Designing for the dark mode had been an afterthought for me. I simply changed the text and background colors and leave everything else intact—even typography. Because I still preferred reading dark text on light background over light text on dark background, I spent most of my time designing for light mode and I had always loved serif text faces. If I have to read text on dark background, however, I prefer sans serif over serif. As a result, I thought why not changing up the typography as well for dark mode.

If you are reading this site with dark mode, the main text is set in Amica Pro, by Dave Rowland. Last year, I had the opportunity to advise Dave on Vietnamese for Amica Pro. I am not sure if he had a chance to implement my recommendations. The version I am using has not been updated. Although some minor tweaks would be better, but the diacritic design over all is pretty solid. For display text, I am using David Jonathan Ross’s Dattilo DJR Banner, which has a variable font.

If you read this site on dark mode, please let me know your feedback.

Stacey Abrams has not even been picked for the VP spot yet and the right pundits already started swinging at her. They called her names, tried to discredit her accomplishments, and even compared her to their own Sarah Palin.

Their arguments are laughable given who they had voted to run our country. When they put a moron in the White House, they have no credibility to criticize others. They should just shut the fuck up, but they can’t. They are racist and don’t even bother trying to hide it in public anymore.

Although I still hope that Biden will pick Elizabeth Warren as his running mate, I hope that he and his campaign don’t rule out Abrams because of the stupid, racist, right-wing pundits.

With the help of my two older sons and their cousin, we pulled out all the deck boards and railings over the weekend. On Monday, I woke up at seven in the morning and went to Lowe’s to pick up 4×4 pressure-treated timbers and other materials to continue the project. I didn’t get to work on the deck because I had to switch to my full-time job at 9:30 am.

I was going to jump back to the deck project after work, but my wife insisted that I needed to get the permit from the county. Instead of doing physical labor, I called the county and emailed about the process. I spent time reading and gathering information. I went ahead and submitted my application and paid the fee. I also submitted the paperworks I think they needed. I hope the process will work out smoothly. I am not doing anything much really. I am just replacing the woods.

This morning at 7 am I went to Lowe’s and Home Depot to pick out more materials. I didn’t get to work on the deck as I had planned in the morning so I did some after work hours. I cut up 4×4 timbers. I am hoping to install the posts tomorrow morning. The project is so far so good. I am not in a rush, but I wanted to keep the project moving.

I debated whether I should go with wood or composite. I kept switching back and forth trying to figure out which method is simpler. Right now I am leaning toward composite. I really don’t like the idea of maintaining the wood every summer. We’ll see!

Tuần rồi tôi có đăng lên vài tấm hình mấy đứa con lên blog. Có một đọc giả gửi thư nhắc nhở rằng tôi là một người chồng và một người cha may mắn. Đúng thế, tôi là người đàn ông rất may mắn mặc dù vợ tôi không được hiền và con tôi không được ngoan.

Đừng hiểu lầm nhé. Tôi không phải nói vợ tôi là bà chằn và đám con tôi là lũ quỷ. Tuy nhiên “vợ hiền con ngoan” thì không thực tế cho lắm. Vợ chồng sống chung mười hai năm, không thù ghét nhau là may mắn rồi. Những lời lẽ nhỏ nhẹ và ngọt ngào của thuở ban đầu giờ đã thay thế bằng những lời cộc lốc và chua chát. Những câu nói đùa giỡn của ngày nào giờ chỉ khiến đối phương giận. Tôi thấy được sự hao mòn trong đôi mắt em.

Hai tháng nay sống quây quần trong nhà với vợ con đã trở thành thói quen. May mắn được vợ luôn lo lắng cho những món ăn thường ngày và lâu lâu những món ăn tinh thần. Còn đám nhỏ thì không lúc nào không khiến tôi mệt mỏi. Có con cái mới biết quý trọng những phút giây yên tĩnh. May mắn là bọn chúng khỏe mạnh và phát triển tốt. Mỗi ngày được chứng kiến sự thay đổi của thằng Vương là một niềm vui và hạnh phúc lớn. Những lời nói những cử chỉ của nó thật đáng yêu. Thấy nó được mấy thằng anh lớn thương yêu bảo bọc tôi cũng yên tâm.

Dĩ nhiên tôi không phải người chồng lý tưởng cũng không phải người cha hoàn hảo. Tôi có những khuyết điểm của mình và cố gắng vượt qua. Dù sao đi nữa thì tôi vẫn là người rất may mắn.

This week, I am featuring paintings by my friend Molly Brauer. Molly was my boss at George Washington University School of Business. She got out of communications and picked up painting.

If you visit this site on a large screen instead of a mobile device, you can see some of her beautiful paintings. What I like about her work is that each painting has a wonderful story behind it.

If you are interested in purchasing her artwork, you can connect with her on LinkedIn. She also posts her artworks on Facebook, but I am temporarily deactivating my account. I don’t find the use for it anymore.

Our deck has been neglected. In the past 12 years since we moved in, I stained it once. Needless to say, the woods have been badly deteriorated. I have been wanting to redo it every summer, but I rather spend time with the kids and go on vacation.

Now that the kids stay home and spend more time on the deck, I don’t want them to get splinters. It has come to the point where I have to do something about it. In the past couple of days, my wife and I had been discussing this project. We went from repainting to replacing, from woods to composites, and doing ourselves to hiring professionals. We looked up YouTube videos and did some research.

I wanted to get a few estimates and one of our neighbors had just completed his deck. He hired a professional company for $20,000. He informed me that the starting price is $15,000. I thanked him for sharing the information. Dropping fifteen to twenty grants for a deck is just too much for me. I don’t see it as a necessary spending, especially at the time when people struggle to pay their bills. If I could have it my way, I would rather do away with the damn deck.

After examining the structure of our deck carefully, the frame is still in good shape. I just need to replace all the boards and the railings. Although I am not a handyman and I have low confidence when it comes to home improvement, I think I can pull this off.

I went to my brother-in-law’s house to borrow a few electric saws. Then I went to Home Depot to pick up a Wrecking Claw for $50. This tool made removing boards painless. In half a day, we pulled up half of the decks already. My sons used it to help me pull up the nails. I used the saws to cut off the railings. Tomorrow we will finish up pulling out all the woods.

My calculation for the woods would be about $500. I am sure my work won’t be as nice as the professional, but I can save $14,500. Why do these companies charge so much? With the tools and the materials available from Home Depot and Lowe’s, doing it yourself seems possible if you are willing to do it. Even if I don’t want to do it myself, I have no choice, but to do it myself. I just can’t justify the cost for hiring a professional, especially for something that I don’t think necessary.

What about when people hire me to create a professional website? I don’t charge $15,000 if I could do the job for $5,000. I assume why my freelance is failing. I don’t feel good overcharging my clients. In contrast, companies do not feel bad overcharging me.

A few years ago, my sister-in-law hired a contractor to build a patio. I am not sure how she found him, but she complained that she could not find any information on his work. She advised him that he should have a website showcasing his projects then she recommended me. I came and talked to him about it. I quoted him around $2,000 for a simple website with work samples, testimonials, information about his services and his company, and of course contact information. Unfortunately, he told me he could not afford it. He charged my sister-in-law $40,000 for the job and he could not afford $2,000 for his business website? I don’t get it.

I am not sure where my ranting is heading, I just know that I am suck at doing business. I would love to be able work for myself, but I know I won’t survive. I don’t have the skills of a business-savvy person.

As the U.S. surpasses 86,000 deaths related to COVID-19, the idiot is in deep fear of losing his reelection. In desperation, he takes shots at the real president. He has been all over Barack with the none-sense Obamagate.

As much as Obama doesn’t deserve to get dragged into the mud, I enjoy seeing the idiot getting all work up on the former president. He knows damn well that he will never reach Obama’s level of intelligent, competence, and popularity. If Obama could run a third term, that idiot would never had a chance at the presidency.

Obama understands that the idiot has been obsessed with him since the birther conspiracy. The way Obama addresses his haters reminded me of how JAY-Z handled his haters. They stayed calm, cool, and wise. On “The Takeover,” JAY-Z brilliantly addressed his haters:

Twinkletoes, you’re breakin’ my heart
You can’t fuck with me; go play somewhere, I’m busy
And all you other cats throwin’ shots at Jigga
You only get half a bar—fuck y’all niggas!

While the other cats get half a bar, the whiny little bitch in the White House gets one word. Obama responded, “Vote.”

Questlove’s memoir is a fresh, funny, fulfilling music journey of one of hip-hop’s rare drummers. Questlove grew up in Philly and in a musical family. In addition to playing the drums at a young age, he also collected records. His memoir includes sections where he shared his thoughts and memories of records that inspired him. What I find even more fascinating is that Questlove writes reviews of his own work. He shared:

I was and am so devoted to the review process that I write the reviews for his own records. Almost no one knows this, but when I am making a Roots record, I write the review I think the album will receive and lay out the page just like it’s a Rolling Stone page from when I was ten or eleven. I draw the cover image in miniature and chicken-scratch in a fake byline. It’s the only way I really know how to imagine what I think the record is. And as it turns out, most of the time the record ends up pretty close to what I say it is in the review.

I appreciate the honesty in Questlove’s writing, especially the process in which he and the Roots make album as a whole experience and not just riding off the hits. The Roots has been in the game for so long because they were doing their own things instead getting caught up into the trend. Questlove recognized the failure of The Tipping Point because they tried to pleased Jimmy Iovine. In contrast, Game Theory was a true Roots record because JAY-Z give them the creative freedom to do their things. Reading the story of hip-hop through Questlove and the position of the Roots as an outcast is intriguing and eye-opening. Together with Ben Greenman, The New Yorker editor, Questlove wrote a engaging and enlightening book for music lovers.

If you visit this site on a laptop or desktop, you can see that photography occupies a big space on this blog. I want to turn this image-heave design into a weekly feature. Each week, I will select a few photos that are related and let them load randomly as readers visit the blog. What’s the point? I just wanted to give the blog more visual. Why not on mobile devices? I don’t want to waste reader’s data. This is an enhancement, not a requirement.

For the inaugural week, I would like to share some photos of my kids living their lives in quarantine. We, my wife in particular, wanted our kids to spend more time off the screen; therefore, we tried to let them do a bit of outdoor activities like playing in the sandbox in backyard, watering the plants, or biking around the block. With our jobs, we struggled to keep them busy; therefore, we had loosen up the screen time policy. Unfortunately, they had took our generosity for granted.

In the past few days, our two older sons went berserk when we asked them to do school work or turn off their video games. They also threw a fit when they asked us to play video games and we said no. Now we have to re-enforce the strict policy. Their patience for school work is amount to zero. As a result, their academic is suffering. I am feeling guilty and overwhelming.

The documentary is not based on the book but more of an extension. Although we get to see the beloved former first lady behind the scene on her book tour, the film is not as intimate or as personal as the pages. She’s smart, charming, and inspiring, especially to young women of color. She appears down to earth, but also seems scripted. If you haven’t read the book, do that first before streaming the documentary on Netflix.