Dad 101

My views as a dad

The Pyramid of Luxuries

The Bespoke - $1,000 Home Cleaning Shopping Spree

The Ultra High End - $200 Nike.com Shopping Spree

The Superpremium - Seitan Limania

The Premium Core - Werther’s Original Caramel Coffee

The Accessible Core - Dad 101

The Affordable Luxury - Online Dating

The Everyday Luxury - Things You Wanted to Say to Dad

The Bespoke

Click on the banner to enter The Bespoke Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $1,000 Home Cleaning Shopping Spree [ARV $1,000]

• Odds: For every 130 Ducky Tran premium member by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) Shopping Spree

• Contest Period: May 29, 2024 at 10 AM CST to July 2, 2024 at 10 PM CST

The Ultra High End

Previous Contest Winner

The winner of Issue 29 Ultra High End contest is TAM from FRISCO, TEXAS! Here’s her submission for “your favorite piece of clothing”:

Congratulations TAM, if you need caffeine, the Teabloom collection will provide 24 days of it!

Check out the other submissions:

Our favorite piece of clothing is nostalgic to us. It reminds us or provides us the comfort to have good memories. Sometimes, they’re too hard or impossible to replace.

This Week’s Contest

Click on the banner to enter The Ultra High End Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $200 Nike.com Shopping Spree [ARV $200]

• Odds: For every 130 Ducky Tran premium members by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) Shopping Spree

• Contest Period: June 12, 2024 at 10 AM CST to June 18, 2024 at 10 PM CST

This week’s focus is physical wealth. When I was younger, my family didn’t have a lot of money so new shoes weren’t exactly common. I had shoes from thrift stores, garage sales, and hand-me-downs. But, they all got scratched, torn, and destroyed by our overuse and carelessness.

I love that time. Regardless of the quality of our shoes, I stayed active and used them for their intended purpose. Nowadays, I see people get nice sneakers to never wear them or to make sure it never gets dirty.

I don’t have many shoes still, but I am able to afford them new. So what’s holding me back? With my new sneakers, I don’t have any excuses not to use them and stay active. Even if it’s just running around at the park with my kids, walking in the morning with my wife, or taking it for a bike ride. I’m currently treading on Nike’s for the last 4-5 years. So this week, I want to provide you no excuse to not go out there and “Just Do It.” (Stay Active)

Like the other shopping sprees, you’ll be able to choose items up to $200 (before tax) and I will have them sent to you.

The Superpremium

This week’s Superpremium topic is Seitan Limania. This pristine oasis is located on the northern edge of a peninsula off of Crete, Greece near the Chania International Airport. It is what some called “Secret Beach”. This is because how difficult it is to get to, how obscure it is to see from normal elevation, and small yet pristine it is with the lack of crowds to destroy it’s beauty.

This little secret oasis requires you to drive in a windy, sketchy, and slick roads of Crete to a seemingly vertical drop. But if you look down this drop, you realize it’s just a steep, jagged-edge hike down the side of a cliff. After this hike, you’ll be met with some small ledges to jump to in order to get to the bottom of the cliff and find the oasis you were dragged along by your friends.

You did all this to realize that if you had a boat chartered, you can just go around the northern part and park the boat near the mouth of this outlet and enjoy the same waters. Jokes aside, this was one of the most beautiful and exclusive beaches I’ve ever visited. As you can see from the goat in the picture, the steep cliffs of Crete is known for having mountain goats traversing it’s dangerous slopes, and this little goat is no different. Just another mountain goat clueless about why half-naked people jump into the waters when they’re trying to stay on the cliff-side.

If you ever have a chance to go visit the island of Crete, this is definitely a place you have to see. The beauty and seclusion will be refreshing and dazzling. The best thing is, it stays relatively empty and so you’ll feel like it was a private beach made for your party.

The Premium Core

I’m showing my old soul with this one. For a long time, I mean I’m talking about high school age, I love Werther’s Original. The funny thing is I don’t like how caramel sticks to your teeth so I’ve always stayed away from any caramel stuff. But Werther’s Original candy was different story.

I’m pretty sure it was my mom that got my siblings and I some, and from then on I bought them whenever I was at a Walgreens or CVS. I would keep them in my pocket and walk around school handing them out to friends like an old man.

I specifically liked the Caramel Coffee flavor because it was more creamy and felt like it wasn’t as sweet as the original caramel flavor. There was a time I would go through an entire bag in a single day. I’m sure the amount of sugar was like drinking coffee all day long.

I’m sure I have a few fans out there of these sweet treats, so for nostalgia-sake, I’m offering a pretty sweet deal this week!

Deal #1: Send me a email to [email protected] if you would like a free 2.65oz bag of Werther’s Original Caramel Coffee candy sent to you. Make sure to use the email associated with your premium membership and in the body of the email, let me know do you have an old soul and an example of it if so. Everyone can claim one (1) 2.65oz bag.

The Accessible Core

Dad 101

A member asked me to write an article about my perspective as a dad, and it’s no better week than this week as a tribute to the upcoming Father’s Day. This will be my perspective and my values as a dad, thank you for reading.

I come from a large family, 7 other siblings (that’s 10 of us total). Because of this, when I got married to the love of my life, everyone asked how many children we wanted, 5, 8, or 10? I don’t take those questions too personally, because I don’t believe how big your family is when you grow up should dictate your own family size. I’ve always had the belief of choosing fatherhood only if my wife wanted four (4) kids. I know it is specific, but I always told her, it’s either zero (0) or four (4).

Zero kids mean my wife and I could travel the world and live for each other. No one would be between us, no one to hold back the love and gifts I would shower her with her entire life. (I’m a romantic.) I would live for her and she will feel like a princess the rest of her life.

Four kids mean that as parents, I wanted to dedicate my entire life to improve the life of my children. One, two, or three children would still be good, but four kids allowed me to give my children the most advantages, love, family, and life that I can possibly offer. (More on my reasoning for four children another time.) I wanted to dedicate my life as a father so one day my children would want to their husbands to be like me when they get married.

As you already know, my wife chose children and now we have four (4) wonderful princesses: Isabella, Anastasia, Madeleine, and Juliette.

Because of these four loving children, I get the same comments all the time:

1. “4 girls! Must be hard.”

2. “4 girls! It only get’s tougher when they’re teenagers.”

3. “4 girls! You must not get a lot of sleep, it’s okay, you’ll miss it when they get older.”

Not to be rude, but here are my general responses to these comments:

1. “No, my wife is 10x more difficult than taking care of the 4 girls.” Obviously, my wife is amazing but we argue about dumb stuff all the time, and we love each other so much that small things make us upset sometimes. But taking care of my children is not a burden, it is a choice. And I choose to feed them, dress them, bathe them, sing to them, teach them, play with them, and be happy with them. Not a single moment with them feels forced, therefore, it’s not difficult. Plus many times as adults, we hold grudges for no reason other than to be “right”. As for kids, a big hug and a kiss can solve nearly every boo-boo.

2. “No, I don’t believe it’ll get tougher because I know it’s coming. I think it’ll be memorable.” I want to appreciate my children and quirks and realize that I had them too growing up. Not appreciating how your children are progressing through life is ignoring the fact that they are children. They’ll make mistakes, they’ll irritate you, they’ll talk back, and they’ll even lie to you. But it’s not like I was the perfect son. I just have to raise them so regardless what bad behavior they portray in their teenage years, they’ll come and still hug me because I’m their dad.

3. “Actually, I often lose sleep on everything except my children.” Yes, they wake me up now and then, but I choose to love my kids and stay up when they get nightmares or feed them when they’re hungry. I don’t really see it as losing sleep, instead I am spending more time with them when they need me the most. I generally don’t feel that tired from these events because I purposely wake up to soothe or feed them. My body may be fatigued, but my mind is aware of the bond I am nurturing.

Before it gets too long, let me give you somethings I do for my kids and what I hope it will do for them in the future.

1. When all my kids were under 1, I would sing to them to put them to sleep while rocking them in my arms. I want them to hear my voice and feel my caress as soothing sensations, so in the future when I hug them or speak to them, it reminds them of love.

2. I always explain every question they ask, regardless how advance it may be, as logical as I can at a level they can understand. Because I want them to know that they can always come to me no matter how silly, difficult, or advance of problem is to them.

3. I build forts, teach them unique drawing games, do science projects, bake together, and involve them in board games. I want them see all the things they can do to have fun and how the options don’t start or end at television or the phone.

4. I give ice cream/popiscle as a reward on random nights, I don’t want them to believe that rewards come because a specific day exists; rather rewards come because of their own actions. When they feel like they haven’t had ice cream for a while, they’ll clean up the entire house and this shows me it’s working.

5. Like many parents, I’ve given up a lot of opportunities, money, and own career progression to be able to spend as much time with my children as possible. I always say to my friends, I could work hard to make money so I can spend time with my kids, or I take have it easy and spend time with my kids.

Thank you for taking time with me today, and sharing my perspective as a dad. I hope one day I can be as great of a dad to my children as my dad was to me. Let me know what you thought about this content in the comments or via email at [email protected] so I can tailor this section’s content for you.

The Affordable Luxury

Issue 29 Community Poll Results

This last week’s poll results:

1. 90% of the members are between 4’10’’ and 5’6’’ tall. I just top off that range at 5’7’’.

2. 60% voted “selfless” was your favorite trait of your dad, 30% voted “hardworking”, and 10% voted “other”.

3. I’ve compiled the quotes and things you want to say to your dad at the end of this issue.

This Week’s Community Poll

Here are this week’s poll questions:

The Everyday Luxury

(The referral program is only viewable on the email version of the newsletter.)

Here are some things the members of Ducky Tran want to say to their dads as a tribute to all dads out there.

1. “Dad- you are one of the bravest…. fighting for our freedom during the Vietnam war. because of you, we have the opportunity to live in America home of the freedom and the brave. your selfless act makes us respect and admired you even more. Without you, we would be lost and in despair…. for that we love you so much.”

2. “Now that I’m older, I understand why you drink so much… You’re like nước mắm — the key ingredient to everything good in my life. It’s truly amazing how we both know I’m your favourite child and we never have to mention it. Happy Father’s Day to the world’s best dad.”

3. “Being a good dad starts with presence not presents.”

4. “Your intelligence, love, and work-ethic are all shown through your actions. You never needed to prove yourself. Now, I want to do the same for my kids. I’ll let my actions speak.”

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