My Dear Sons,

I understand you are hating me right now. You think I am ruining your life, but I am trying to prevent you from ruining your life. I can’t sit back and watch you sink deeper and deeper into the digital ocean. Taking away your digital devices is a difficult decision, but I have to make it because I love you.

I understand your frustration right now, but it will be better for you in the long run. I don’t know how long it will take before I let you get back online, but I need you to know your priorities. Playing video games and spending hours on devices aren’t your priorities. I talked to you about priorities and responsibilities over and over again, but nothing sank in. My words don’t mean anything because the digital world has taken over your head.

You don’t want to go anywhere because you want to stay home to spend time on your device. Your mother and I give you so many opportunities we didn’t have when we were kids, but you took them for granted. You gave up ice skating. You gave up ice hockey. You gave up swimming. You gave up rollerblading. You don’t even want skiing or snowboarding anymore.

How many times have I told you that skiing or snowboarding is a privilege not all the kids your age could have. It is not a cheap sport, but we are bootstrapping as much as we can to give you some fun time during the winter. You choose to stay home and spend time online.

You are losing interest in playing piano. You rather spend time playing video games than practicing piano. If you continue down this path, you will struggle with school work as well. You have yet to figure out how to balance your time. In the last several months, I gave you the freedom to take responsibility for your own choices, but you had shown that you were not ready to keep your balance.

We tried to cut down digital time to an hour a day, but that didn’t work either. You could not leave the device when your time was up. We had to repeatedly ask you to log off. My biggest failure as a parent is not being firm enough with you. My words are no longer effective when I am being too soft with you.

I struggle with what I should do. Should I let you do whatever you want and hope for the best? I can’t stop caring, concerning, and worrying about you. It would be much easier for me to let loose, but I just can’t watch you ruin your life. I don’t know how you will turn out in the future. I just hope that I won’t regret anything I could have done for you but I didn’t.

You are right. I am not a good father. Being a parent is way more stressful than I had imagined. I am not concerned about being a failure. I am not concerned about how you will turn out. My concerns are that you will go on and live a good life when I will no longer be around.

Love,
Dad

One’s is to feed. One’s is to cleave.
One’s to be doubled over under greed.
One’s is strife. One’s to be strangled by life.
One’s to be called and to rise.
One’s to stare fire in the eye.
One’s is bondage to pleasure.
One’s to be held captive by power.
One’s to drive a nation to its naked knees
in war. One’s is the rapture of stolen hours.
One’s to be called yet cower.
One’s is to defend the dead.
One’s to suffer until ego is shed.
One’s is to dribble the nectar of evil.
One’s but to roll a stone up a hill.
One’s to crouch low
over damp kindling in deep snow
coaxing the thin plume
of cautious smoke.
One’s is only to shiver.
One’s is only to blow.

Tracy K. Smith

WordPress’s Site Health suggests that I should be using persistent object cache for this blog. Last night I tried to install and secure Redis on Ubuntu 22.04 on my DigitalOcean Droplet, but I couldn’t get Redis to work. I restored my snapshot then tried to install and secure Memcached. That didn’t work either. I restored my snapshot again. I am not sure what I was doing wrong.

Congratulations to Marcin Wichary. His monumental, two-volume, 1,216-page Shift Happens: A book about keyboards is being backed for almost half a million dollars. He has been working on this book for many years; therefore, he definitely deserves it. It will be a great book. If you can afford it, go back it. It’s a bit of a luxury for me. By the way, check out the conversation with Robin Rendle about the book. I have followed Robin’s writing for a while now. It was nice to hear his voice.

Với chất giọng ấm áp và cách trình bày truyền cảm, Minh Đức hát nhẹ nhàng và trung thành với những ca khúc vượt thời gian. Vì phong cách không phá cách cũng không gào thét của anh đã được đóng khuôn nên anh cần một người nhạc sĩ biến đổi phần hoà âm phối khí một chút. Nhạc sĩ Đạo Nguyễn đã thành công với trọng trách đó bằng cách thổi vào những âm hưởng jazz. “Đường chiều” (Hồng Duyệt) mở đầu album với giai điệu blues êm dịu nhưng dễ say. “Giọt lệ cho ngàn sau” (Từ Công Phụng) được dàn dựng dàn dây với ban nhạc jazz thật phê. “Một đời quên lãng” (Ngô Thụy Miên) được hoà âm với giai điệu Latin để hộ tống phần song ca của Minh Đức và Thái Hòa. “Những chiều không có em” (Trường Hải) đầy chất blues buồn. Những ca khúc còn lại được hòa âm theo không gian thính phòng lãng mạn. Đúng nghĩa với đề tài của album, Minh Đức và Đạo Nguyễn Đưa em vào cõi mộng.

Beyond the cities I have seen,
Beyond the wrack and din,
There is a wide and fair demesne
Where I have never been.

Away from desert wastes of greed,
Over the peaks of pride,
Across the seas of mortal need
Its citizens abide.

And through the distance though I see
How stern must be the fare,
My feet are ever fain to be
Upon the journey there.

In that far land the only school
The dwellers all attend
Is built upon the Golden Rule,
And man to man is friend.

No war is there nor war’s distress,
But truth and love increase—
It is a realm of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace.

Leslie Pinckney Hill

My Dear Lil’ Xuânshine,

I can’t believe you turn seven today. My Lil’ Xuânshine is growing fast. You are so athletic at such a young age. If you keep up with the sports you’re interested in, you will live a healthy life. I didn’t see the value in sports when I was younger; therefore, I didn’t take good care of myself. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.

Thank you for accompanying me to the skatepark when your older brothers refused to go with us. I loved spending time skating together, especially during the nights when the lights turned on. I also enjoyed observing you doing your own things on your scooter. You are improving your skills everyday. Please don’t give up.

In addition to scootering, you are also doing great with swimming lessons. You can now swim on your own at the deep end. We don’t force you, but we give you the opportunity. Keep taking as many lessons as you can. Swimming is definitely a good skill to have.

Needless to say, you are an awesome skier. You have the speed and you can ski down double black diamond slopes with ease. I hope you will continue to ski and to learn new skills. Snowboarding requires a bit of patience and you are now too good with skiing, you don’t want to switch. That’s OK. At least you gave it a try. You can always come back to it later on if you want.

Taking piano lessons is no longer your priority or interest, just keep doing it. I hope one day something will spark and you will pick it up again like you did with scootering.

School is even more important than sports. You are a fast learner and you can learn anything when you put your mind to it. You are a good student when you want to. Don’t follow your classmates and get into trouble. I understand peer pressures, but you are a wonderful kid. Everyone loves you, especially in our family.

I am always here for you. You can count on me. I love you with all of my heart. Happy birthday, my Lil’ Xuânshine.

Love,
Dad

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann

As you can see, the Visualgui wordmark gets a bit of an update. If you are reading this post in an RSS reader, make sure you visit my website. I still use David Jonathan Ross’s Megazoid as a starting point, but I modified the letters quite a bit. I was experimenting with connecting two letters together—like ligatures. Because of Megazoid’s geometric shapes, the letters fit together in an interesting way.

What is Visualgui anyway? Almost twenty years ago, I came up with the name because I loved the sound of the word “visual”. I was also starting out with visual design. GUI obviously stands for graphical user interface. It also means “gui” with the short i instead of the long y because I am short gui.

I must confess, I find Visualgui to be silly and sometimes embarrassing even to this day. I have thought of changing it, but it has stuck with me for so long, I might as well embrace it. Ever since I got the name, I struggled with creating my own wordmark. I was never satisfied with what I came up with. The previous version, which was set in Fit, also designed by David Jonathan Ross, was the longest I had used.

After five years, however, I wanted to make a change. The earlier version of the new wordmark was straightforward. The only modification was creating the lower a from the uppercase G. With the revision, I modified every letter.

I am loving the new wordmark. I hope you like it too. If you have any feedback, please drop me an email. I also sincerely hope that David doesn’t mind me modifying his typeface to make a somewhat unique brand for myself.

In Philomath, which means “love of learning,” Walker-Figueroa experiments with the forms of verse. I am still not getting used to the spacings. Am I still supposed to read from left to right and line by line? This collection is way over my head, but I love the typography, which sets in Adobe Jensen, designed by Robert Slimbach.