Month: September 2025

I think I’m entering that stage of life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Actually, there’s no thinking that I’m entering it, the reality is that I’ve already entered it, it’s just that there’s a part of me that has been kind of in denial about it, and the reality is that we’re like at, phase 2 or 3 of it now instead of just entering it.

I’m talking about the point in our lives where a parent(s) begin to lose their independence, and for lack of a better term, we’re entering the end game phase of life.  It’s been going on with my dad for the better part of the last two years, with an increase of health ailments and incidents, loss of balance and falls, and an increase of medications, doctor appointments as well as just general concern for well-being from my sister and I.

My dad is getting up there in age, and it’s a tough pill to swallow that with every single medical incident, he’s getting closer and closer to the exit, than rebounding back to the independent and capable hard-working dad that’s been in my life.

Naturally, this is nothing out of the ordinary for most kids who care about their parents, and I’ve bore witness already to many close confidants in my life to have gone through this stage of life themselves.  I’ve been to more funerals over the years than I care to admit, but at the same time, such seems to be one of those rites of passage that simply exists on the passage of time, and if we’re being honest here, it’s probably only going to increase as time progresses.

However, it’s different in the sense that it’s now in progress with my own parent now, seeing him gradually deteriorating from the effects of Father Time, he who is undefeated and undefeatable.  It’s not just a sense of sadness and melancholy at it being my turn, as much it’s a whole lot of increasing stress at working with my sister to make sure that he’s not being preyed upon by predatory service providers, from home repairs, realtors, to any crook  out there hoping to take advantage of vulnerable seniors.

It’s frustrating, because my sister and I are constantly skating around this line where my dad is struggling with losing his independence and facing his own mortality and making a lot of questionable decisions independently, but then there are times in which the man won’t make a decision to save his life, and is waiting on my sister or I to make them for him, before he inevitably doesn’t like it and then protests it.  It’s like dealing with my 4-year old sometimes.

In his perfect world, he’s able to tie up all loose ends, sell his home and seamlessly transition into some sort of senior/assisted living to where he can live out the remainder of his life comfortably.  Obviously, seldom is life that accommodating, so in my perfect world, my sister and I are able to get him out of his house where he’s one really bad slip trip or fall from dying discreetly, into a good senior/assisted living facility, and then we can close up shop on our own, retroactively.  It’s just that we’re dealing with his abrupt changes of mind and quick trigger when it comes to deviating from any sort of plans that have already put into motion, mostly on account of his all-too Korean tendency to listen to friends and peers above his own children.

Honestly, I’m trying to get my dad down to Georgia, to get a clean slate and live out the remainder of his life down here closer to me.  I have a place in mind that I think would be very ideal, and unlike the money-driven cesspool that Northern Virginia is, rent is not asset-based flexible (read: flexes based on how much liquidity you have), and my dad would probably be able to comfortably sustain his living conditions on his SSI and retirement income without bleeding out financially.

But the clock is definitely ticking, in that we have to move expediently to get him out of isolated living, and into a facility where he can at least get daily wellness checks to make sure that he doesn’t fall and there’s nobody remotely close to help out with.

All the same though, I feel as if I’m in end game, and I hope to make the best of the time that I do have left with my dad, and bringing him down to Georgia would be a very positive initial step.

Dad Brog (#155): the 2025 Famiry Disney Cruise

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m a day removed from having gotten off of the Disney Treasure, and hoo boy do I really feel my age these days.  For the first time in all of the cruises that I’ve done before, did I feel a little motion sick on a cruise before, but thankfully that was very short lived, and I was able to sleep it off and remain normal throughout the duration of the trip.  Driving back home all the way directly from Port Canaveral, I found my back hurting pretty badly to the point where I had to take some ibuprofen, thus making it the first time that I’ve needed painkillers, just to make a long distance drive, something I’ve done countless times in my life previously.

And unsurprising, the sea legs sensation of feeling boat rocking on solid land is hitting hard, and it’s mostly when I’m standing still or trying to remain as motionless as possible does the rocking sensation kick in, and I anticipate this will be the case for the next week or so, as it has been for me on previous cruises.

But anyway, big ass famiry trip in the bag, and do I have a lot of thoughts about it.  As curmudgeon as it may sound to say, I don’t necessarily refer to this entirely as a vacation, because the truth of the matter is that wrangling my two kids, on a boat, is still a colossal amount of effort that leads to a lot of aggravation at times, and I’d be lying if I didn’t get fried and pissed off at undesirable behaviors throughout the week long journey through the Caribbean on an egregiously overpriced boat.

#2 hijacked almost every single evening of the trip, mostly on account of fatigue and a lack of napping, but it usually amounted to her refusing to eat, behaving like a little shit at dinner, and then me needing to walk her out of the restaurants or carry her from point A to point B, and thusly being unable to really enjoy large chunks of time.  I don’t love her any less, but that’s about as succinct of a description of what happened throughout the course of this trip.

Oh, and I’m sure she’ll never live this down, she also barfed on the very literal center of the boat; in the grand hall of the main concourse, right at the center of the stage, where they had a photographer taking pictures of guests.  Immortalized, and definitely one of those stories that we as parents will always be able to recollect whenever we want to embarrass her in the future.

Still though, there’s little I won’t do for my kids and famiry, and despite the fact that I was probably burning out more than I was at any state remotely close to relaxation, there were still numerous pockets of happiness that makes it all worth it, and when the day is over, I want my kids to experience things and see things and visit places, and in those regards, it’s easy to say that the trip was a success. 

My children stepped foot onto the soil of other countries, experienced things that aren’t easily available to us elsewhere, and they got to experience a boatload of things that made them smile, rejoice or just be plain happy to see a bunch of Disney characters.  As a famiry, we went swimming with stingrays and sea stars, ate a ton of decadent foods, and enjoyed beaches, pools and a whole lot of fucking sunshine.

Some other observations about the trip were that this was apparently a tremendously busy cruise on account of two major factors:

  • It was the fall break for numerous school districts in the country, with a large quantity of them being from Georgia; I’m not even joking if I said that probably 2-3 fifths of the cruising populous were from Georgia, with quite a bunch of them being from my county specifically. The shore excursion we went on, our boat was literally over half from my exact zip code, as we were all on the same fall break.  Mythical wife even had one of her own students’ family assigned two tables away from us, so we saw them literally every single night.
  • This particular cruise was a Halloween at Seas cruise, which meant that there was a specific evening dedicated to Halloween, complete with characters all donning Halloween costumes, décor changing to be Halloween themed, and most importantly for the littles, trick or treating on the ship.

However, let’s stay on that latter bullet, because I feel like that was a big contributor to what I did not necessarily enjoy about my cruise experience as a whole.

Continue reading “Dad Brog (#155): the 2025 Famiry Disney Cruise” →

Clearly the world does revolve around me

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Before I carve out some time to write about the famiry cruise vacation, I just wanted to briefly chat about the fact that in the one week plus a travel day in which I was mostly offline and then for the most part radio silent as far as (reliable) internet connectivity went, pretty much the whole universe moved as far as people trying to get in touch with me, work pinging me endlessly at times in which they never do, people calling, leaving voicemails, and all sorts of news or internet activity that I was completely incapable of getting to, or even knowing about beyond the hints that I could surmise from the odd capabilities of pretty much only being able to receive push notifications and texts through iMessage only.

Ordinarily, I lead a pretty boring life where not a whole lot happens on a regular basis.  There are times in which I get so bored at home or at work, where I’m practically begging for my group chats or friend groups to fucking pipe up and chat, and I get to points where I feel like I have to restrain myself from trying to initiate lest I feel like I’m spamming and that the people in my life don’t like me. 

When I’m able to be on top of things, I typically manage to do such, and all my apps and mediums are typically left tidy and clean, and I’m most of the time pleased about the minimal amounts of catching up I have to do, when I’m at the most indisposed with the kids or work for a few hours at most.

But seriously, it was almost comical at how much activity seemed to only happen when I was completely incapable of keeping up with it.  My Fridays are work from home days, and it’s like this unspoken understanding that most people are capable of skirting the rules a little bit and stretching the “from home” part, be it through running errands, tackling appointments, or in my case, attempting to get out of town without having to officially burn any PTO, as long as the work gets done and communication is not completely radio silent.

However, in the one Friday in which we deemed our travel day, I figured I could skirt my work day so long as I kept my one meeting, and made sure to respond to any work-related messages in a timely manner.  Naturally, my work meeting was at like 11:30, so that loomed over my head throughout the start of my drive, and it wasn’t until we were around Macon was I able to check that off of my list, and I got work pings pretty much all throughout the entire day, that required mythical wife to transcribe for me, or me to dangerously try and type out while driving, and at one point required me to pull off the highway, VPN in and try to intervene myself.

It went all the way until exactly 5 pm.

Yes, it was my obligation to have to be able to work until 5 pm, but on a Friday, I knew my counterpart who was also involved in the work was as aggravated as I was.

I told mythical wife to remind me not to try and skirt the Friday again in the future and to just burn the PTO.

As far as the rest of the trip was concerned in which I was more or less forced offline which wasn’t really a bad thing in the sense that I actually went to bed for healthy durations of time and didn’t get sucked into the internet vortex of scrolling and wasting time, what was weird is that I was still able to get push notifications of all the things that I was missing, but was really incapable of staying on top of anything. 

I get free international roaming and data, which was serviceable in the past, but I guess T-Mobile really sucks compared to Sprint, and Mexico aside, the data available to me in Grand Cayman, Jamaica and Disney’s private Bahamian island were all inept garbage, and may as well as have remained offline, so it got to a point where I was just like, fuck it, and gave up on even trying.

But in the week in which I was off the grid, aside from work blowing me up, there was apparently all sorts of shit happening in the world that got a lot of my shit blowing up.  Wrestling events, sports happenings, interesting news in general.  Family gatherings, friends reaching out, and even a friend of mine getting engaged.  My dad, whom my sister and I are dealing with the things that occur in later stages of life, has been making a lot of questionable independent decisions, one of which caused his bank to contact me, naturally while I’m out of the country, to ensure its authenticity, which spiked my stress and anxiety at being incapable of handling it.  Family chats blowing up trying to arrange future things, multiple friend group chats exploding with topics and takes that I’d ordinarily like to participate in.  All the while, being pretty much offline for seven nights.

I understand that this is among the pinnacle of first world problems.  But it was almost comical at just how much the world moved just as soon as I was completely unable to witness all the happenings of it.  To the point where even though I’m home and beginning the settling in process, I wanted to blurt out this diatribe before taking any time at even attempting to ease back into the connected life, before anything else, not to mention the component of where I had the above graphic in my mind, and where the Photoshop sometime steers the post.

Justin Verlander is basically MLB’s Tom Brady

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

USA Today: Justin Verlander, 42, reportedly desires to keep playing despite having absolutely nothing left to prove, and having supermodel wife Kate Upton waiting at home

I saw this story about Justin Verlander wanting to keep playing past this season, and my mind was like wtf, why?  For the record, man has already accomplished:

  • Two-time World Series champion
  • Three no-hitters
  • 3x AL Cy Young Award winner
  • 1x AL MVP
  • AL Rookie of the Year
  • 9x All-Star

Surely it’s not money, because Verlander has already cleared over $400M in career earnings, and at that tier, it would take a Herculean effort of being a shithead to blow through it.  And it’s not like his wife is some financial leech, because he’s married to supermodel Kate Upton, whom Google claims has a net worth of $20M in her own right.

And speaking of Upton, it’s hilarious that he wants to keep staying on the road of living the life of a baseball player, instead of enjoying retirement with his bombshell of a wife and his two kids.  A cursory reaction is that in spite of the massive advantages he’s earned in his life, it seems like the life of being a husband and father is something that he’s not ready to commit to full-time, and the only thing preventing that from having to be a reality is, continuing to keep playing.

Frankly the only thing that seems remotely attainable and is a justifiable excuse to keep on trucking, is the pursuit of 300 career wins, which is something of a holy grail for pitchers and among the true milestones that separate the GOATs from the really goods.  However, he’s 35 wins away from that, and at the rate he’s going, he would need at least three more seasons, and get a ton of run support in order to have a chance at hitting 300, and by then he’ll be pushing 45, and most teams will probably be ready to take him out to the back of the pasture at that rate, especially if they’re going to be close to his 2025.

Getting back to the title of this post, Justin Verlander is basically MLB’s version of Tom Brady, the ageless star who has achieved just about everything there is to achieve, but continues to insist on playing, despite riches, achievements and a supermodel wife.

I guess us pleebs won’t ever be able to comprehend this innate desire to stay away from home and not settle down, or perhaps the adage of, every gorgeous woman is still someone’s colossal pain in the ass, rings true here and supermodels like Gisele and Kate Upton are as much head cases as they are attractive.

All the same, if I’m being honest, I feel like the Braves would be all in on being a match for Verlander, and I think the union could possibly work, at least for 2026.  The Braves are notorious for favoring aged stars on one-year deals, and the cheapskate org could possibly succeed at signing him for like 1-year, and maybe $13-14M.

The Braves would feel that they could extract the absolute last skill out of Verlander, and provided the team manages to bounce back from this abysmal 2025 campaign, they could be an ideal club to score a lot of runs again, with ol’ Justin to possibly be the beneficiary to them en route to 13 wins or so.

If the reports are true and he wants to keep going, I actually would expect the Braves to be in on Verlander for 2026.  His desire to not go home and be a family man could benefit the Braves, and lord knows they need all the help they can get for the future.

I sure as shit wouldn’t complain if he pulls a Tom Brady and jumps ship to a random team like the Braves and help them rip off a successful season en route to some World Series pay dirt.

That “as long as I’m living” part seems ominous

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Toronto Star: Author Robert Munsch, currently 80 years old, approved for MAID which is medical assistance in dying, intends to go out on his own terms

This wouldn’t be the first time Robert Munsch has been brought up in the brog, as at one time, and I still fully believe, that one of his iconic works, Love You Forever, should come with a trigger warning, because for people like me, it’s impossible to make it through reading the book without breaking down into uncontrollable sobbing.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a marvelously beautiful book, and something that all parents who genuinely love their kids should (attempt to) read to their kids in their lives, but at least for me, it’s moving to the point where even just thinking about it right now has gotten my eyes a little bit watery.

Anyway, I came across the news that up in Canada where he lives, he has been approved for MAID, which for lack of a better term is legal assisted suicide, in the sense that he is being allowed to end his own life.  I mean, it’s a lot of murky area and the details are in the terminology, but the end result is that he is voluntarily ending his own life at his choosing.

Ordinarily, I’ve not minced words how I’ve felt about people in time who have committed suicide, which is that I think it’s a coward’s way out.  But all the details around the news of Munsch’s approved MAID are definitely different, and are kind of like, at least for me, uncharted waters when it comes to thinking about how everything is proposed to go in the near future.

Long story short, Munsch is 80, has both dementia and Parkinson’s and has already witnessed what a slow expiration looks like, seeing his brother succumb to ALS.  If there were ever someone who should get a little grace and understanding of why he might want to be able to go out on his own terms, it’s Munsch.

And the more I think about it, in spite of my general disapproval of suicide in general, I think the idea of MAIDs is substantially different, and despite the fact that both end with the expiration of life, the circumstances, intentions and executions seem different enough to where it’s not nearly as, negatively connoted.

Like in the case of Munsch, I’d hope that in the times where he’s still lucid and sound of mind, he’s been getting affairs in order, got all his legal loose ends tied up, wills, trusts, inheritances, etc.  And if and when his afflictions begin to worsen, and in his own words,

when I start having real trouble talking and communicating. Then I’ll know.

…I imagine things will (hopefully) go rather smoothly, albeit no less tragic and devastating at the sheer reality that a life will be ending.

However, here’s the one thing that I do still find a little bit concerning about MAIDs:

He said a date has not been set yet, but he has to choose while he can still actively consent.

Like, how does anyone choose a date in which they voluntarily end their own life?  As progressively compassionate the potential of MAIDs provide, it still seems a little short-sighted and rigid to make a person set a date.  Maybe I’m missing something here, but I feel like this is probably more likely to be a game-time decision, or something very close to it, and not necessarily something that a person has to lock in, weeks, months or even years in advance.

As I said, there’s so much gray area and so many hypotheticals, that way smarter people, and actual legal ones at that, have probably presented the whole idea of MAIDs in the first place as legally tight as they can make it, regardless of the subject matter of the whole concept.

On the flip side, there seems to be potential for a person on their way out to have an unprecedented farewell tour, to life, and it be completely legal, or at least without any personnel trying to stop you.  Hopefully, Munsch and his family have a bucket list of things that they want to experience and accomplish, and it not be too complicated if and when the inevitable proposed go-time approaches.

The bottom line is that as sad as the whole thing is on account of the main thing being the expiration of a life, in this particular instance, I can’t say that I blame Robert Munsch for going in this direction.  I know that if my mind were going, and I couldn’t remember my kids, my wife or my family, and my body were deteriorating to where I was falling regularly, I’d begin to think that maybe I’ve had a pretty full-ass life, and perhaps it would be best for all parties involved that I left the party and everyone else could exhale and move on with their lives without me and all my burdens putting everyone’s lives on hold.

However, I will say that when thinking about the song from I Love You Forever:

I’ll love you forever
I’ll like you for always
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be

That third line, as long as I’m living, is something that I don’t necessarily agree with, because I like to believe that even after I kick it, whatever afterlife or aether where my soul or essence of life that might be swirling around somewhere, the love for my kids will still be around, and as I tell my girls regularly, they’ll always be my babies.

And with that, I have to wrap up this post, lest I be reduced to full on start sobbing about this sad topic.

Happy Trails, Roy Hobbs

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

AP: Actor and activist, Robert Redford dies at the age of 89

Throughout the long history of the brog, I’ve been saddened by the passing of many notable figures and shared my words and thoughts for those whom have meant the most to my general existence.  I’ve stated numerous names, of individuals who really had massive imprints on my general state of life, those whom help mold, shape or have a permanent residence at the forefront of my brain.

Guys like Sonny Chiba, Dikembe Mutombo, Kevin Conroy emerge quickly, as people for whatever reason or contributions to the shit I’ve seen in my life, always maintained permanent resident status in my head, and even to this day, guys whom I’ll make references to or think about when it comes to the countless analogies and metaphors and comparisons that I make when thinking about things around the world.

Well, Robert Redford is up there on that echelon of individuals in the world that left an indelible mark in my life, and I’m feeling melancholy about hearing about his passing.  I can’t really say that I’m so much sad about it considering he was 89 years old and had clearly lived a full and prosperous life, but for those that will miss him the most, my heart goes out to.

However, I should be more specific, that my general fandom and appreciation for Robert Redford stems from a role he played in a film, based on a book that also left an indelible impression in my life, which is The Natural by Bernard Malamud.  After falling in love with the book, the movie was enjoyable, which really opened my eyes to who Robert Redford was, as he was portraying the intrepid Roy Hobbs, the former pitcher turned old rookie wunderkind, crushing home runs all over the place with this homemade baseball bat.

And although the film didn’t portray it like the book did, Roy Hobbs was a human vacuum cleaner of a legendary eater, prompting one of my oldest friend groups and I to use his name as inspiration for whenever we wanted to destroy buffets all across Northern Virginia and eat like Roy Hobbs was trying to fill the void left in his heart from the early baseball career he never had.

Furthermore, Roy Hobbs became something of a pseudonym for me through a variety of online endeavors, like the pen name I wrote through on Talking Chop and a variety of other Vox websites, and was usually my go-to when it came to utilizing an online handle on gaming platforms like Xbox Live or League of Legends.

Regardless, through Roy Hobbs I learned Robert Redford, and although Roy Hobbs was but just a single role played in a legendary career, whenever the thought of Roy Hobbs emerges in my brain, it’s Robert Redford that I see, and for that alone, made me a fan of Robert Redford.

It’s funny, because as learned of his existence was I made aware of just how much work he’s done in Hollywood, for Hollywood, and the film industry in general, but it wasn’t until really reading several obituaries and tributes to the man did I realize just how much more he did, as far as his support for independents beyond just Sundance, as well as his activism, trying to make the world a lesser pile of shit than it is on the regular.

Robert Redford was truly an extraordinary human being, and it’s like I discovered him in a reverse order sort of fashion; gravitating towards him on account of a singular role, but then learning more about him after the fact, as opposed to the other way around.

It’s a sad day in Hollywood, film and even literature to hear about the passing of Robert Redford, but at least as far as I’m concerned, he’ll always be relevant and worth mentioning, if for anything at all, being the guy who was Roy Hobbs.

Unpopular opinion: weight dropping is weak

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I suppose it’s kind of an oxymoron that I preface this post with unpopular opinion; over the last few months of randomly commenting on public shit on social media, it’s safe to say that most of the opinions I have are typically unpopular and am routinely told by randos how stupid and how much of a loser I am for having them which in a way is not a bad thing because it makes me think twice about engaging anything on the internet and saving my opinions for my own personal brog where I will never have anyone telling me that I’m wrong.

But anyway, I’m at the gym, more specifically I’m in the locker room changing out to get ready to head back up to the office.  And then I hear a thud; right past the walls to the men’s locker room is the little alcove of the gym where the dumbbells are situated, and there are 1-2 benches for people to do some dumbbell lifts.  Usually once, sometimes twice in a work week, I utilize these dumbbells, especially since my gym has no barbells or any free weights that would be useful to really do some swole seshes.

A few minutes later, another thud, of weights being dropped onto the ground, after what was probably a grueling, failure-inducing set of god-knows-what to push a man to the limits to where he feels the only logical option is to abandon ship and drop their weights to the ground, completely unconcerned about floor damage, or any collateral damage of rolling or bouncing weights.  Granted, the heaviest weights available at my gym are two 50s, but considering the majority of the people in my building, it’s still sufficient if you know what you’re doing inside of a gym.

I’m in the shower, and then there’s an even louder thud, and I’m beginning to think that whomever is using the dumbbells is increasing weight in between sets and slamming heavier and heavier weights based on the sheer magnitude of the thuds.

While I’m getting dressed comes one last thud, that kind of shakes the ground, and one of those impacts that you can feel in your bones.  There’s some extra clatter, and then the sound of the weights clearly having rolled or bounced into the drywall on the other side of the wall I’m standing in front of and I’m finally thinking to myself, what the fuck, dropping weights is fucking stupid, and a sign of weakness, because anyone with any modicum of strength and control would probably be able to workout without hitting such catastrophic failure points to where they have to start slamming their weights on the ground like when Hogan slammed Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania III.

Yes, I know all about hitting failure and the importance of it in order to achieve certain levels of growth, but I actually know the guy in question who was dropping the weights like he were in a Rocky training montage.  He’s definitely not a bodybuilder, and is probably like 155-160 lbs., tops.  I know he’s into crossfit, considering the crossfit shirts I’ve seen him wearing, and it’s evident where he picked up the habit of dropping weights.  Which is fine, when you’re at the crossfit gym, and all of the crossfit clowns are flinging and dropping and slamming their weights all over the place, but not while at the minimally loaded work office gym.

Not only are there already holes and dents in the drywall from gee I wonder wear, the floors are minimally padded with an appropriate floor covering, but the fact that the floors are hollow sounding, I don’t imagine 80, 90 or 100 lbs of weight being slammed onto the ground is great for the long-term.  This isn’t a crossfit gym, and it’s barely a real gym in general.  It’s a repurposed section of an office building that had some basic gym equipment placed into it, that’s convenient for casual and/or knowledgeable exercise enthusiasts to come and get some work in, not for crossfit clowns to come in and fling shit around and lift weights with shitty form.

The bottom line is that, I think weight dropping is stupid, weight dropping is potentially harmful, and weight dropping is just weak, in general.  Fewer things seem a better indicator of strength and ability to harness that strength than being able to control not just the press of weight, but also the return of it, and I frankly don’t want to hear any nonsensical bullshit about how I’m not hitting failure and hampering my own gains.  I workout in order to maintain good health, not train for the next fucking Olympics, I’m not trying to break floors and walls and make tremors when doing so.