I am getting overwhelmed with Đạo and Đán’s schedule of activities these days. Every Wednesday, they have swim practice from 5:15 pm to 6 pm. Every Friday, the have lion dance from 5 pm to 6:30 pm, Boy Scout from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm, and Vietnamese language from 8:30 pm to 9:00 pm. Every Saturday, they have Taekwondo from 3 pm to 5 pm.

I am cool with swimming as a sport, lion dance as a form of art, and Taekwondo as a self-defense. I am also fine with learning Vietnamese. Boy Scout is still new for me. My wife signed them up with the Vietnamese pack. They get to hangout with other Vietnamese-American kids just like them. I also have the opportunity to meet other Vietnamese-American parents who go the extra mile for their kids. They take them to weekly meetings, help them with fundraising, provide food for events, and accommodate them to camping trips.

As parents, we do so much for our kids. In addition to school, we are packing up their days with so many activities, but not giving them time and space to think for themselves. They don’t have their own time to be creative or innovative. We are shaping them up of how we wanted them to be instead of letting them figuring out the rope themselves.

When I was a kid, my mom put no restriction on me. Her only unwritten requirement was that I better get through four years of college. Other than that I was pretty could do anything I wanted. I didn’t make all the right choices, but I made all my own choices. I struggled and survived on my own. I am still not sure how she let me free like that. She did not do anything for me, except for making the best home-cook meals. She never looked at my report cards and she never asked me how I was doing in school. Somehow in the back of my mind, I just knew I could not screwed up. I felt guilty if I watched too much TVs and didn’t do my homework. I felt like I let her down if I failed. She devoted her entire life on me.

Now if I give my kids no restrictions, they will spend every single minute on their iPads. Even though we only allow them to have iPads on the weekend, that’s all they think about on the weekend. We were out having a picnic with the Boy Scouts yesterday and all he wanted to do was to go home and play on his iPad.

On one hand, I don’t want to fill out their time with too many activities. I want them to relax and to be bored so that they are forced to think outside the box. I want them to find their own passion and creativity. On the other hand, I can’t stand back watching them gluing their eyes to the screens.

I am not sure if I have articulated my point. I feel like I am too involved in their lives. I am not trusting them to live on their own and to make their own path in life. I worry that if they make bad decisions they would end up in jail or being a junkie. Just saying.

A year ago today, my life was filled with joy and trauma at once. My baby boy, whose birth sent me to an ER for the first time in my life, turns one today. I simply can’t believe how fast time has flown by. Balancing life and family has been stressful, but Vương has been nothing but a bundle of joy.

His smile melts every heart. His brothers love him even though they treat him like a doll. They rough him up, but he doesn’t seem to mind. I was so afraid that Đán would accidentally drop Vương’s head first to the ground, but I am glad that had not happened yet. I am more nervous for our little son than he is himself. I can now trust Đạo and Đán with Vương.

In addition to his constant smiling, Vương has an ear for music. Every time I turn on Vietnamese dance pop or hip-hop, he would feel the beat and dance to it. He recognizes his favorite songs and shows it through his joyful groove.

He decided to walk just a few weeks shy from his first birthday. He can now walk and jam to the music at the same time. I love watching him walk and dance around the house.

I wish I could slow down time because Vương is our last baby. I am going to miss these precious moments. They grow way too fast. I am still glad that I have been able to see him making his progress through life.

Happy first birthday, son. I love you.

As a voracious reader of physical books, I wanted to turn this blog into a book reading experience. The background color was chosen to mimic the paper. I also limited the color to mute. No more red links. Even the logo is more subtle.

For the typeface, I am setting the main text in Schotis, designed by Juanjo López and inspired by Scotch Romans. López writes, “The Scotch Romans are a strange case in the history of typography. Although they were one of the most used letters during the 19^th and early 20^th century, they don’t have their own place in the main typographical classifications.”

For small text, I turned to Adelle Sans, designed by Veronika Burian and José Scaglione. I like the way Schotis and Adelle Sans complements each other. For code excerpt, I am sticking with Input Mono, by DJR.

After using big text in the previous iteration, which did not even last a month, I kind of like the quietness of this version. Hopefully, it will last until next year before I switch it up again. It always nice to have a personal website to experiment with typography and to hone my development skills.

I wanted to read this book because it ranked number one on The New York Time’s “The Best 50 Memoirs of the Past 50 Years.” It is a well-deserved recognition. In a concise, two-hundred-page memoir, Gornick recounts her fierce, unflinching relationship with her forceful mother: “We are locked into a narrow channel of acquaintance, intense and binding.” In writing about her childhood, Gornick gives readers a sense of what it was like living in the Bronx building where noise, music, food, and sex always occurred. From her expose to and experience with sex to her rocky relationship with her husband to her open affair with a married man after her marriage had ended, Gornick writes with feeling, freedom, and fearlessness. In addition to the emotional, blunt honesty, I love Gornick’s impeccable prose.

Hôm nay coi như đã hoàn tất được một trong những lời hứa đã khiến tôi phải căng thẳng mấy tháng vừa qua. Một mình tôi thì không sao cả. Chỉ sợ liên quan đến vợ và con cái nên nhiều khi cũng khó thực hiện. Trách nhiệm của tôi không chỉ một mình mà còn cả gia đình. Nhưng dù sao thì mọi chuyện cũng suôn sẻ và tốt đẹp. Tôi hy vọng mọi việc rồi cũng như thế.

Trong đời sống tôi luôn đặt nặng tình người và nhất là người trong gia đình. Cho dù không ruột thịt tôi cũng xem như người nhà. Giúp đỡ được gì tôi chẳng những không ngần ngại mà còn sẵn sàng. Tôi không cần họ phải trả ơn gì cả nhưng thật thất vọng khi họ đối xử với tôi như người xa lạ. Thôi cũng không sao cả. Người ta không xem mình như người thân mình vẫn giữ lời hứa và làm trọn vẹn tình nghĩa của mình cho dù phải ngượng nghịu và không thoải mái. Những lúc khó chịu tôi chỉ nhớ đến lời dặn dò của cố nhạc sĩ Trịnh Công Sơn: “Sống trong đời sống cần có một tấm lòng / Để làm gì em biết không? Để gió cuốn đi. Để gió cuốn đi.”

The House. The House is on fire. We don’t need no water. Let’s impeach the muthafacka.

When WordPress’s Twenty Nineteen first released a while back, I created a child theme for Scalia Law School network of websites, but I didn’t get a chance to use it. Last week, I received a brochure about the school in PDF format and I thought it would be a great opportunity to recreate it with the new theme.

This morning, I span up a WordPress site from our Multisite network, switched up the theme, and got to work. Here is the result. With lots of photos and flexibility, the editorial design came together nicely. I kind of like Gutenberg for its ease of use.

Jim DeRogatis began writing about R. Kelly as a music critic until he received an anonymous fax about the Pied Piper of R&B’s predatory behavior. DeRogatis and his partner Abdon Pallasch took on the role of investigative reporters to unveil the open secret of R. Kelly’s “sex cult” with young girls. Using his voice, sex appeal, and music talent, Kelly manipulated, abused, controlled, and even urinated on them. In his latest book, DeRogatis builds the case against R. Kelly that he has worked on for almost two decades. Before reading this book, I was on the camp of separating the art from the artist. After finishing it, however, I am done with this teenage-fucker. It is an eye-opening, heart-breaking, and soul-crushing read.

Với niềm đam mê nghe nhạc jazz, tôi quý trọng tiếng kèn saxophone, nhất là chất đẹp dịu dàng của cây alto. Tôi đã từng bị lôi cuốn bởi âm thanh của Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley, Ornette Coleman, rồi đến Eric Dolphy. Dĩ nhiên tôi không so sánh Thanh Lâm với những tay jazz legends đó nhưng tôi hơi đáng tiếc là anh không phát triển được sự quyến rũ của cây alto qua album mới nhất của anh với tựa đề Nghĩa mẹ tình cha bao la biển trời. Từ bài mở đầu “Lòng mẹ” của nhạc sĩ Y Vân cho đến bài nhạc ngoại quốc cuối cùng “Papa”, anh rất chung thủy với lời nhạc của tác giả và không cho mình cơ hội để ứng tấu (improvise). Không một đứa con Việt Nam nào mà không nằm lòng giai điệu của “Lòng mẹ” nên anh không cần phải chơi đúng theo khuôn khổ của nó. Đáng tiếc hơn là anh dùng bài hoà âm pop ballad quá bình thường để thổi tiếng kèn của mình thay vì chơi với một bang nhạc sống nhóm bốn (quartet) hoặc với một dàn nhạc giao hưởng (orchestra). Có lẽ đó là sự đầu tư tốn kém lớn lao cho nghệ thuật nên anh chỉ dừng lại ở một album không lời dành cho các nhà hàng Việt phục vụ khách nước ngoài.

I have been blogging for 16 year and still loving it. I put too much time and effort into it, but I have not been able to monetize it. I thought of serving ads, but I hate ads. I am sure my readers do as well. I have a reader-support section at the bottom of this blog, but it has not been too successful.

I am now trying Coil after seeing some bloggers using it and tweeting about it. Coil seems like a promising way to get paid for what I post online. I also added Coil to Vietnamese Typography and Professional Web Typography. Will see how it goes.