Hai tuần trước đi vacation bà xã mua một hộp Café Du Monde và một lon sữa Ông Thọ. (Không nhớ rõ chữ “lon” viết ra sao nên Google thử thì toàn ra “cái lồn.”) Thôi thì đi vacation nên cứ xả láng. Sáng làm một ly nóng trước khi cùng cả nhà ra tắm biển. Trưa làm một ly đá sau khi ăn trưa. Nghỉ ngơi đến ba hoặc bốn giờ khi trời dịu nắng làm thêm một ly nóng trước khi đưa hai thằng lớn ra hồ bơi. Bơi về ăn tối làm thêm một ly đá. Thỉnh thoảng sau khi cả nhà đi ngủ tôi thức xem phim bộ Narcos lại chơi thêm một ly nóng. Có lẻ vì bơi và trông tụi nhỏ nên mệt. Tối ngủ cũng tạm được.

Hết vacation, tôi bỏ cà phê không được. Ỡ chổ làm có cái máy cà phê mới rất ngon nên sáng một ly latte, trưa một ly cappuccino, và trước khi láy xe về làm thêm hai ly latte hoặc cappuccino. Hai tuần nay không ngủ được nên lúc nào cũng bực bội khó chịu. Cuối tuần vừa rồi bỏ không uống nữa nên ngủ lại được. Hôm thứ Hai đi ăn phở gà Thanh Thanh ở Phila. Trước khi láy xe về tôi lại gọi một ly cà phê sữa đá. Cà phê đậm quá nên tối hôm đó cũng không ngũ được.

Hôm qua làm một giấc thật ngon. Nên hôm nay tỉnh táo hơn. Bà xã nói tôi dễ bị nghiện. Cũng may tôi chưa đụng đến thuốc lá và bạch phiến. Rượu thì phải bỏ vì uống vào chân đau chịu không nổi.

My entry for the 10K Apart is now in the gallery. I entered the contest to solve a technical problem for myself rather than to win the contest. After I made my submission and changed my website, I changed my mind. Without a custom for this site, it does not feel inspiring. I wanted to withdraw my entry, but they have already spun up the server for it. According to the rule, I can submit up to three entries; therefore, I am in the process of working on another project that is more inspiring. So stay tuned. I’ll release it in the next couple of days or so.

As a fan of Jay Z, how in the world did I not read this book six years ago when it was published? Part memoir, part lyrical analysis, Decoded is much better than what I had expected. In particular, the way he writes about the art of hip-hop and his appreciation for different kinds music and artists are compelling. I also glad that he doesn’t focus much on the business side. Unlike what I have read from some critics, the book lives up to his high standard. It is not a disappoitment at all. Now I understand why he rapped, “Fuck critics. You can kiss my whole asshole.” I still have mad respect for this guy.

Steve Jobs might not have predicted it, but his power over kids is undeniable. Đán woke up this morning and asked if he is going to school today. When I said yes, he got upset, “I don’t want to go to stupid school.” When I took him into the bathroom, he asked me, “Can I play on your iPhone?” I replied, “If you’re a good boy, I’ll let you play on the way to school.” His face lid up and responded, “Yes daddy, I will do everything you ask me to.”

He brushed his teeth, put on his clothes, kissed his brothers, mother, and grandma goodbye. We went to Dunkin’ Donuts for his favorite bacon, egg, and cheese Wake-Up Wrap. He played on the iPhone while I drive him to school. It was such a painless, pleasant morning. No fighting, no arguing, no dragging, no carrying, no delaying. If this is how he behaves every morning, I am fine with letting playing on the iPhone. If he smartens up and doesn’t throw a tantrum when I asked him to turn it off, I can let him have it.

Yesterday we went to Philly to attend my cousin’s wedding. We had a fantastic time witnessing two people celebrating their life together. Tonight before bedtime, Đạo asked me a few questions about marriage and I found them to be fascinating. Just out of the blue, the conversation started like this:

Đạo: Daddy, can I not get married?
Dad: Of course you can, if you don’t want to. But don’t you want to be like mommy and daddy? We love each other and we have you guys as a family.
Đạo: Does it mean I will be alone if I won’t get married?
Dad: No, not really, but are you comfortable being alone?
Đạo: No… Can a boy married a boy?
Dad: Sure, if they love each other.
Đạo: Oh my…
Dad: Why you say that?
Đạo: That’s just weird.
Dad: Why is that weird?
Đạo: I don’t know… Can a girl married a girl?
Dad: Sure, if they love each other.
Đạo: I didn’t know that.
Dad: Well, now you know.
Đạo: How about dating?
Dad: What about it?
Đạo: I saw on Minecraft that they go on a date. What do you do on a date.
Dad: You can go to a movie and have dinner like mommy and daddy did.
Đạo: How about Paris? Can you go on a date in Paris?
Dad: Of course, that would be so romantic.
Đạo: Does Paris have toys?

Our conversation switched to toys, but I thought some of his questions were intriguing. It makes me realize that my seven-year-old son is ready to have some real conversations.

I haven’t written much about the boys lately. They are stressing the life out of me. When we were on vacation last week, I spent most of my waking hours watching and yelling at the two older boys.

Đán, in particular, is going through his horrifying-four stage. He breaks down and screams when he doesn’t get the iPad. He forces us to limit his time even more. I am fine with him playing on the iPad. I myself use my iPhone for reading or my laptop to do my personal projects. It’s an issue when he could not turn it off when we asked him to. He goes into this addictive mood.

On the bright side, he has some great sense of humor. Last Tuesday, I took him back to daycare after a week-long vacation. The first thing he told me was, “Daddy, there’s no [parking] space. Let’s go back home.” Last night, I gave him a pat on his butt for taking a bath and putting on his clothes all by himself. He turned around and said, “Daddy, I am going to bring you to justice.” Đạo was like, “Where did you learn that from?”

Speaking of Đạo, he, too, addicted to the iPad, but he understands the consequences if he acted up when we asked him to turn it off. Most of the time he would listen. He likes to talk a lot of crap; therefore, he always gets into a fight with Đán. He doesn’t hit his brother, but his brother keeps throw punches at him and that drives me crazy. Đạo has some sharing issues, but he is a sweet brother, especially to Xuân.

Speaking of Xuân, he is now seven months. He is the cutest. He loves to eat; therefore, feeding him is a joy. I love spending time putting food in his mouth. I also enjoy strolling or jogging with him, which I haven’t done as much as I would like to. The stresses weakened my motivation. I am trying hard to get everything out of my head. I don’t know why I let things that I cannot control and little things that are unnecessary get to me. I am working on refocusing my attention on things that matter to me the most and fuck everything else. I can do it. I know I can and I will.

So I went from Hypatia Sans to using system fonts to Alda and Acumin in one week. The system font is simply not cutting it. I am keeping the minimal WordPress theme, but pulled out of the 10K Apart contest. Again this is my personal site so I get to play with it as much as I want to, but I think this is it for the moment. I’ll do a major redesign in early 2017. Richard Fink’s “Webfonts on the Prairie” resonates with me and brings me back to using webfonts again even though the file size is tremendous. Then again, typography is the only design element on this site so I am OK with making the investment in fonts.

Thơ Mưa gets new fonts. The text face is Cormorant Garamond and the title is set in Cormorant Upright. Both typefaces designed by Christian Thalmann for Google Fonts. They look great for literary work.

To participate in the 10K Apart contest, I redesigned and recoded my personal blog, which runs on WordPress. The first challenge is that I must rebuild my WordPress theme to deliver a compelling experience in 10 kilobytes. In addition, I write in both English and Vietnamese; therefore, my theme must support Vietnamese characters.

Like the web, WordPress theming has become bloated with front-end frameworks and JavaScript dependencies. When I first learned WordPress back in version one, its Classic theme was simple and easy to grasp because it only contained ten files. In contrast, a modern theme like Twenty Sixteen has fifty-one files. WordPress theming has become too complex over the years. To get back to the basics, I scrapped my previous themes and started a brand new one from scratch with just two files: index.php and style.css. I wanted to control every markup that goes into the theme; therefore, I applied PHP functions to only dynamic contents and used as much static components as I can to improve the processing time. The result was a lightweight template that accommodated my design.

The other half of the battle was to support the Vietnamese language. If I used a custom typeface that has Vietnamese subsets, the filesize for the fonts alone will be over 100 kilobytes. I had no choice but to go with the system fonts. For body text, I count on Times New Roman as my first choice. If Times New Roman is not available, I fall back to Times, and system serif if all failed. Headlines are set in Tahoma and fall back to Verdana and system sans-serif. The wordmark is set in Impact and fall back to Haettenschweiler, Arial Narrow Bold, and system sans-serif.

In addition to typography, responsive design and accessible played an important role; therefore, I took advantage of CSS Flexible Box for layout and ARIA Landmarks for screen readers. Of course, the goal for the 10K Apart contest is performance. For my submission, I put a static demo, which is under 10 kilobytes, on Github. To experience the live version, visit Visualgui.

I drew the inspiration for this little redesign from rereading Marty Neumeier’s excellent The Brand Gap while on vacation. The entire book is set in large Helvetica with generous leading. It is surprisingly easy to read. At first, I was going for Acumin Pro, but instead I went with Hypatia Sans, designed by Thomas Phinney and Paul D. Hunt. I was not too fond of this eccentric typeface, geometric sans with humanist undertones, at first, but it grows on me. It has quite a bit of personality, which is not a typical choice for running text. This is a personal blog so why not?

In addition to the typeface, I brought back the sidebar to bring back the good old blog design. I have a hate and love relationship with the sidebar, but I am sticking with it for now. I also went back to pure white background with black text to simplify the design. I hope you enjoy this little redesign.

I am still enjoying myself at the the beautiful Siesta Key island. I’ll update this blog next week. Time to hit the beach.