Carving on my longboard with a bit more speed. I can’t wait to return to snowboarding this winter.

Oh wow! The last time I changed the oil for our 2011 Toyota Sienna XLE was almost a year ago. Yesterday, I did it again at 220,000 miles. I bought a Hyper Tough 16-Quart Automotive Drain Pan Container at Walmart for $15. I didn’t spill oil all over the street like last time I did with the aluminum trays. I just took the old oil and recycled it at Advance Auto Parts. The job was about half an hour.

I reviewed The Game’s The Documentary back in 2005. I haven’t followed his rap career in the past 21 years. Since his début, The Game has dropped over 40 albums (studios and mixtapes).

He recently released The Documentary III and his rap hasn’t changed that much. He still name-drops lots of rappers. His flow is a bit more poised, but his delivery remains the same. He is still not a lyricist, but a damn-good storyteller.

On The Documentary III, he enlisted A-list guests including Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West. His collaboration with Ye stands out. Over hypnotic beats for “40 Nights,” The Game raps:

But I’ma tell you what the truth is ’cause I’m ruthless
Fuck these labels, they don’t let you recoup shit
You gotta sell a hundred million records like Snoop did
And even after that, they only give you some Ruth Chris
We gotta take what’s ours back, we gotta take the power back
We gotta break the hourglasses, we can’t get an hour back

Ye handles the hook and drops a third verse, in which he ends with, “And your high notes could win a definite Grammy / You got my dick harder than a death in the family.” What the fuck was he on?

The Game is at his best when he raps solo. Over the menace keyboard riff, he raps:

To who it may concern, keep my name out your mouth
And I’ma do my best to keep the gang out your house
’Cause I’m bang the fuck out, stay in your lane, run your route
’Fore I remember who I am and pull them things out the couch

The Game’s storytelling comes through on “Meet the Parents.” Over crisp beats and sharp keys, he reveals:

My little sister ran away when she was twelve
And I should’ve ran with her ’cause our life was livin’ hell
I asked her why, she said, “I’m doin’ what I gots to do”
Sixth grade and turned into a prostitute
That’s why I beg you niggas, “Please don’t push me”
I’m sellin’ crack and my sister sellin’ pussy

The Game gets a bit too dramatic as the track progresses. Even a thug cries. Even though I haven’t listened to his albums for two decades, I find The Documentary III enjoyable.

The Sunday night before school started, I reminded our kids no phone in bed. Two days later, I caught one of them sleeping with a phone next to his face. I was frustrated and disappointed. He not only disobeyed me, but he also lost my trust.

He has become a digital junkie who can’t stop using his phone while eating, taking a shit, and now sleeping. He either ignored my order or was too addicted to his phone to care. It hurts me that I can’t even trust him to be honest with me.

He is old enough now to understand trust. As a Scout, he should already learn about being trustworthy. It’s the first law of Scout. I reminded him the importance of being trusted. Without trust, nothing will last. I spent the last 18 years building and earning his mother’s trust. Without trust, we wouldn’t last to this day.

When he goes out into the real world, he has to be trusted to do his job. The people around have to trust him. I tried to teach him why trust matters, but he didn’t get it.

I am too old to skateboard; therefore, I am just taking it easy. I spent about 30 minutes a day honing my snowboard carving skills. I don’t know if it will help with my snowboarding techniques, but it definitely improves my longboard riding. Here’s a short clip of yours truly carving in the night.

I brought Uncle Nearest: 1856 to share with my colleagues. I wanted to see how it squares up with Uncle Nearest: Single Barrel.

At 100 proof, 1856 is smooth and sweet, but not as strong as the single barrel. Sipping it straight, 1856 comes off with brown sugar sweetness. I needed a bit of ice to make it less sweet and bring out the baking spices. 1856 finishes with a mellow of crème brûlée.

Although I enjoyed 1856, I preferred the single barrel for $30 more.

Shayla Love writes about “The Quest for a Hangover Cure” in the New Yorker:

So what causes a hangover, really? I was surprised to learn that scientists still don’t really know. Alcohol is a diuretic, so dehydration presumably plays a role—but rehydration isn’t enough to cure a hangover, so it can’t be the whole story.

She goes on:

…I wasn’t sure that I wanted my hangover, or my guilt, to magically disappear. I pointed out to Davies that maybe the hangover was my body’s rightful revenge—a sort of checks-and-balances system that moderates our immoderation. Davies observed, however, that most of us aren’t very good at learning our lesson; by the next time your friends invite you for spritzes, the memory of suffering is likely to have faded.

Henry Jeffreys, the author of several books about drinking, including “Empire of Booze,” told me that there was something cosmically wrong about wanting to feel unaffected by a big night out. The drinking was the first act; the hangover the second.

I always felt so damn guilty with a hangover and sworn not to drink again. That lasted a couple of days or a week the most.

In my experience, the only way to get rid of alcohol quickly from my system is to keep moving. I would take a walk and drink plenty of cold water. It helps to sweat it out. If I were to lie down, my head would spin and I would feel the need to vomit.

As the kids head back to school, I want to resume our reading time together with Xuân and Vương. Xuân, in particular, needs to catch up on fifth-grade reading. Unfortunately, he doesn’t like to read, especially books with lots of words. Fortunately, he doesn’t mind reading poetry books because they have fewer words.

When it comes to poetry, we’re both on the same level. Neither of us knows what we’re reading. We just read words and don’t have to worry about the stories. Xuân doesn’t even have a preference for the type of poetry books to read; therefore, I get to choose the books myself. We’re reading Maya C. Popa’s latest collection in If You Love That Lady. Popa holds a PhD in Creative Writing. I also read her poems in the past.

For me, her poems are beautiful even though I don’t understand most of them. I like the way she places and plays with words. Here’s an example:

…Hell isn’t where

we are but where we might have been, if only we hadn’t
clearly seen, though sight always seems to arrive too late.

I love that. Here’s another one:

…I suffered
the fact like one who cannot

make good with life but spins
continually on a top of doubt.

With poetry, you can pick out some great lines even if you read passively. I hope Xuân finds something that he likes. Even if he doesn’t, he still has a chance to practice reading words. Someday he will find joy in reading. Like him, I hated reading when I was a kid. Even in college, I couldn’t understand reading assignments. I only started to read when I wanted to learn design and technology. I only appreciated reading for pleasure when I started blogging around 2003.

The following notes were taken from Noah Rothbaum’s The Whiskey Bible.

Each grain has its own flavor notes and attributes. Here’s a quick breakdown of the four most popular for distilling.

Corn has an inherent sweetness and creaminess. It’s also relatively easy to ferment and distill. It contains lots of starch, which means it produces a lot of alcohol.

Rye is harder to ferment and distill than corn, but it tends to have big spice notes, including cinnamon and black pepper, and a rich mouthfeel.

Barley has a kind of breakfast cereal note (think Grape-Nuts), which is especially present when peated. Most importantly, the grain contains a high level of the enzymes that turn starch into sugar. This is why distillers often add some malted barley to their mash bills-to help with the fermentation process.

Wheat is generally used in conjunction with other grains to make whiskey because it has less flavor (think of wheat bread, which is fairly innocuous). But wheat has the advantage of giving a spirit a silkier mouthfeel.

Peat bogs are a mix of water and decaying organic matter (plants, leaves, bark, and moss). Blocks of the peat are cut from a bog and then left to dry out. The dried blocks are burned like wood logs, with the soaked barley spread out above the fire atop a giant fine screen, allowing the smoke of the peat fire to channel up through the grain. The barley is not only dried by the fire’s heat but now also has a smoky aroma that will come through in the whisky. (I’ve tried some of the barley that the Islay distillery Laphroaig uses and it’s like eating smoked Grape-Nuts-the grain makes a delicious snack!)

Some distillers are now experimenting with smoking their grains over other types of fires. For its Brimstone Whiskey, Texas-based Balcones roasts blue corn over fires of local scrub oak. This process not only gives the whiskey a sense of place but also a unique profile. The smoke flavor absolutely carries through to the finished whiskey.

In the same way that the heat of a hot pepper can be measured in Scoville units, the smokiness of a whiskey (made up of phenol compounds) has its own measure: phenolic parts per million (PPM).

Barrel used to age whiskey naturally greatly affects its flavor. In the United States, bourbon, rye, and Tennessee whiskey producers have to use a new barrel made from oak. They often use American white oak (Quercus alba), which has plenty of sweetness and vanilla notes.

The flames during toasting or charring caramelize some of the sugars in the wood and help break down the barrels different flavor compounds. (To put it in flavor terms, imagine the difference between eating a raw English muffin versus one that has been toasted.) The charring process helps the wood release sweetness as well as the vanilla and baking spice notes found in many whiskies. The layer of charcoal created on the inside of the barrel is also a natural filter that pulls out impurities and mellows the spirit.

Scottish distillers like used American bourbon barrels for another reason that has nothing to do with their cost. Each barrel contains about 5 liters (about 1 gallon) of American whiskey soaked into its staves. The precise amount of whiskey in the wood depends on a few variables, including how expertly the barrel was emptied and the age of the barrel. Over time, the American whiskey trapped in the wood mixes with the Scottish spirit. So, for those folks who think Scotch is somehow superior to American whiskey, I would remind them that in many of their favorite single malts is a bit of good old American bourbon, rye, or Tennessee whiskey.

Sherry barrels had a particularly delicious flavor, with notes of raisins and a pleasant dryness.

Some distillers instead like to use a barrel made from tighter-grained French oak (Quercus robur), which can contribute dark chocolate or rich plum notes. Another popular option are casks that have previously held a different kind of alcoholic beverage, such as wine, port, sherry, or even mezcal, each of which add a significant and noticeable flavor of their own to the whiskey. Occasionally, a brand will put their new spirit in one of these flavorful types of barrels, but more often they’re part of the finishing of a whiskey after it’s already been aged once. Starward in Australia likes to use freshly emptied red wine casks for some of its different whiskies, which give the liquor an elegant mouthfeel and a big note of jammy fruit.

Casks made from Japanese mizunara oak (Quercus mongolica), which imparts a note of sandalwood, are particularly sought-after and hard to come by.

A newer trend is trying to find local varieties of oak for barrels that add a unique flavor to the spirit, giving it a bit of terroir (dirt).

One of the brands trying this is Westland American Single Malt in Seattle, Washington, which has been sourcing Garry oak (Quercus garryana) literally from people’s backyards, since the wood is no longer commercially grown. This is, of course, much harder than simply ordering a standard barrel from a cooper, but it gives the whiskey a very different, unique flavor.

Sour mash just means that the distiller reserves a bit of the liquid distilling leftovers from the still, called backset or stillage, and adds it the next time they cook grains. Sour mash doesn’t add a sour tang to the whiskey.

Sweet mash is started completely from scratch. Despite its name, this process does not actually make a sweeter whiskey. It’s labor intensive, but the proponents of the sweet mash process say that it allows more of the flavor from the grain to come through in the finished whiskey and also creates a softer mouthfeel.

I finally paid the orthopedic doctor yesterday about my left wrist, in which I started to feel the pain in May this year. In my recollection, I was rollerblading down the sidewalk. When I speed picked up, I grabbed on to the steel gate trying to stop myself, which was a huge mistake. Even though I had my wrist guard, I banged my wrist against the squared steel post. It was painful, but it went away.

I didn’t think much of it or tried to protect it. I played volleyball. Every time, I returned a shot with both of my hands, my wrist was in pain. I knew I needed to stop and let it heal. It had been almost four months and I still hadn’t recovered. When my kids pulled my left hand, it hurt. When I pulled the weeds, it hurt. It was just annoying.

I went to OrthoVirginia and took an x-ray. Thanks goodness, nothing was fractured or broken. I had de Quervain’s tenosynovitis. I had no idea what that was. I had to ask the doctor to give me some info:

De Quervain’s tenosynovitis usually occurs from overusing your thumb or wrist, especially in activities that move your thumb directly away from your wrist such as skiing or hammering.

Could it be skiing? I doubt it. The treatment was to inject cortisone or take physical therapy. I immediately rejected the injection. I don’t know about physical therapy either. I’ll just wait it out.