18,262 days or approximately 438,302.25 hours ago my life began and my favorite pitcher Pittsburgh Pirate John Candelaria also known as “The Candy Man” threw a no hitter at home. This bit of information may be useful if I had any interest in baseball, I could count this as a memorable moment in time. On this day as well the Soviet Union launched the luna 24 robotic lunar probe. Interestingly enough I have developed command centers for teleoperations and at one point I was working on how to create an interface for controlling robots in space. The issue is that there is a significant lag to the moon in the range of 5 seconds. Even within low orbit there is a 20 milisecond delay which creates problems with loss of situational awareness because of the delay. I had also created a semi-automated wheelchair that would go where you want based on eye sight. The intent was to reduce cognitive load on the user and create some stability within the system because you did not need to figure out how to get to the spot you were looking.
We had to miss a friend’s wedding this weekend because it was across the country and we did not know how I would feel after chemo treatment, or how the schedule would fall. Xavier also had a hockey tournament that we just came home from today. I am surprised at how fatiged I am today as I thought that I was taking it easy yesterday with lounging around the hotel for the whole day. Once we got back to the hotel, we did nothing until the evening game and ordered food in. Xavier dislikes going to Western restaurants as he thinks that they are too slow. In Asian restaurants food is prepped at different specialized stations and the food comes out rapid fire as there are no apps or main, it is just when the food is done. For most of the weekend I actually ate fairly well and healthy. I did not have much disruptions with bowel movements which was good. I did a lot of walking up and down and movement throughout the weekend, even though Mel insisted I sit down and rest. She always grabbed my cameras afterwards at each end of the arena. I did not think that I was too tired, but yesterday I started to feel it and today it really hit me. The last couple of trips where I was able to drive most of the way, on the drive home I was too tired to continue and about 45 minutes out of Sudbury we found a small rest area and we switched drivers. I kept on drifting in and out of sleep for the rest of the drive home I was so tired. Once we arrived home I took a 90 minute nap and my legs are jello. They are so sore that I am quite surprised. I had thought that I was managing my energy levels fine, but I think that cumulative fatigue really hit me. I will be going to bed early tonight as well.
I guess I should say how we did in the finals. The game was actually closer than I had thought it would be, as the other team ended up outshooting us. Xavier had to try a bit harder today and he normally rises to the occasion and can make the clutch saves when required. They started off with player introductions through a tunnel, and all of the kids had creative names that they wanted for announcement, and then our son said he did not care and went with Xav. We changed it to his Chinese name and we were thinking of using the english translation, but after we thought it might sound a bit pretentious as it translates to “Eternal Greatness”. This weekend he stopped most of the breakaways that he had on him as that is more fun for him. Our team is known as all offense, all of the time, so defense is an option and not a necessity even though a lot of the kids backchecked a lot. When this group of kids play it is really nice to watch as they all get along and pass to each other and try and set each other up. There is not as much selfish play and they play for fun. This is also the first tournament that Xavier has not won a game MVP. He did not deserve one at all since they could have won without him most of the time. The finals was a bit different and they would have probably won with sheer scoring power, but he played well when he had to and prevented any shifts in momentum. It amuses me when parents come up and tell me that he played well and that he is good and when I watch him and talk to him afterwards he has a different perspective. The executive general manager on our team and director of hockey operations made some comments about saves he had made and his reply was that he was going to miss the net anyway as his pad was outside of the net. Xavier does not pad his stats at all and he always agrees with me when he stops the puck and it is not a save. It is nice to have him around when I am with other parents and they are trying to argue with me to give him credit for a stop that did not matter. Friends of kids on the other team and parents did not believe that Xavier is a houseleague goalie and everyone assumed he was on a higher rep team and there is disbelief when we say he is not.
Mel take a lot of pictures at the tournaments and it is something that I think that the kids will always remember. The summer games where there are no rules and they play for fun. We have a kid on the team that is a defensive defenseman that never tries to score and he managed to score 3 goals this tournament and almost potentially had a hat trick. Two of his goals were on breakaways as we had switched forwards and defenseman to make things more interesting. We do not have a ton of photos growing up, only occasionally here and there. Back in the day with print, you had to know what you were doing and then you had to get the photos developed. It could be far more costly compared to now with digital photos. Mel averages probably 100-200 picture per game. so by the end of the tournament there is quite the collection for the parents. The kids love it as well and with the GoPros mounted behind the nets Xavier will cut goals for the kids so that they can make their own highlight reels. There are times that I wish we had video recordings of when I was younger. I love finding old clips that we have of the kids and when we play them it always brings back memories. I appreciate all of the photos that Mel takes even though she does not like all of the ones that I take to show up on Google Home. I am going to start recording some videos for the kids when I get a chance so that they have more memories of me. I will need to make sure that I do a bunch where I just glare at the camera with stoic face so that they understand that I grew up in the jungle and had to crawl out and swim across oceans to get to where we are today. I will give them stories of my childhood and fond memories for them as a gift for when they are older and they have something to look back on.
Quoc Hao