I started using my new figure skate today and it was horrible. I could not do anything other than just gliding forward and doing some crossovers. I couldn’t even do a plow stop. I thought the blades were not sharpened, but the expert from the pro shop said the blades have edges. I am going to need more time to make the transition.

Đạo is doing great with his group lessons. After class tonight, his instructor asked me if I would be interested in signing him up for private lessons. Since he picked up the techniques quickly and easily, his instructor thinks he would go further with private lessons. Of course, I will sign him up.

I signed Đán up for ice hockey. I hope he will enjoy it. He skates fast, but refuses to use figure skates. Now I can see why as I am struggle to make the transition myself. I am not going to give up though.

My wife also wants to sign Xuân up for private lessons. I am also thinking of taking private lessons myself now that my group lessons had canceled, but I need to get used to my figure skates first.

I am going to need to take on extra freelance projects to pay for these extracurriculars. If you need a professional website for your doctor office, nail salon, restaurant, or any business, hit me up. If you know someone who needs a website, let me know. My price is very reasonable.

The good news is that my Jackson Ultima Freestyle Fusion figure skates had arrived earlier today. My wife got a great deal on it from eBay. The skates look like new and they fit me perfectly. The bad news is that my group lessons for Delta were cancelled. I was the only student signed up. At least five students were needed to hold the class.

Then again, this is a good time for me to take a break from lessons and to give me time to break into my new figure skates. If nothing comes up in the next few weeks, I might consider taking private lessons. I am not sure what my goal is for taking lessons. Maybe I just wanted to find out how far my body can handle the techniques. Yesterday, I saw a man in his early 50s doing turns and spins. He started figure skating when he was 45. I was encouraged.

I still have so much to learn, but I am taking my time and taking each step at a time. Skating is my only form of exercise at the moment. Both ice skating and rollerblading make me sweat. They both keep me stay active.

With a curious mind, a sense of wonder, and a passion for narrative and storytelling, Jeff Bezos has become a true innovator. By connecting humanities, technology, and business, he has transformed the way we shop online.

Through his shareholder letters, which he wrote from 1997 to 2019, we get to see how Amazon had grown and dominated the online retails. He set out to build “the world’s most customer-centric company” on day one; therefore, the technologies (AWS) that they had developed, the Marketplace they had launched, and the Prime membership they had created were based on that core mission.

Instead of giving PowerPoint presentations, Bezos prefers narrative writing. This book collects his own words on his personal life as well as his professional work. With a wonderful introduction from Walter Isaacson, this book gives readers a glimpse into Bezos’ mind, passion, and curiosity. I enjoyed it.

I worked on a freelance project until 3 am in the morning because I was in the zone and didn’t want to stop. As a result, I only had a few hours of sleep. I woke up to take Đạo and Đán to their Boy Scout meeting at the park. I dropped by Dunkin’ Donuts to pick up breakfast for the kids and iced coffee for me.

While the kids attended their Scout activities, I went to the skatepark to rollerblade. I got bored going down the straight ramps. I felt like I was not going anywhere with rollerblading. I was too nervous to take on the curved ramps like a half pipe. With my mind going berserk due to lack of sleep and the caffeine kicking in, I decided to just do it. I nervously put my left foot on the coping and dropped in with my right foot. I didn’t fall at all. I felt rejuvenated and kept on doing it for an hour. I even tried out a higher half pipe. After I showed Đán, he did it as well.

Later in the evening, I took Đạo and Xuân ice skating. Đán didn’t want to go. The arena was empty. I only picked the least busy time so I practiced. Xuân could do both the T-stop and the hockey stop simply from watching us. His form for the hockey stop looked so good. He is a natural skater. As we were having a great time, a teenage boy fell. He twisted his foot and cut his hand with the blade. His blood spilled all over the ice. With injuries occurring more frequently, I am getting a bit nervous.

I signed up for Delta, but no one else had signed up. It looks like the group lessons will have to be cancelled. I am attempting to sign up for private lessons, but I am still waiting for my figure skates to arrive. My wife bought me a used pair of Jackson Freestyle on eBay. The seller shipped over a week ago, but it is still somewhere in California. USPS sucks.

My 2011 Toyota Sienna’s windshield had a long crack along the wipers. I was not sure how or when it started to crack. I just noticed it a couple of days ago. I googled for an auto glass repair shop around my area. Windshield City caught my attention because of the positive reviews. I was still skeptical; therefore, I called Ourisman Toyota Collision Center for recommendation. The manager said they often contracted out to Windshield City.

I called Windshield City for an estimate and made an appointment for 3 pm today. I came into the shop, dropped off the car, rollerbladed around the blocks for a bit, came back, and got a brand new glass an hour later. I only interacted with Lindsay Rose, the office manager, and that was it.

The entire job cost $300, which included labor and after-market glass. I am very happy with the service and highly recommend it.

On April 15, 2021, I drove to my sister-in-law’s house to pick up her son to go ice skating with us. As I backed out of her driveway, I felt an impact. Her neighbor across the street also backed out and we collided. The edge of his bumper hit the side of my bumper. His car was fine, but my minivan was damaged. We called our insurance and settled the coverage.

I took my minivan to Ourisman Toyota Collision Center to get it fixed. They did a good job of replacing the bumper and the sliding gate in the back for $3,500 (covered by insurance). The downside was that they took almost three weeks. We didn’t have rental in our insurance policy. Fortunately, my wife and I both work from home; therefore, we could get by with our other minivan. Still, there were times that we both needed to be out.

In addition, I asked them to look at the scratches on the sliding door that were unrelated to the collision and to give me an estimate so I could pay out of my own pocket. They said that they would take care of them without additional cost. When I picked up my minivan, they did nothing to the scratches.

I talked to David Martin, the production manager, and he said that he would order the protectors and schedule a specialist to replace the projectors. He said that the cost would be less than $100. I agreed to the service. I am not sure if he would follow through with it or just an empty promise.

David Jonathan Ross writes about the expansion of his Forma DJR:

Ruggero also took the opportunity to add Vietnamese language support, bringing it in line with my other recent releases. Donny Truong, creator of the incredible Vietnamese Typography resource, advised us on the project, and was particularly helpful with the crucial diacritical horn.

We were nervous about using a straightened horn, which would be an unusual feature for a sans like this one, but we thought it vibed with Forma’s Modernist leanings. To our delight, Donny encouraged us to keep this more daring shape, and we took his pragmatic suggestion to provide a curved alternate for those who prefer it, especially in text.

I have always been opened about diacritics and I alway loved when type designers go beyond the convention for display typefaces. I am so happy to see the final result for Forma DJR. Congratulations to David and Ruggero Magrì for the superb expansion. I can’t wait to try out the variable font version.

I wrapped up my ice skating Gamma lessons last night. I scored 47/50 on the test even though my performance wasn’t that good. My 3-turns and hockey stops were good. My Mohawk combinations weren’t so good. I scored a nine on my left and an eight on my right. The points don’t matter, but they give me a sense of where I am at in this recreational journey.

I am exhausted and a bit burned out. The challenge gets steeper as we go to the next level. I am still debating about continuing to Delta. I have to switch to figure skates, which my wife had bought a used pair on eBay. They haven’t arrived yet. One of my classmates won’t continue because he is going into hockey. With just three students, they won’t have the class. The minimum requirement is five students. They would hold a class for four but not three. Maybe I’ll just watch YouTube and learn on my own. I could do private lessons, but I don’t want the coach to focus on me the entire time.

My sons are showing less enthusiasm in ice skating. Đán has not done much in Delta. He wants to play hockey, but I am not even sure if he does. Đạo is doing great in Gamma, but every time I asked him to go practice he got grumpy. Xuân is doing fine in Alpha, but he doesn’t like to practice either. Of course they would rather spend time on their computer and play video games.

My wife is right again. Without an end goal, they would get bored. We’ll see what happens once they are done with their lessons. They seem to be done with rollerblading.

On Saturday, I had a Zoom call with an old friend from elementary school. We discussed business briefly and then we got personal. We brought back so many good old memories. Out of all the female friends I had, she was my closest. I met her through our ESL class when I was in sixth grade and she was in fifth.

Our friendship kicked up a notch when we went to junior high together. We didn’t hang out much but we spent hours and hours on the phone. On heavy snow days when schools closed, I was stuck in the little apartment and bored out of my mind. Our phone conversations kept me alive. She was usually the one who made the call because her parents were very strict. They didn’t want any boy calling their home. There were days I waited by the phone and hoped to hear her voice.

If someone were willing to spend that much time talking to me, even when her parents didn’t allow her to, there must be something special. Then I started to wonder if our connection could move beyond the friend zone. The more I thought about it, I started to develop a crush on her. It was not just any ordinary crush I had in the past up to that point. I fell for her voice and her academic-driven. She was a straight A’s student throughout junior high. Even though I couldn’t catch her level of achievement, I made it to the honor roll. I was proud to have my name listed underneath hers on the school’s bulletin board.

When I finally worked up the courage to confess to her over the phone, she turned me down gently. We remained friends, but the rejection stung. I was too embarrassed to face her. When I moved to high school, we drifted further apart. I started hanging out with the new high school friends. I blended in well with other Vietnamese students in the Oriental Club (an unfortunate name). The Vietnamese boys bonded over cars, girls, and gambling. We started to cut school more regularly.

We met up every morning in the school cafeteria for breakfast. We hated the food they served; therefore, we decided to cut school and raced each other at 90 to 100 miles per hour on the freeway to Chinatown in Philly for dim sum. Then there were days we just cut school and played Tiếng Lên (a four-player card game) for a buck or two at a friend’s house. We chose his house because both of his parents weren’t home and they lived a block from our school.

Needless to say my grades were slipping. I went from A’s and B’s to C’s, D’s, and F’s. My senior year was the worst. I failed AP calculus, chemistry, and social study. Somehow I had enough credits to graduate. I was also fortunate that La Salle University had already accepted me early into my senior year.

In retrospect, my poor mother shed so many tears during my high school years. I am so sorry, mama. I was heading in the wrong direction. I spent more time partying than schooling. Fortunately, two incidents had turned me around. I dated the wrong girl. She cheated on me and broke my heart. One of my close friends, whose house we used to gamble in, died from drowning. We were on the same boat.

In our recent conversation, my friend pointed out that she was disappointed to see the change in me in high school. Somehow we had a few classes together, but we were not connected like we used to in junior high. Maybe my mind was somewhere else.

One incident broke our friendship. The day before our chemistry final exam, we studied together at her house until the wee hours. She explained all the formulas to me, but I kept yawning. I was exhausted and sleepy. I tried my best, but I had no clue what she was talking about. We took the final exam the next day. She aced it and I failed. She felt bad for me, but I expected it.

Several days later, we met up in the Oriental Club. One of my best friends who she also knew from junior high and I were making jokes. I can’t recall the exact context, but I was sarcastically referring her as “con quỷ,” which meant “a witch” and not “a bitch.” The next day, her boyfriend at the time who was also one of my friends in the club confronted me. He told me that I called his girlfriend a bitch because I was jealous that she scored higher than me on the chemistry final exam.

I was shocked. I explained to him that I did not call her “a bitch” and saying that I was jealous of her for doing well on the final exam was absurd. She was doing me a favor to help me get a better test score. I should have thanked her instead of being jealous of her. If there was any jealousy, I should have been jealous of him instead because he won her heart. That seemed to get the message across. We were cool about it.

I wanted to reach out to her to apologize. It was a misunderstanding and I made a bad joke. I shouldn’t have called her “a witch” for whatever reason I could not recall. I was disappointed that she didn’t come to me about it. We could have addressed it directly through our friendship. When she hinted at the incident in our recent conversation, I knew immediately what she was talking about. I explained the misunderstanding and I apologized. I hope we’re on good terms now.

She is happily married with a child and, as I had predicted, very successful. I am also content with my own family. She had confessed that she had a crush on me as well in those junior-high years, but there was a third party involved, which I had no clue until now. Twenty-some years later is a bit too late. I suppose everything happened for a reason. I just hope that we can rekindle our friendship after all.

I went to the Vietnamese temple to burn a few incense sticks for my mom on Mother’s Day. After praying and chanting, the monk took a few minutes to talk about COVID-19. He gave logical reasons for masking and vaccination. Masking protects ourselves and others from getting infected. Vaccination prevents the virus and stops the spread.

From what we had been through in the past year, I thought he was preaching to the choir. I estimated that of the twenty plus people attending the service, most, if not all, had at least one dose of vaccine. Then a guy (probably in his early 50s) interjected. He asked if the monk had been vaccinated even though the monk just said he had. He advised the monk that he should not have been vaccinated. The monk asked if anyone else didn’t believe in vaccination. No one raised his or her hand. The monk should have asked how many had vaccinated already.

The guy then explained that he had done thorough research on this topic. He claimed that the media had created this virus in China and they had taken over the White House. If we continued to listen to the media and get vaccinated, we would be influenced by the Chinese and the Democrats. The monk responded to the guy’s conspiracy theory that he didn’t take vaccination as political. If he got sick, he would take medication. He trusted doctors and scientists. He was vaccinated to protect himself and the people around him.

The monk then pointed to the older monk who is 83 years old. He said that the senior monk didn’t want to be vaccinated at first due to his age, but he decided to do it because he wanted people to attend the temple. I cheered, “Thank you, thầy” and clapped my hands. Some people joined in.

As folks gathered around the altar to pray for their loved ones, I took off because the anti-vaxxer didn’t wear his mask. Even though I was fully vaccinated, I didn’t want to catch his stupidity.