Met up with MODX’s founder Ryan Thrash and a small crowd at LeapFrog Solutions, which located about five-minute drive to my house, last night. Ryan gave a quick demo of MODX Cloud and it looked impressive. I would love to move Mason Law up there one day. Ryan is a real down-to-earth fellow. I am also glad to have met Lee Brinckley who is a MODX developer at LeapFrog. Thanks Lee for bringing Ryan in town.

Thanks Zeldman for sharing this:

And then, bang. Your kid is laughing ecstatically in a seemingly utopian environment you did not provide for her and you are not part of. The easy adult social interactions that are unfolding belong to your ex’s new life, not yours. You are watching your family move on without you, you are discovering all over again, as if for the first time, that your family has exploded, your wife does not love you, does not need you, the world goes on without you, this is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife.

Type Matters by Jim Williams: A visual intro to typography that takes less to read but more to marvel its gorgeous design. This is a perfect example of a graduate thesis project in graphic design.

Typographic Web Design by Laura Franz: Not too many books devoted to web typography. This one has some useful tips on legibility when choosing types for the web. In-depth HTML & CSS tutorials are helpful for beginner web designers.

Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton: Read the first edition a while back. The second edition is a much needed refresh. Love the type crime examples.

The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst: Rereadinging this book seems to take slower and slower each time just to digest the information.

A friend commented on the redesign: “Your new site looks weird as if it is not designed for desktop.” He’s right. The new site was not designed for desktop or mobile. It was designed for readability. The redesign process focused on how the text is comfortable for reading. The width of the column depends on the text size and its characters. I also played with indents with no spaces between paragraphs for the body text. Microtypography is the main inspiration for the site.

Wow, it’s already been nine years. Here’s the first post I wrote nine years ago. I must admit, I have not been active on the site, but the fans are still around and they are still loving her. I am still maintaing the site and occasional giving it a new design, which I had done not too long ago. Mad props to my partner who is in charge of everything else on the site and he has been with me since the beginning. Without him, I couldn’t do it myself.

As I am doing my work from home, a meat truck pulled up and the doorbell rang. The guy tried to sell me some meat. I told him that, “We are vegetarian and we don’t eat meat.” His replied was, “Do you cheat some time.” I told him, “No way. Thou shalt not cheat.”

The past few weeks had been a hell of a ride. The roller coaster has subsided, but the journey only begins. There’s tremendous hope for the strong body and soul. It’s up to the mind to decide.

I am going through all of George Carlin’s standup specials available on Netflix. Was Carlin really like that in real life or that was just his stage persona? I can’t tell because he sounded so real. His takes on religions, politic and subtle things in mundane life were so damn spot on. I usually can separate the art from from the persona like when listening to hip-hop, but Carlin’s routines are kind of blurry. In any rate, I could careless. Carlin is still one of my favorite comedians of all time.

Can one really get past envy and jealousy? I have try my hardest to not get those two things get to me, but it is so damn hard. It’s probably already in my gene. Sometimes I don’t like somebody simply because I don’t like him. The more I try to like him; the more I dislike him. It’s a horrible trait, but I simply can’t stop. I recognize it, but I can’t control it.

We closed out the deal yesterday at 3% for 15 years on our mortgage. I am now the sole borrower, but the property is under my wife and I. She cajoled me into it. I guess that’s how it is when you married someone who is smarter than you. Then again, she shopped for the loan and was able to get us a good deal. I just had to sign the paperwork and owe a big-ass debt.

After picking Dao up from daycare yesterday, he asked me his usual question, “Daddy, do you have something special for me?” I responded, “Con noi cai gi (What do you say)?” He switched to Vietnamese, “Dao muon keo (Dao wants candy).” I responded back to him “Daddy khong co keo (I don’t have candy).” He went on, “We go to the store and buy candy.” I said, “But I don’t have many money.” He said, “Yes you do have money in your pocket.”

Then I tried to distract him with some music while we were in the car. Nicki Minaj was playing on my iPhone. The beat was pumping so I let him listened. Not for long, I had to turn it off because she started cussing. Then he requested, “Daddy, I want to hear ‘Beez In The Trap.'” I was a bit surprise because that song was not even playing at the time and if I remember correctly, I did let him listen to the album just for a bit about a month or so ago, but somehow he could remember, “Beez In the Trap” is in the same album. So I let him hear it and the songs starts like this, “Bitches ain’t shit and they ain’t say nothing / A hundred motherfuckers can’t tell me nothing / I beez in the trap, bee beez in the trap / I beez in the trap, bee beez in the trap.” He sang along the latter two bars. I wondered if he already picked up the first two bars too, but didn’t understand what the words are. I was cracking up listening to him singing along with Nicki Minaj.

We’re going through a tough time and facing one of the biggest challenges of our lives. We’re not sure what tomorrow will be like, but we’re hoping and praying for the best.