A few weeks ago, I asked my wife if she loves me. I was half joking, half curious. She didn’t give me a straight answer; therefore, I asked her if she trusted me. She said “yes” without any hesitation. I can live with that.

If our marriage depended on love, we might not lasted to this day. Love is like a faucet. It turns off and on. Once the romantic period was over and reality kicked in, love could turn into hate.

Fortunately, our relationship has built on trust. We trust each other enough to stay together. Trust is the foundation of our marriage. If our trust was broken, everything we had built together would have collapsed. As a result, we guard our trust with our lives.

We never had any financial conflicts between us because we trusted each other. We never had any infidelity issues because we trusted each other (“ain’t nobody humpin’ around”). Trust not only keeps us tight, but also frees us up so we can be independents. We never had to worry if one of us was up to no good. We trust that everything we do, we do it for our family, our kids, and our relationship.

Trust helped us weathered through many storms in our marriage. Even when we faced serious issues, trust prevented us from walking out of our relationship. If we could make it through the night, we trusted that we would see a brighter day.

This past year has been fantastic for us. We made peace—not war. Of course we still argued, but we made up quickly. We still stressed the hell out, but not because of our relationship. We got out more and socialized more. Meeting and getting to know other people made us appreciate each other. We gave each other space to do our own things once in a while. I could go skiing by myself or out drinking with my friends while she held down the parenting floor. In contrast, she could spend time with her family while I held down the parenting department.

This has been the best year of our marriage so far. It took a decade and a half for us to finally figured out each other. I hope we will do even better many years to come.

I love you and totally trust you. Of course, I always know you love me too. Happy sixteenth anniversary!

In my early days in American, early 90s, I listened to “I’d Love You to Want Me” many times from Vietnamese singers. I didn’t even listen to Lobo, the original songwriter and singer. My English was pretty bad, but I just loved lines, “The obligation that you made / For the title that they gave.” I didn’t know what “obligation” mean, but I just liked the sound of it. Here I am covering the tune myself.

Google is searching for a Staff Visual Designer. This full-time position is $168,000-$252,000 + bonus + equity + benefits. Sounds like a good deal. If you’re a designer, take a look.

I hadn’t listened to “How Can I Tell Her,” by Lobo, in a long time. In the early 90s, when I first came to America, I heard this tune covered by a handful of Vietnamese singers including Don Hồ, Trung Hành, Henry Trúc, and Kenny Thái. In fact, I hadn’t even listened to the original version by Lobo. At the time, I did not fully understand the story behind the lyrics because of my limited English. The Vietnamese version, sang by Don Hồ, was completely different.

A couple of days ago, I came across an acoustic karaoke version on YouTube and I could recall the melody. As I sang along, I realized the story was pretty fucked up. The guy was a cheater and he wanted to keep on cheating. He tried to convince the girl he was cheating with that he wanted to tell his wife about their infidelity, but he hadn’t done so because his wife still treated him well: “Whenever I’m discouraged / She knows just what to do / But girl, she doesn’t know about you.”

The music was so romantic and he knew exactly what to say: “How can I say ‘It’s you I think of’ / Every single night and day?” This guy is a damn-good cheater. I definitely couldn’t tell the story, but I tried.

A Corea-Fleck collab? Get the fuck outta here. As expected, the dynamic duo come out swinging right off the bat on “The Otter Creek Incident.” The jazz-meets-folks and piano-meets-banjo are just exhilarating to the ears. Corea and Fleck had their own idiosyncrasy and when they teamed up, they pushed “Bemsha Swing,” a composition from an eccentric legend, even further out. I will be spending even more time with this double album.

Simplexpression is my wife’s online jewelry store. Since the initial launch in 2009, I worked closely with her on the branding and the site design and development.

Over the years, I kept refining the wordmark. I wanted it to be simple yet somewhat expressive. Yet I hadn’t quite got there until the latest redesign.

The new wordmark combines Poetica and Adobe Kis, both typefaces designed by Robert Slimbach. Adobe Kis is simple and elegant. Poetica adds a bit of flare to Adobe Kis. Since they were both designed by Slimbach, their proportions and structures matched effortlessly.

I am happy with the new wordmark. I finally found what I had been looking for so many years.

Yesterday, I helped Xuân reviewing for his test on the Famous American Civil Rights Leaders. We ended up creating a blog post so he can use as a study guide. Good luck on the test tomorrow, son!

This little book features 59 quotes on writing and short responses from the author to demonstrate the intersect between writing and mindfulness. Some of my favorite quotes including John McPhee’s “Writing teaches writing,” Carlos Fuentes’ “Writing is a struggle against silence,” and Thích Nhật Hạnh’s “Compassion is a verb.” It’s an enlightening read.

Last weekend I asked Đạo and Đán to help me clean up our cars. Đạo took the vacuum and went to work. Đán, on the other hand, kept watching Youtube instead of wiping down the interior. He told me he wanted to change the cabin air filters. I told him I would let him do it but I needed to order the filters first before he opened up the glove compartment. The glove compartment in the 2011 Toyota Sienna is falling apart anyway so I didn’t mind letting him give it a shot.

I order the filters on Amazon so he could change both cars. I am glad he did because the filter in the 2011 Toyota Sienna was so dirty. I am not sure if the dealer ever changed it when I took the car in for oil change. The 2018 still looked clean, but he changed it out anyway.

I am so happy when the kids wanted to do these kind of things instead of sitting in front of their screens.

All the people
Livin’ life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one.

Imagine that!