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.

I received my first dose of Pfizer vaccine this afternoon. The process took three minutes plus ten minutes to make sure I was safe to leave. Before the nurse jabbed me, she joked that my birthday present had arrived a bit early. I smiled back, but deep down I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell her that my mother had passed away 101 days ago because of COVID. When I went back to my car, I could not hold back my tears. I wept uncontrollably. I wish my mother was still around to get vaccinated.

Instead of heading straight back home, I drove to Krispy Kreme nearby to pick up my free donut. A Laotitian lady gave me two. Her name was Noi. She had her first vaccine yesterday. I brought two extra dozens for the kids and an iced coffee for me. Today was a beautiful day. I am thankful to be vaccinated.

Thanks to all the security guards for directing the flow. Thanks to all volunteers for checking us in. Thanks to the medical professionals for administering the vaccines. Thanks to the Biden administration for keeping the vaccine promise.

I hope my wife will get vaccinated soon.

A reader shared with me his recent experience with Spirit Airlines. Here’s what he wrote:

Is this the new way for Spirit to bump customers?

I had the worst experience flying (or not) with Spirit last weekend. We got involuntarily bumped from their flight without any compensation.

Our tickets were booked with the correct information directly via their website. We checked in online, received our boarding pass, all with the correct information matching our IDs. Once we got to the gate we were denied boarding because somehow we aren’t in the system. Gate agents said there is nothing they can do and told us to call reservation. We called reservation and was told that there is nothing they can do except to rebook the tickets for another $200. I politely declined their “generous offer.”

I didn’t make a scene however though I did promise them that if we don’t get on that plane with our boarding pass matching our IDs I’ll do everything within my power to let everyone else know about it.

I have never flown with Spirit Airlines and I won’t even consider it based on this reader’s horrendous experience. Spirit does not live up to its name.