I can’t wait for the winter so we can take these skis for a run.

After tweeting about my latest work for Everlasting Eye Care, I received the following praise and correction from Dr. Bonnie Shaver-Troup, EdD, Creator of Lexend:

Hi Donny, I loved the story of your “forever” friendship with Dr. Nguyen… nothing better than forever friends! I am thrilled to see you are using Lexend for your website. However, I am the creator of Lexend fonts and would ask if you would please correct your tweet. I am honored that you made the important decision to focus on both legibility and readability for Everlasting Eye Care. It would seem important, but many still do not know the importance of the fonts that we present. Kudos on both your design choices and content for the website! Lovely!

PS I love the wordmark that you created—it is beautiful. #beautifulartwork

I apologize for the wrong credit in my tweet, but the case study on my website is always correct. I assumed that Thomas Jockin was the co-creator of Lexend with Dr. Bonnie Shaver-Troup. It turned out that Dr. Bonnie Shaver-Troup had created Lexend in 2001 and Thomas only digitized her fonts for Google Fonts. It is important to get it right; therefore, I decided to delete the incorrect tweet and created a new one.

Before picking up my sons from school yesterday, I went to the skatepark. I spotted three mothers sitting on the bench outside chatting while a half dozen kindergarteners were playing inside the skatepark with no skates. They must have enjoyed sliding down the high ramps more than the slides at the outside playgrounds. As I started to skate, I heard a voice saying something. When I turned around, I saw a little girl looking at me with disappointment on her face. I skated closer to her and said, “Hi. I am sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you. I didn’t realize that you were talking to me. What were you saying?” She smiled again and said, “You look so cool. How do you do that?” I replied, “Thank you! I just practiced a lot.” As I skated up the ramp, she ran behind me and tried to climb up the ramp as well. As I dropped down, she slid down on her butt. She was smiling the entire time. Looking at the little girl, I just can’t imagine how someone would pull a trigger and murder innocent little kids. After the Sandy Hook massacre and the recent mass shooting took place in Uvalde, however, I no longer question the minds of the crazy motherfuckers.

What I don’t understand is that we simply watched our children getting murdered again, again, and again. All that we had to offer were fucking thoughts and prayers every single time. As one of the most powerful nations in the world, we can’t even protect our children in the environment where they learn. School is not a war zone. School is supposed to be the safest place for kids, and yet they get murdered repeatedly. Why haven’t we, as the United States of America, done anything to prevent this tragedy from happening again, again, and again? Shouldn’t we have some gun control or reform by now? No, because we are too damn divided. Republican lawmakers don’t give a fuck. They only cared about money and power. As long as gun lobbies send them financial support, they won’t make a change. Democrats have been talking about gun control every time a mass-shooting took place, and yet they have done a fucking thing about it. Talk is fucking cheap when they can’t turn it to action. We are all complicit because we haven’t done anything to prevent the preventable.

Will anything ever going to change or will we just continue to watch more kids getting murdered and continue to offer our bullshit thoughts and prayers. If we seriously give a thought or a damn, we have to do something about it. If we care about this country and our children, we just can’t let these massacres go on. Unfortunately, I doubt that anything will ever change because the truth is we are one nation under guns. We love our guns more than our children or else we would have laws in place to keep our guns from killing our children. I have lost my faith in America to solve this issue. There is no way to prevent this.

We’ve made it through 14 years. We are still working through our conflicts, but we are committed to be together. This family is much bigger than just the two of us.

After 14 years, I still am madly in love with her. I just can’t imagine my life without her and my sons. I don’t regret our journey together. It hasn’t been easy, but we are still on the same path. We both know what it takes to make our marriage work.

In our last heated argument, we didn’t even bring up the “D” word. We learned to make up after we fought. We learned to apologize when we were wrong. We learned each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We learned to communicate and compromise. I hope that she will not give up on me and we will do just fine as long as we keep it honest to each other.

She is a strong woman and she can handle anything throwing her way. She was not prepared to be a mother, but she is doing a hell of a job raising our boys. She never looked back. Our relationship went through ups and downs, but she kept moving forward. I appreciate that she makes the effort to maintain our marriage.

I hope we spend many more years together as husband and wife. We have made it through this far, nothing can break us apart. I am thankful for the 14 years together.

Nineteen children and two adults have been killed inside an elementary school. America, how do we keep letting these acts of gun violence repeating again, again, and again? When can we do something about this? How many more lives do we need to lose before we could for come together to solve this issue? Gun violence shouldn’t be a Democrats-vs-Republicans, gun-rights-vs-gun-controls issue. It should be a human-life issue. Please America, I am begging you to unite and to come up with a solution to prevent more Americans from get killed by guns.