This morning, I was scheduled to participate in a professional group photoshoot to celebrate my 10 years of service at George Mason University, but I couldn’t make it because I was exposed to Covid over the weekend. When our third son didn’t want to get out of bed, he complained that he felt tired. We decided to give him a home test and the result showed up positive immediately. We tested everyone, including myself, and our results were negative.

Nevertheless, we notified our sons’ school. Our third son who tested positive needed to stay home to quarantine. He slept in the same bed with me last night, which meant I would be affected as well even though I hadn’t shown any symptoms. Covid had finally caught up to me after it killed my mother. Before I succumbed to Covid, I went to the skatepark to just ride it out. The park was completely empty during school hours. I hopped onto the highest pipe and looked up at the sky. I talked to my mother and asked her to protect me and my family. I knew she had been looking out for us since she had gone to heaven. We had dodged Covid up to this point because she had kept us safe, and this unfortunately exposure was no exception. I have faith in her.

After I picked up my first son from school, we went to CVS to pick up more Covid test kits. We went home and tested our first son. His result was negative. I took the test again and I was still negative. Our third son who tested positive in the morning asked us if he could take it again. We hesitated, but then why not? This time his result came back negative. We used a different kit to test him again and the result was still negative. Either these home tests were unreliable or my mother had done her miracle. I believe the latter.

Tomorrow I will take our third son to CVS to get tested again. Let’s find out if indeed my mother had made another miracle to keep us Covid-free.

In his latest video, Type Designer Stephen Nixon spent 40 minutes sharing his approach for designing Vietnamese diacritics—something I had always wanted to see since I started to do research for my thesis. Even though I don’t know anything about Glyphs and RoboFont, the process looks intriguing. The best part of the video is when Stephen walks through a book called Vietnamese Typography by yours truly. Of course, I am biased.

As Stephen pointed out, designing Vietnamese diacritics seems to be intimidating at first, but with my website as a reference and some practice, you will do just fine. I am always available to review if you need feedback on your Vietnamese diacritical marks. If you’re designing a Latin typeface, you should have no excuse not supporting Vietnamese diacritics. You have all the resources you need at your fingertips; therefore, you should plan to incorporate Vietnamese diacritics early in your process.

Watch Stephen’s video for technical details. Reach out to him if you have any technical questions. Get in touch with me if you need help with your diacritical design. I charge a small fee, but we can also negotiate if your budget is tight.

Nguyễn Du’s Truyện Kiều (The Tale of Kiều) is recognized as the masterpiece of national literature. Structured in lục-bát (six-eight) couplets, Truyện Kiều, which consists of 3,254 lines, is not only a literary bible but also a national epic that has inspired political debate, social critique, and revolutionary spirit.

Last Friday, I typeset Truyện Kiều in Portada to showcase Vietnamese Typography. With Portada, ​​Veronika Burian and José Scaglione set out to create a serif family that’s as clear and readable as a sans family in digital environments. Portada is designed specifically for user interfaces as well as long reading online. Portada has extended its support for Vietnamese. In working with Vik and José on Vietnamese diacritics for Portada, I caught a glimpse of how the two talented designers collaborated. They lived up to their foundry’s name: TypeTogether. For the title, I chose Water Brush, designed by Robert Leuschke, which has a hand-drawing vibe, to give the cover a paper quality.

When I published and launched the online version of Vietnamese Typography, I created a few samples just to give type designers how Vietnamese diacritics were being applied to different applications and publications. The samples, however, have turned into small design projects for me to experiment with Vietnamese typography. In addition, they have become my collection of Vietnamese art, culture, and literature. I hope you enjoy glancing at them or reading them if you can read Vietnamese. Take a look at Truyện Kiều.

The restructuring is inevitable. I will be taken out of the library and reporting to the Assistant Dean of Strategic Communications and Marketing. I have been part of the library staff for ten years and have always enjoyed working with my colleagues, but it makes more sense that I will be part of the communications and marketing department.

My new supervisor is also new to the school. His position was just created recently and he needed a team to support him. Both myself and my web content specialist will be on his team. He will also be hiring a Director of Communications to work on external communications.

I have been working with him for a few months and he is great as a coworker. I hope he will be an easygoing supervisor as well. I stayed around for a decade because my supervisors were flexible, understanding, and hands-off. I hope those things won’t change. I am looking forward to the new change.

In attempt to upgrade one of my Droplets from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04, I kept run into the usbmuxd errors. I reached out to DigitalOcean and they suggested migrating to a fresh Ubuntu 22.04 server rather than upgrading in-place (sudo do-release-upgrade). The process seemed quite time-consuming. As a result, I tried a different method.

To begin, I updated to the latest versions of all packages for the current release of my Droplet:

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

sudo apt dist-upgrade

In DigitalOcean’s web interface, I powered off my current Droplet, took a snapshot, then created a new Droplet from the snapshot. Once the new Droplet was created, I ran sudo do-release-upgrade. To my relief, the upgrade succeeded without any error.

I have a handful of sites on this Droplet, but they all PHP files and no database. To check and see if my websites worked, I edited the Hosts file in Terminal:

sudo vi /private/etc/hosts

11.111.111.111 donnytruong.com

To edit the Hosts file, type i for insert, then :wq to write and quit. After using sFTP to make sure that the sites were indeed working correctly, I went into Cloudflare’s DNS interface to update my A records to point to the new Droplet.

I am pretty darn proud of myself for figuring this one out.

From compelling writing to gripping story lines, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot keeps you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. It’s a masterpiece of fiction. I don’t want to give the plot away; therefore, just read it for yourself if you’re into novels.

Với sự thành công huy Hoàng, Thùy Link tiếp tục tiến tới thế giới âm nhạc dân gian hiện đại—fusion giữa truyền thống và hại điện. Với con beat tưng bừng và lời nhạc thu hút, “Bo xì bo” tiếp nối formula “Để mị nói cho mà nghe”. Bảo đảm nghe chừng 100 lần già trẻ, bé lớn gì cũng sẽ nhúng nhảy và hát theo, “Vậy thì thôi, bữa tối nay em khao mời / Rồi ngày mai em buông lơi, cho anh bơi luôn / Vậy thôi, bo xì bo, bo xì bo thôi / Nghỉ chơi, bo xì luôn, nghỉ chơi”.

Tiếng mõ trâu được sử dụng thành nhạc cụ trong “Trưởng nữ chạy trốn” hypnotic as fuck và Hoàng Thùy Linh chứng minh cô đã bắc được con flow trong những bar rap: “Tình yêu không cần flashy nhưng đừng flash sale / Có thể xanh đỏ tím hồng nhưng vẫn phải là hồng pastel / Từ trên trời rơi xuống, thường không phải Dior Chanel / Còn anh thì rơi xuống, em Hermes ôi chả buồn theo”. Nghe mà tôi cũng bị influence bởi cách dùng từ ngữ Việt mixed Anh.

Với “Đánh đố”, Hoàng Thùy Linh dám feature Thanh Lam và Tùng Dương. Chẳng những thế, cô còn hát backup cho hai giọng ca gạo cội này. Tuy giọng Hoàng Thùy Linh yếu hơn nhưng cô rap điêu luyện. Với giọng Bắc dễ thương, cô switches up the flow trong phần rap của mình. Qua “Hạ phỏm”, cô luyến láy cách vừa hát vừa đọc, “Em vẫn tiếp anh vì em thì không ngại / Nhưng em biết việc này rất là có hại.” Cô drops chữ “tiếp” và “biết” hơi bị cute đấy.

Tuy cô vẫn theo hướng fusion giữa traditional và contemporary nhưng Link hơi deviates một chút. “Không một bài hát nào có thể diễn tả cảm xúc của em lúc này” đổi qua pop ballad với sự cộng tác của Thanh Bùi. Ngoài tựa đề dài đằng đẵng, nhịp điệu lẫn giai điệu không standout lắm và Mr. Thanh Bùi hát tiếng Anh điệu quá. “See tình” chuyển sang phong cách groovy-ass disco funk. Điểm yếu của “Gieo quẻ” là phần feature của Đen vì cách rap của Đen luôn là monotonous. Tuy Link không được một concept thống nhứt để experience từ đầu đến đuôi nhưng rất enjoyable.

I was up late last night upgrading Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04. I have two Droplets in DigitalOcean. One just for this WordPress blog and one for my other sites. The Droplet for my blog upgraded smoothly. Unfortunately the other one didn’t upgrade successfully. I restored and tried three times. I even tried to diagnose the issue, but I couldn’t get through usbmuxd. Here’s the error:

Errors were encountered while processing:
 usbmuxd
Exception during pm.DoInstall():  E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

*** Send problem report to the developers?

After the problem report has been sent, please fill out the form in the automatically opened web browser.

What would you like to do? Your options are:
  S: Send report (434.0 KB)
  V: View report
  K: Keep report file for sending later or copying to somewhere else
  I: Cancel and ignore future crashes of this program version
  C: Cancel
Please choose (S/V/K/I/C): c

Could not install the upgrades

The upgrade has aborted. Your system could be in an unusable state. A recovery will run now (dpkg --configure -a).

Setting up usbmuxd (1.1.1-2build2) ...
usbmuxd.service is a disabled or a static unit, not starting it.

Upgrade complete

The upgrade has completed but there were errors during the upgrade process. 

Even though the upgraded seemed to fail, my sites loaded fine and everything seemed to work, but I revert back to Ubuntu 20.04 just to be safe. If anyone has any experience with this sort of thing, please help.

Gần đây, và nhất là tuần vừa qua đi nghỉ mát, tôi thường nghe đi nghe lại bảy ca khúc trong Tháng bảy chưa mưa của Tuấn Ngọc. Tuy album gồm mười bài nhưng tôi skip ba bài không phải giọng hát của nam ca sĩ. Đáng lý ra ba giọng nữ (Quỳnh Giao, Thái Hiền, và Lệ Thu) đem thêm sắc màu cho album nhưng ngược lại những bài ấy làm gián đoạn sự trải nghiệm trọn vẹn của nam ca sĩ chính cùng lối hoà âm bán cổ điển tuyệt diệu của nhạc sĩ Duy Cường.

Tháng bảy chưa mưa phát hành vào năm 2003, lúc giọng hát Tuấn Ngọc trên đỉnh cao nên các ca khúc anh thu âm trong album này điều xuất sắc từ kỹ thuật đến cảm xúc. Bài chủ đề “Tháng bảy chưa mưa”, thơ của Y Dịch và nhạc Phạm Anh Dũng, đưa người nghe vào một không gian nhẹ nhàng với giọng hát lãng mạn: “Vòng tay tạ từ lên buồn tha thiết / Chiếc hôn cuối cùng còn ấm trên môi”.

Ca khúc “Kỷ niệm” của nhạc sĩ Phạm Duy đã có rất nhiều ca sĩ covered nhưng vẫn chưa ai qua khỏi được thầy ca sĩ Tuấn Ngọc với giấc mơ cao cả: “ Tôi mơ thành triệu phú cứu vớt gái bơ vơ / Tôi mơ thành thi sĩ đem thơ dệt mộng hờ”. Với “Điệu buồn” của nhạc sĩ Đào Duy, Tuấn Ngọc nhả chữ một cách tái tê: “Tàn một cơn mê, ái ân chỉ còn… là tê tái / Nước mắt thôi rơi, tình đã xa xôi, sầu kín khung trời”.

“Gửi người em gái” của Đoàn Chuẩn và Từ Linh cũng là một tác phẩm khó có thể vượt qua giọng Tuấn Ngọc: “Cành hoa tim tím bé xinh xinh báo xuân nồng / Đượm đà phong kín cánh mong manh tấm hoa lòng”. Chỉ cách anh nhấn mạnh chữ “bé” trong câu đầu là đáng kính nể rồi.

Với ca khúc “Hững hờ” của nhạc sĩ Nguyễn Vũ (không biết có chính xác không vì bìa sau của album không có tên của tác giả), phần điệp khúc là “Biết thế biết thế nhưng tôi vẫn yêu người / Biết thế biết thế nhưng tôi vẫn thương người” nhưng Tuấn Ngọc không lập lại hai lần mà anh hát chỉ một lần, “Biết thế nhưng tôi vẫn yêu người / Biết thế nhưng tôi vẫn thương người”. Sự chậm lại khiến cho câu hát thấm thía và có hiệu quả hơn.

Với “Người như cố quên” giọng hát Tuấn Ngọc bay bổng trên lời nhạc của nhạc sĩ Hoàng Trọng Thụy, “Làn tóc rối cuốn chân người / Tìm đến cánh sao rơi / Vội quên đi, hay cố quên đi / Giấc mơ cuối”. Và album được kết thúc với ca khúc “Mộng du” của nhạc sĩ Phạm Duy qua nhịp điệu Latin lã lướt, “Ta về lòng người bỡ ngỡ / Khóc cười như bé bơ vơ”.

Tôi đã review Tháng bảy chưa mưa bằng tiếng Anh vào năm 2004. Mười tám năm sau, tôi vẫn mê album này nên nổi hứng viết bằng tiếng Việt.

You and I have now entered a new phase. I thank you for continuing our life-long journey together. The road isn’t rougher. I just created more obstacles. I apologize that I had made you upset. Anything I say would only add fuel to the fire. We’re at the point where deep conversations only hurt each other. I appreciate your honesty. Even if we’re no longer meant to be, we still have to fulfill our responsibility.

I wish I could erase all of my mistakes. I wish we could go back to the beginning. I wish I hadn’t ruined so many relationships. While it is too late to turn things around, we can move forward. I no longer deserve you. I have come to accept your coldness. I realize your emotion is no longer present. You do things because you have to, not because you want to. You’re still there for me even though your heart is no longer feeling for me.

Take all the time and space you need to heal. Even if it takes years, I am still here until you no longer want me around. When you asked why I am still here, the reason is obvious. Because I still love you. I understand love no longer has any meaning to you, but I wouldn’t be here if I were no longer in love with you. I love our kids and they will always be part of my life no matter what happens. Nothing can change that, not even you. I would never leave them because neither they nor I have that choice. I will always be their father and they will always be my children. I am still here with you because I chose to. I made my choice based on my love for you, but my choice isn’t within my control.

I used to think that we did it for the kids. Staying in a relationship because of our children is no longer an excuse. We have to make things work for them no matter what. It would probably be more challenging if we were apart, but they will be fine. Our kids are resilient and they will adapt to any environment. My decision is no longer because of the kids. I am still here because of you.