When I received this book for Christmas, I was not sure if I would read it. I didn’t know much about Elton John and his music. I knew he is a world-famous, gay pop artist. I only knew one song of his, “Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word,” because Vietnamese singers had covered it to death. As I started to read, however, I could not put the book down. From being abused as a child to drug abuse as an adult to sex encounters to friendships with other celebrities, John holds nothing back. His music career is fascinating. With the help of the British music critic Alexis Petridis, John has written an engaging, honest, emotional, and incredibly funny memoir. Thanks to my brother-in-law for this wonderful gift. I enjoyed it.

Friday night, I sneaked out to Shopper to buy some Gatorade while the kids had their Scout meeting. After picking up what I needed, I went over to the beer and wine section. As I was browsing, a young man came up to me and politely asked, “May I ask you something?” I didn’t even get a chance to reply, he went on, “It might be a challenge. If today is your last day and Jesus is…” I interrupted him, “That’s why I am here right now to get as much liquor as I can so I can get wasted before the day is over.” I smiled and went on, “I know where you are going with this, but thanks. No thanks.” I walked away.

If this is the tactic they use to recruit new members, it is not working. He might have had the good intention, but he freaked me out more than convinced me. I was also glad that he didn’t offer to pray for me. Whenever people offered to keep me in their prayers, I would make a counteroffer, “Lay all your sins on me.”

I have had many conversations with people who believed in God. Last year, I spoke at length with one of my wife’s cousins at the family reunion. I had lots of Patrón in me and he didn’t have a drop; therefore; I had to give him tons of props for answering my questions. I appreciated his honesty. I understood his perspective and I respected his faith. I was still not convinced. His argument was that I had nothing to lose if I believed in God. If I were to become his follower, I have to follow his rules. As a result, I would lose the freedom to make my own decisions on topics such as abortion and gay marriage. My decisions are based on knowledge, discovery, and science instead of the Bible. That’s just me.

Our third born turns four today, and yet in my mind he is much older. Xuân started talking the earliest out of our four boys. By two or two and a half, he already spoke in full sentences. Having two older brothers made him catch up fast. He can argue with them and make them go berserk.

Xuân is expressive and talkative. He communicates clearly and eloquently. For example, instead of telling me, “Daddy, I can’t finish my food,” he would say, “Daddy, it is impossible for me to finish my food.” When talking to him, I often threw in as many big words as I could. For instance, instead of asking him to “show daddy your lion dance moves,” I would ask him to “demonstrate your lion dance moves to daddy.” To my surprise, he picked up the words quickly. He also has good ears for sound and tone. He can sing along Vietnamese pop songs or rap along JAY-Z effortlessly. I loved getting into verbal arguments with him. When he could not reach for the words he wanted to say, he would use his favorite word: stupid.

Xuân is passionate about lion dance. For his fourth birthday, I bought him a paper lion head and a small drum. When I was a kid, my mom bought me a small drum and I learned to play by ear. I still can play today thanks to that little drum. I am trying to teach Xuân what I know so he can play as well.

As far as his behavior, Xuân has his ups and downs. At daycare, he gets along with his teachers and friends. At times, he likes to play with his friends. At other times, he just wanted to be alone to play by himself. I am glad that he is comfortable to be alone. He also whines quite a bit. I am still waiting for him to get past his terrible-three stage.

Now that he is four, I want to teach him to read. I should be wrapping up reading time with Đán soon. I hope that he will pick up reading as fast as Đạo. We’ll find out.

Xuân is a wonderful kid. He is kind and loving, especially toward his baby brother. It is a joy seeing grow each day. We love him so much.

Visualgui is my personal blog started in 2003. It is a space for me not only to practice my writing but also to hone my web design skills. In addition to blogging vigorously almost everyday, I redesign it several times a year. The process is more iterative than comprehensive. The most drastic changes would be the typography. Whenever I discovered a new text face, I would love to set it here first. I focus mainly on readability.

This blog has been powered by WordPress from the get-go. The theme I had custom remained the same with just three files: index.php, style.css, and screenshot.png. That’s all. Even though WordPress has grown into a powerful content management system, I still use it as a blog system and nothing more. Keeping the theme simple allows me to quickly change the design with CSS. Most of the time, I can visualize the design in my head. I know what typefaces I want to use and how to set them on the page. I also can see how I layout my content. When I begin coding, I just modify my CSS file. The process is inspired by JAY-Z. He never wrote down his lyrics. He just went into the booth and recorded.

Because I make changes all the time, I have wanted to put together a page to showcase all the designs I have done over the years. Here are the screenshots dating back from 2004 for posterity.

I don’t listen to Taylor Swift’s music. I don’t know too much about her except when Kanye West interrupted her acceptance speech. Miss Americana is a compelling documentary of her life as songwriter and cross-over singer. She is young, talented, and beautiful. She speaks out about sexual assault as well as her political stand. I enjoyed the film more than I thought.

Out of my four kids, Đán becomes more and more like me. My wife noticed the similarities years ago, but I am just starting to see them. We love seafood, particularly lobster. We love sashimi and raw sushi. He started eating spicy food because I love spicy food.

Like me, he has a short temper and can’t control his emotions. He is sweet and kind when he wants to. When he is hooked on something, like playing on the iPad, he goes all in. I have a hard time controlling my temptations such as coffee, food, and liquor. Luckily, I never smoked or did drugs. I hope he won’t either.

He might have Von Willebrand disease like me. He has nosebleed once in a while, but I have it all my life. His skin is forming a few raised scars. He might have keloid as well. I hope that will not be the case. My bad genes have already showing up on him.

He enjoys spending time with me. We went ice skating together for hours. He tried to keep up with me even though he just started. He fell and got right back up. After many hours of working out on the ice, we kicked back in the car blasting hip-hop. When we listened to JAY-Z’s “99 Problems,” he commented, “It is impossible for someone to have that many problems.” I laughed my ass off.

At dinnertime, he would open a bottle of beer for me and he would pour himself a cup of juice in a glass wine so we can toast. He said that when he becomes old enough he would drink with me so that I don’t have to drink alone. I am fine with having a glass of cocktail or a beer alone. I am not an alcoholic. I might have to just stop drinking around him so that he won’t get the wrong impression.

At night we read together even though he hated reading. He did it to make me happy. As his reading improved, I don’t feel bad taking advantage of him trying to please me. Although I love reading now, I hated it when I was a kid like him. I am hopeful that he will discover the joy of reading sooner than I did.

It is kind of surreal seeing mini me running around and making trouble. I love this kid and I hope he will become a much better version of me in the future.

I checked out this book from the library to read with my seven-year-old son before bedtime. I had no idea what the book is about. As we started to read together, in which he did most of the reading, it became clear on the first page that the subject is heavy. Jette, a ten-year-old girl, talks about her brother’s death. Emil passed away at age six. He had been sick for a while from blood disorder. In a straightforward storytelling, the book shows how parents and sibling deal with loss and grief. Written in German by Jens Raschke, illustrated by Jens Rassmus, and translated by Belinda Cooper, Do Fish Sleep? is approachable for kids to learn about death. I highly recommend reading it with your kids and have an honest conversation about it.

After reading Professional Web Typography, a reader wrote:

Hi,

I contributed to your web book. Thank you for making the web a better place. I have been working on the web (semi-professionally) since around 2004. It’s amazing to me how much things have changed, yet how much they have remained the same. I’m intrigued with webfonts, but am frustrated that professional typefaces are largely cost prohibitive for someone like me that would seek to use them on a small personal website that would generate only dozens of pageviews in a very good month. I would support professional type designers if there were more affordable options.

In any case, thanks again for your web book and for your thoughts on Visualgui.com. I couldn’t stop until I went through all 19 pages in the design category.

Please keep sharing.

Regards,
MF

Here’s my response:

Dear MF,

Thank you for reading my web book. I feel your frustration on the cost for professional typefaces, but I also understand the amount of work goes into creating a professional typeface. For my personal use, I search for typefaces that I can afford.

For example, I am a member of the Font of the Month Club runs by David Jonathan Ross. For $6 a month, I have access to fun, experimental typefaces I can use for my personal projects. I also made a few investments in Future Fonts. I invested early; therefore, the cost was around $15 to $50. As the designers update their fonts, I get the latest releases for free.

If there’s a typeface I wanted but the price is high, I purchase only the fonts I needed. For example, I wanted to use Exchange, by Frere-Jones, for body text; therefore, I only bought two fonts (a regular and an italic) for $75. With just two styles, I know I cannot have bold and bold italic text, but I can turn them off easily with a few lines of CSS—that’s one of the beauties of the web.

If none of those above services work, you can always find a handful of decent typefaces on Google Fonts.

I wish you all the best with your typographic journey.

Thanks once again for contributing to my book.

Regards,

Donny Truong
donnytruong.com

Chiều chủ nhật tôi đi đám tang con của một anh trưởng trong liên đoàn hướng đạo. Cháu qua đời vì cơn nhồi máu cơ tim. Cháu mới 28 tuổi. Tuy quen anh không lâu nhưng tôi ngậm ngùi xót xa cùng anh. Tôi không thể nào chia sẻ nỗi đau đớn của một người cha phải tiễn đưa con mình ra đi vĩnh viễn.

Trong lúc đám tang một anh trưởng khác cho tôi biết bảy năm trước anh cũng làm tang lễ cho con trai lớn của anh. Cháu mất lúc 22 tuổi. Tôi điếng lặng cả người. Tôi nghe và chứng kiến hoàn cảnh của họ mà không thể nào không nghĩ đến chính mình. Làm cha mẹ mà phải chấp nhận và đối diện với nỗi bất hạnh như thế. Tôi không thể nào tưởng tượng nỗi. Tôi cứ nghĩ luật của thiên nhiên là tre già măng mọc. Đâu ngờ rằng lại có nhiều trường hợp không theo luật lệ của thiên nhiên như thế.

Về đến nhà tôi ôm mỗi đứa con vào lòng. Vì không biết tương lai sẽ ra sao nên tôi không thể nào lơ là. Tôi không thể đợi ngày mai. Phải sống cho từng giây phút và “Hãy yêu ngày tới dù quá mệt kiếp người.”

Over the weekend, I decided to put together a print page on my portfolio website. I thought I would never touch print design, but here I am embracing it. Let’s reflect briefly on my journey to graphic design.

When I was a sophomore in college in the early 2000s, I landed an internship at the Trump Marina. The casino is no longer in business. I was supposed to be working and learning from a graphic designer in the marketing department, but he didn’t give me anything to do. I was bored out of my mind and was not learning much. I didn’t understand anything about printing resolutions and image qualities. I was so frustrated that I focused entirely on web and interactive design. For years, I hated print design.

In Vietnamese, there’s a saying, “You will get what you hate.” It came true when I started my career at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School almost ten years ago. In addition to my primary responsibility as a web services developer, I took on a few print design jobs including signages, banners, and covers. Then I applied for the MA program in graphic design at George Mason School of Art. To my surprised, I was accepted even though my portfolio didn’t include any print material.

Through the program, I learned from my graduate classmates on basic printing techniques. I also mastered Adobe Illustrator to complete most of my assignments. I am ashamed to admit that I still don’t know how to use Adobe InDesign. Then again, I don’t design the entire magazine or book; therefore, I can get by with just Illustrator. Now I take on print design at my job or freelance gigs from my kids’ Taekwondo class or Boy Scout.

What I enjoyed the most about graphic design are grid and typography. Those are my two primary tools to create print materials.