I am 43 today. For my birthday, I gifted myself a DreamStation 2, which is a PlayStation for grown men with sleep apnea. Yes, I have been diagnosed with a mild case of apnea. I started using the CPAP machine last night and it didn’t feel so bad. The mask covered both my nose and mouth. It forced my mouth closed; therefore, I was not snoring. At least I thought I didn’t. I breathed mostly through my nose, which is the proper way to breathe.

42 was the most horrendous year of my life. In addition to the pandemic, I have lost both of my parents a month apart. I still haven’t recovered from the shock, the depression, and the grief, but my life needs to go on. I still have four kids to raise. I still have my wife and my mother-in-law. I still have my brothers and sisters. I still have my life ahead.

My professional career is settled. I still work with wonderful, caring, talented colleagues. Outside of my full-time job, I still get to do what I love such as blogging, typesetting, and building websites.

My health seems to be fine thus far. I am hoping to stay healthy as I get older. I still enjoy ice skating with the kids. I also challenge myself with ice-skating lessons. The kids seem to lose interest in rollerblading, but I still enjoy skating at my own pace. I don’t need to go to a rink to rollerblade. The skateparks are always free and I can always rollerblade on bike trails.

As far as life in general, things seem to be getting back to normal. I had my first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. I am getting my next one in two weeks. My wife and I are getting along well for the most part. We don’t have much choice since we have four kids to look after.

As far as personal development, I am staying away from controversies. I am focusing on myself and my family. I don’t need to compare or compete with others. I live my life accordingly and do my best for my kids without spoiling them.

At 43, I don’t wish for much. I am just taking off work on my birthday to relax a bit and to hang out with my kids, and maybe some private moments with my wife. That’s enough celebration for me.

As a tradition, I deactivated my Facebook a few days prior to my birthday and will see how long that will last. I shared too much on that platform, and yet my friend list have been shrinking. My Trump-loving friends and relatives had unfriended me. I tried to save those relationships, but those ships had sailed a long time ago. I am a bit sad, but nothing much I can do. Life goes on the way it does. It’s not the end of the world. The older I get, the less I give a damn. I am just trying to take things easy.

O’Farrell’s essays, dealing with near-death experiences, are both terrific and terrifying. From pulling off an escape from a rapist to grappling with her daughter’s severe allergies, O’Farrell delivered gripping stories through her compelling storytelling. Here’s is an excerpt about her missed miscarriage:

You do walk out. The nurse tries to stop you but you don’t listen. You’ve been through this enough times to be fully aware of “what happens next.” As you take the stairs down, away from the scanning department, you feel the notion, the idea of the child leaving you with each step. You feel its fingers loosening, disentangling themselves from yours. You sense its corporeality disintegrating, becoming mist. Gone is the child with blond or dark or auburn hair; gone is the person they might have been, the children they themselves might have had. Gone is that particular coded mix of your and your husband’s genes. Gone is the little brother or sister you pictured for your son. Gone is the knitted rabbit, wrapped and ready in tissue paper, pushed to the back of a cupboard, because you cannot bring yourself to throw it out or give it away. Gone are your plans for and expectations of the next year of your life. Instead of a baby, there will be no baby.

You must adjust to this new picture. You must give it all up. You must somehow get past the due date: you will dread its coming. On that day you will feel the emptiness of your body, your arms, your house. You must intercept the letters from the maternity unit that keep on coming, despite everything. You must pick them up off the mat, almost persuading yourself that you haven’t seen them, you don’t know what they are. You tear them into flitters and drop them into the bin.

You will watch your body backtrack, go into reverse, unpicking its work: the sickness recedes, your breasts shrink back, your abdomen flattens, your appetite disappears.

I thought of my wife who went through this experience twice and I almost cried.

Mass shootings, domestic violence, police killing civilians, Americans are killed by guns every day. Every time I glanced at the news, someone just got shot somewhere in America. Yesterday I was angry, hopeless and speechless once again to learn that a police officer had shot a sixteen-year-old Black girl four times. Through a body camera, we learned that she was holding a knife and attacking two people. Did she deserve to be killed?

She was a kid and kids don’t know any better. The situation could have been de-escalated without killing her. She was bringing a knife to a gunfight. One shot in her leg could have taken her down. Unloading four bullets on her was unnecessary. Not every situation had to be fatal. We badly need police reforms.

We also badly need gun reforms. Too many innocent lives have been lost if we continue not to do anything about this. Thoughts and prayers clearly don’t work. We need real actions. Human lives should not be a political issue, but I am sounding like a broken record here. How can one of the greatest countries in the world have failed to keep its people safe from gun violence?

Early voting for Virginia’s next governor will begin on April 24, 2021. I am impressed with the diverse candidates in the Democratic party. Senator Jennifer McClellan and former Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy have entered the race. Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax has also thrown his hat into the ring.

After careful research and consideration, I have to go with a 64-year-old White man, Terry McAuliffe, based on his records as our governor in the past. One of McAuliffe’s most notable accomplishments was leading Democrats to victories in the 2017 statewide elections. McAuliffe supported gun control, same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and voting rights.

To keep Virginia blue, I am supporting Terry McAuliffe as our returning governor.

Đạo and Đán had made tremendous progress according to their third-quarter reports. Their achievement levels had improved drastically. After their setback from the last quarter, my wife and I had some serious talks with them and we hoped that they would put more effort into their school work.

Since my wife and I both work from home and the boys take remote classes, we divided them up into separate rooms. Đạo stayed in her office. Đán and I went down the basement. The process seemed to work.

My wife made sure that Đạo completed his assignments on time. She checked his works before he submitted them. I don’t know about his class participation, but his achievement levels had improved overall. We’re very pleased with his efforts.

As for Đán, I had to constantly remind him to pay attention in class, especially during Spanish. I didn’t understand a word his teacher said so I just left him alone. Unfortunately, he put his head on his desk and zoned out. I got frustrated at times when he consistently did this. We’re still debating to pull him out of Spanish next year, but I really like his upcoming fourth-grade teacher who taught Đạo.

In fact, we kept him in the Engish-Spanish immersion program this year because of his current English teacher. She’s black, tough, and a wonderful educator. She doesn’t mess around, but she gives them credits when they deserve them. We knew that we needed her to help him get better with language arts. I have been learning along with him on poetry, writing, and words. Because I went to school in Vietnamese in third grade, I never learned English’s language arts; therefore, I find them intriguing. I have learned to write different types of poetry. I knew haiku, but I didn’t know anything about acrostic and limerick. If he can learn the foundation, he will have a much easier time later on. I even learned about Ancient China and Ancient Greece for social studies. It felt like I was being in class again and I wanted to participate, but I couldn’t so I encouraged Đán to. We discussed between us first before he raised his hand. He participated more when he felt he had the right answers. His confidence shot up when his teacher smiled and hollered his name.

With the scale of achievement levels from 1 to 4, he had twenty-five 2s last quarter. He made all 3s in the third quarter. In fact, he earned a 4 for writing efforts and another 4 for reading efforts. His teachers definitely noticed and we’re proud of him.

The issue is that he needs someone to constantly remind him and to push him. He needs to be more independence. I am loosening the reins in the last quarter to see how he performs then we will decide if he should be taken out of Spanish.

Xuân will start English-Spanish immersion kindergarten in the fall. More challenges to come and we haven’t even done with his older brothers yet.

I look forward to every Friday to listen to “The Weekly Typographic with Micah Rich and Olivia Kane.” Somehow I missed the section where Olivia mentioned Vietnamese Typography in episode 52. You can skip forward to 22:00 to hear Olivia talked briefly about the entire free book on Vietnamese typography. Thank you, Olivia for the shoutout.

Two weeks ago, we received a “friendly reminder” from our homeowners association telling us to edge our sidewalk, take care of our lawn (weed/feed), and tidy up our front yard. So we’re paying the homeowners association an annual fee so they can tell us what to do. How ironic is that?

In my defense, I like my lawn natural—no weeding and no feeding. We have kids running around our yard; therefore, we don’t want to use any chemical to kill the weeds. As for the edging, I liked my grass to grow organically even if it spread over the sidewalk. The homeowners association staff told me that the sidewalk must fit two people. My sidewalk definitely has enough space for two people and I am fine with them walking on my lawn. But to comply, I picked up a True Temper turf edger. My wife told me to get a power one, but I got a manual one so my sons can help me. I am thinking of picking up a manual lawnmower for them to do some exercise.

I don’t want to rely on technology too much. If I can reduce it, I will. For example, everyone in my family uses electric toothbrush, but I still a hand brush. I prefer physical books over e-books. During the pandemic, I did not use our car as much. I wish that one day, maybe when the kids grow up, I will get rid of the vehicles. My future goal is to move away from dishwasher, washer, and dryer. These tasks can be done by hands. I am looking forward to doing things manually again.

Craig Mod writes in the Wire:

A lot of this server work involved making complicated sites less complex. That is: Making the dynamic static. Gutting these sites of their PHP cores, Benjamin Buttoning them back into sleepy HTML and CSS, making them low maintenance and future friendly. It’s funny how even something as simple as a MYSQL database requires pruning, nurture. How a PHP script—so seemingly innocuous!—is rendered obsolete a decade later as deprecation creeps, mental models of languages evolve. But take a page of HTML from the early ’90s, and it renders as well as ever on most anything with a screen.

I concur.

This evening we celebrated my sister-in-law’s husband’s birthday. He’s a loving husband, a doting father, and a devoting son. He is like a big brother to me. He taught me how to fix things around the house and he has all the tools I ever needed.

Although we have completely different personalities, we get along well most of the time. He is more reserved. Even with my emotional outbursts, we only had a few conflicts. For the most part, we’re on good terms. And if I am being completely honest, we’re not tied together by choice. We are married into the same family; therefore, we have to work together for the sake of our wives and our kids.

As a son, he is an epitome of filial piety. I had always respected him for his meticulous care for his mother. When my mother died, I had even greater admiration for him. If I took my mother in and took care of her, she might have dodged COVID. I asked her time and time again if she would consider moving in with us, but she refused. She finally said something that broke me and I never brought up the topic again.

I blame no one but my own failure. Not that I didn’t have the opportunity to pull her away, I failed to seize the opportunity. I failed to ignore her protests. I failed to see that COVID could knock on her door. While I was being extremely cautious, I failed to see that she could be exposed. By the time I found out about her symptoms, I knew it was too late. I failed her.

Tonight when witnessing the happiness on the mother’s face celebrating her son’s birthday, I jokingly asked, “What did you get your son for his birthday?” She smiled and replied, “I didn’t get a chance to go out.” She didn’t have to go anywhere. Her presence is his greatest present.

Happy birthday, big brother!

Đạo is taking the Gamma level for his ice skating lessons. He needs to make the transition from hockey to figure skates if he wants to continue into higher levels. He will need the toe picks to do the jumps and spins.

I wish the coaches went over the differences with us when we first started lessons. Đán has refused to give figure skates a try because he is so used to hockey skates. After his Gamma/Delta lesson he will stop. He wants to go into hockey.

Đạo, on the other hand, has been enjoying his skating lessons and picking up new techniques. We had been looking into figure skates for him. My wife bought him two pairs and he didn’t like them. Because they were brand new, they hurt his feet. He needs to give them time to break in.

I have been doing some research to find a good pair for him. I ruled out the beginner skates. I had my eye on the Jackson Freestyle, but it cost $265. I had been browsing Facebook marketplace, which I had never used before, to see if something would come up.

Yesterday I found a pair of used Jackson Freestyle listed in DC that matched his size. I contacted the seller immediately and we drove to DC for the first time in years to pick it up. The boots were still in good condition. The seller only has one kid and he quickly outgrew it. Đạo tried it on and he liked it. I noticed that the boots come with the Superfeet Carbon Pro Hockey Insoles, which cost $55. The brand new pair would have cost him $320. He re-sold it for $25. What a deal. Đạo asked me how much we saved. I’ll let him do the math.

Since this is a used pair of figure skates and they come with insoles, Đạo should have an easier time to break in. Now I need to find myself a used pair of figure skates as well. I am not sure if I can continue my lessons after Gamma; therefore, I just want a used pair to try out.