Hendel’s book on book design is insightful and compelling. He speaks to leading designers in the industry about their process, philosophy and typography. The type choices that they made fascinate me. The designers have done their job if readers could get through the entire book without noticing anything about the texts they set. Hendel also managed to get Kent Lew to share his design of Whitman. Even though I probably will never design a book, I still find this book useful for someone whose interest is in designing a pleasure reading experience.

For the more adventurous taste buds, bún mắm, is now offered in various restaurants in Eden Center. Hải Dương was the first that got me hooked. The bowl had been savory and consistent for a long time. I was satisfied every time I went there for it. Now Hải Dương’s bún mắm is still good, but not as good as the good old days. The broth is sweeter and less savory.

A friend recommended bún mắm at Thanh Tòng and I had it once. I can’t recall exactly how it tasted, but was I was not impressed. I also tried once at Cơm Tắm Sài Gòn. While the broth was decent, the fish had that old, freezer-like smell. The whole bowl was ruined.

A month or so ago, I checked out the new joint Viet Gardens and it was the worse so far. The broth was watered down and the pork was chunky and chewy. The owner used to run Làng Nướng Tây Đô a few years ago only for a few months.

Where Làng Nướng Tây Đô used to be is now a brand new Eden Kitchen, which is a division of Phở Factory in Alexandria. It also offers bún mắm so I gave it a try today and it turned out be a disappointment. It lacked all the varieties of ingredients and the broth was not piping hot.

At this time, the best place to have bún mắm in Eden Center has to be at Rice Paper. With various ingredients including eggplant, bún mắm at Rice Paper has a rich flavor. The broth is probably a bit salty for most people; therefore, just add more lime juice to balance it out. Rice Paper is still one of the most crowded place in Eden for some of its delicious dishes. The only thing that Rice Paper needs to work on is its customer service. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great either.

Trevor Noah, a young comedian from South African, shares his fresh, hilarious perspective of the “American-centric” such as language usage, airport security and Black American. He’s charming, thoughtful and witty. Unlike most comedians, he pulls off his punches without dropping the F-bombs and explicit sexual content.

For 2014, my resolution is to focus on less. Here are the ten things I want to do less:

1. Eat: Less junkie food and sweets. Somehow I developed an appetite for high-calorie food such as hamburger, cheesecake and flan. I’ll have less of those in 2014.
2. Coffee: Each morning I had to have an extra-large coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. After work, I would crave for another one and my excuse would be night class or if I had to stay up late. I want to cut back to just one cup a day and if I could go down to just a large size.
3. Work: I want to work less, but more efficient. All that I need to do is managing my time better.
4. Stress: Don’t stress myself out too much over every little things. Just deal with the matters at hands and let everything else go. It’s much easier said than done, but I can do it.
5. Grumpy: Whenever I get stressed out, I become grumpy. If I could reduce stress, my grumpiness will be subside as well.
6. Sit: Get off my ass and get back to jogging. I have been slacking off lately.
7. Yell: Less yelling at the kids when they disobey or fight with each other. I can’t control my emotion when I see them hurting each other.
8. Social Media: Less use of social media. I don’t use Twitter much anymore other than checking on what’s up with the industry. I need to cut back on Facebook as well.
9. Read: This might seem ridiculous, but I need to devote less time on reading. These days, I try to read every chance I get. I want my kids to take a nap just so I could have an hour or so to read. Whether reading a book on typography, CSS or jazz music, I can’t seem to stop once I started to get into a book. I want to learn everything I could when I read; therefore, I have no time for fiction. I should just put the books away and just go to sleep with the kids. So that when they wake up, I also have enough strength to keep up with them.
10. Petty Fight: When you live and interact with someone everyday, petty fight is inevitable. My wife and I had our ups and downs and most of the time because we’re exhausting. The good thing is that we get beyond that and still love each other dearly. In 2014, my goal will be to make less petty fight, more sweet love (I wish).

The past two weeks had been fun but also exhausted. Being a full-time dad is not as easy as I had imagined.

The first week was not so bad since we were on an all-inclusive vacation. We got up around 8, got to breakfast about 9. Around 10 we headed to the swimming pool or the beach. The kids jumped around all over in the shallow water. I just had to keep an eye on them, which was not an easy task because of a few topless sun-bathers around. The mojito kept me focused on the kids.

After that we would head to lunch. At this point the kids got tired and ready for nap. Dao is the exception so I had to push him on the stroller around the property until he would fall asleep. Then I would stop at the bar, picked up a drink, headed to the beautiful landscape area. Let him listened to the waterfall while I enjoyed reading a book.

Once they woke up, we headed into the water again until dinner time. They were once again exhausted so they would go to bed early. Even though we were on vacation, we all went to bed around 9. Other than Dan running all around the property, getting out of his high chair and running all over the restaurants, we had a good time.

Once we headed back to the States, my day started at six in the morning forcefully and didn’t end until 10pm at night. That’s a sixteen-hour shift. When Dan had a fever at night, I was on call as well. I couldn’t sleep and had to check his temperature every fifteen minutes or so. On a good day, I was too exhausted to do my own things after 10pm.

The good thing was that the holiday season in DC has many model train exhibitions. Each day I tried to take them to different show. Staying home a whole day with them would give me massive headaches. The raining days and they days my wife was sick were the worse.

Then again, time spent with them went by so fast. Two weeks also come to an end. I am getting a cold myself. After tomorrow, I go back to work and they will go back to daycare. Life will be back to normal again.

In the past few years, I have read every book on typography I could get my hands on, but these are the books that I found most useful and almost all of them I have read more than once. If you’re interested in learning about typography, check them out.

1. Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style: A typographer’s bible to be read at least once a year.
2. Adrian Frutiger Typefaces: The Complete Works: A comprehensive documentation of Frutiger’s typographical work with detailed analysis from Heidrun Osterer and Philipp Stamm.
3. Karen Cheng’s Designing Type: With over 400 type specimens and diagrams, this book examines each letter in great details.
4. Sofie Beier’s Reading Letters: A thorough research on legibility and readability.
5. Ellen Lupton’s Thinking With Type: A must-read to learn the fundamental concepts of typography
6. Stephen Coles’s The Anatomy of Type: The most useful coffee table book I have ever read.
7. Denise Bosler’s Mastering Type: From kerning, tracking, leading, word spacing, aligning to legibility and readability, this book provides insightful guides and the best parts are the good-vs.-bad illustrations.
8. Erik Spiekermann’s Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works: It’s a quick read, yet informative and entertaining.
9. Butterick’s Practical Typography: Insightful and opinionated. You’ll learn typographic details such as the difference between straight and curly quotes.
10. Simon Garfield’s Just My Type: An engaging read even for the folks outside of the typographic geeks.

A comprehensive documentation of Frutiger’s typographical work based on his own words, complete with history and detailed analysis from the editors, Heidrun Osterer and Philipp Stamm, and extraordinary visual comparisons of the typefaces. The amount of knowledge, information and technicalities are overwhelming for one read. I intend to reread it.

Rereading William Zinsser’s On Writing Well reminds me why I have been blogging for ten years. He advises: “You are writing primarily to please yourself, and if you go about it with enjoyment you will also entertain the readers who are worth writing for.” (p. 25)

I am not a writer and my grammar still sucks, but I love writing for myself. When I started to blog, my main goal was to improve my English. Over the years, writing has become my passion. Writing sets me free. When I write I have no obligation to anyone else but myself.

Whether reviewing an album, recommending a book or ranting about life, I have the complete freedom to write what on my mind. Sometimes the unfiltered opinion could get me into trouble. In retrospect, I have toned down my language in recent years. Being a husband and a father plays a role in it, but the main reason is that I am much more mellow than I used to be.

With the rise of social media, blogging has become less popular, but that is also why I still enjoy writing on my own site. The blog is still a quiet place, especially without comments, for me to just write. In 2014, I will continue to write as much as time would allow me to.

The other day we were jamming to the remix version of Thanh Thảo’s “Bạc Trắng Tình Đời” in the car and Đạo asked me the meaning of the hook: “Thà là bỏ đi hết ta làm lại từ đầu.” I explained to him, “Well, you know when you watch a movie in the car and you ask me to restart the DVD. That’s what it mean.” He was like, “Oh, OK.” I am not even sure why I made such a terrible analogy.

Because of Đạo’s verbal skill, Đán is picking up his chops as well. He speaks with authority. He uses phrases like “Muốn coi TV” (Want to watch TV), “Muốn ăn phở” (Want to eat phở) and “Muốn iPhone.” The other day, he put his hand into his diaper and got poop on his fingers. He ran to me and said, “Trời ơi… My hand… Dơ quá” (Oh God… my hand… so dirty).

Đán is a handful. He’s strong; he’s big; he likes to run; and he has endless energy. His terrible-two phase is much worse than Đạo. Just two days ago, he was like a little sick puppy. Yesterday, he returned to his normal self and he is exhaustive to keep up. Then again, I am glad that he’s healthy.

Three words to describe Dao

• Rational
• Playful
• Friendly

Dao likes to play with

• Trains and cars
• Puzzles
• Blocks (always related to trains)

Dao’s strengths

Dao has strong language development. He takes responsibility for his actions. Dao is easily able to understand why some behaviors are inappropriate for school.

Areas that we are working on

We are working on encouraging Dao to participate more in circle and story times. We are also encouraging him to participate in art and cooking activities despite his aversion to getting dirty.

My thoughts

I was surprised that his teachers gave him positive feedback on his behavior. He gets along well with his classmates and he listens to his teachers. Even when he does something inappropriate, he recognizes it and understands the consequences.

At home, he is different. He always fights with his little brother over toys. Whenever Dan plays with something, he takes from his brother despite how many times I tells him not to do that. Dao is fighting for attention. Whenever I get the chance to be alone with him, he is so sweet and well-behaved. I am still struggling to get the two of them to play well together.

Yesterday they fought over a toy and I confiscated it. I explained that if they can’t share, they won’t get to play the toy at all. Dao picked up another toy and threw it across the room. I made him sat on the coach. He started to cry. Dan came over and gave his brother a big hug. I was angry and touched at the same time.