Yesterday I chaperoned my son’s class to Jamestown. As we got on the bus, Đạo sat with his best friend and left me by myself in the row behind them. The ride would be three hours long and I was hoping to catch up with some reading. Then a mother whose son also sat with his friend left her stranded asked if she could sit next to me. Of course she could.

I introduced myself and intended to get back my reading because I did not have my morning coffee and was not in the mood for socializing. I did not ask her what she does or told her what I do, but my eyes lid up when she informed me that she is an ESL teacher at Robinson high school. In a normal circumstance, I would be reserved in our conversation (unless I had a few drinks) when I met someone for the first time, but I did not shy away from telling her my own story.

As an eleven-year-old boy who did not speak a word of English, I was thankful for my ESL teachers (Mrs. Susan Hurlburt and Mrs. Sue Kresge) who taught me more than English. They introduced me to the brand new culture and created a safe space for me. When school cancelled due to inclement weather, they would call me to make sure I did not go to the bus stop to wait in the cold. They drove me and my friends home when we had after school party for the ESL kids. Their opening hearts and welcoming arms will always be remembered.

With the way the current administration is treating immigrants, especially with children, I am more appreciative and supportive of the ESL teachers. They are the ones that truly cared about us. They are our unsung heroes.

I knew little about Fred Rogers and his show for children, yet I was inspired by clips of his video and his messages. He seemed kind and caring. I wanted to learn more about him; therefore, I was eager to read his biography. The information is good, but King’s writing is not as engaging as I would hope for. I was a bit disappointed and struggled to get through 370 pages.

Hai ngày cuối tuần nhanh chóng trôi qua. Chiều chủ nhật mệt rã rời. Không chỉ trông nom bốn thằng con mà còn bốn thằng cháu. Tám thằng ở chung một ngày hai ngày muốn ná thở. Dĩ nhiên là nhà bề bộn lắm. Nhưng chẳng lẽ phải dọn dẹp mãi. Thôi thì ráng lờ đi. Chừng nào rảnh tính sau.

Tôi có một số dự án cá nhân muốn thực hiện nhưng không có thời gian. Giờ phải dành hết thời gian cho con cái. Tụi nó lớn nhanh quá. Nhất là hai thằng lớn. Tôi áy náy lắm khi phải lo cho hai thằng nhóc nhỏ. Ngày mai tôi sẽ đi field trip với thằng Đạo. Thế là hai cha con được dành thời gian riêng cho nhau.

Làm cha mệt từ tinh thần đến thân xác nhưng tôi vẫn không hối hận về việc mình đã tạo ra chúng nó. Thấy tụi nó khỏe mạnh và tiếng bộ là quá đủ rồi.

I know I have said it before, but I am really sick of the political circus both on both Republican and Democrat. Further I am so fed up with that orange fuck. I already decided who I would vote for and that’s it. I am blocking out rest. No reading. No watching. No debating.

Woke up half way and still wondered what the hell they are doing with all these damn Lego pieces.

The weekend is almost over. The house is getting more cluttered. Piles of laundry need to be folded. Toys are everywhere.

I took the kids to a Đán’s friend’s birthday party at the park. The weather was beautiful. Then Đạo and Đán took their Taekwondo test. Đạo received a green belt and Đán received an orange belt.

My brother-in-law family came to visit. We had eight boys in the house. Needless to say, it was chaotic. Some played iPads. Some just watched. Some played together.

I am simply exhausted. I am still trying to just take things easy as we are about to face a new change in our home. Let’s just hope that everything will work out. I am optimistic.

I am taking the iPads away from the boys again. The weather is getting nicer; therefore, I want them to get out of the house and off the screen.

Last several weeks, we let them loose a bit. As a result, Đạo and Đán were out of control. As soon as they woke up they asked for iPads. Before they went to bed, they wanted iPads. Last weekend, their cousin had a birthday party. As soon as all the kids left, they hopped on their iPads for hours. When we came home, they didn’t want to take a bath or brush their teeth. They were drained physically and mentally.

These days, hanging out with their cousins means playing on their iPads. Even a two-year-old can’t eat his meal without YouTube glaring at maximum volume. Adults can’t talk. Older kids get out of their seat to watch instead of concentrate on eating. It’s irritating.

On our next vacation, I want us to be screen-free. It is easier to do when we go alone. It is much harder with extended family members. I tried to bring this up to other adults, but they can’t commit to it. Their kids need to have their screen fix.

Just wanted to jazz up this blog a bit with some small enhancements.

Added a dark mode switcher, which locates at the top right corner of the blog. The simple instruction is taken from Flavio Copes’s “How I added Dark Mode to my website.”

On the desktop layout, I am setting the body text to justify and using hyphens. I decided to give it a shot after reading Richard Rutter’s “All you need to know about hyphenation in CSS.”

I also added a bit of an embellishment to the end of each article after reading Jason Pamental’s “Of marks, ends, and middles: end marks, sections, and dead ends.”

I love these kind of tutorials on the web. They give me a chance to play around with this blog.

When Linh Dương, a graphic design student, asked my permission to use part of Vietnamese Typography for her final project, of course I said yes. She wrote:

I am an admirer of your work “Vietnamese Typography”. It has to be the most extensive, well-written and structured work into the Vietnamese language that I have known.

Hearing this from a Vietnamese designer made my day. I am glad that this book had reached student designers who are interested in Vietnamese typography. The book, which takes advantage of the web as a medium, made this possible.

Yesterday, Linh sent me some screenshots of her final products, which will be displayed at the end-of-the-year exhibition. They look lovely.

Nico Grant writes in Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Adobe has been working full crank to track every interaction a consumer has with a brand: tallying her visits to a brick-and-mortar store and what she buys; using cookies to monitor her web activity and figure out how many devices she has; analyzing her interest in emails about sales or promotions; and incorporating social media monitoring to see what she says about a brand. Adobe can combine all of this with other companies’ data about a person’s income and demographics to try to predict the triggers that would make her buy a new phone or pair of shoes. In essence, Adobe is trying to know a consumer’s decision-making process better than she may know it herself.

Adobe is getting too big; therefore, it needs to grow beyond designers. It’s sad.