In the morning, I had a group lesson with 10 students. They were adults and teenagers. They picked up surprising fast. I ended the lesson with S turns.

In the afternoon, I had my first private lesson with a ten-year-old boy. I tried to teach him as much as I could to make his dad’s payment worthwhile. It was hard for him to understand the techniques I explained to him. Nevertheless the lesson went fine.

I was done after 3:00 pm, but the snow was falling fast. I didn’t want to drive home in the snowstorm. I stayed and snowboarded in the back side. The conditions were great. I hit the double-black-diamond slope twice. I even went on the mogul trail, which I had not done on snowboard before.

It was a fantastic day.

I always love the sound of the trumpet. In the right hands, a trumpet can sound like a human voice. Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Clifford Brown are some of my favorite trumpet players, and now I am adding Freddie Hubbard to this list. I listened to Hubbard before, but I didn’t know much about him. In recent days, I immersed into Hubbard’s The Body & The Soul.

The album kicks off his Hubbard’s emotional rendition of “Body and Soul.” His trumpet is clear and can put you to tear. The orchestrated reinterpretation of “Carnival (Manhã de Carnaval)” is just astounding. The tune begins with the horn section playing the sweet melody to get you into the mood. Hubbard blazes his trumpet with a magnetizing solo, especially in the high register.

In “Aries,” Hubbard showcases his post-bop chops with his all-star players: Eric Dolphy, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, Curtis Fuller, Reggie Workman, and Louis Hayes. Recorded in 1963, the album still sounds fresh today.

We left around 8:30 am in the morning. We arrived at Whitetail around 10:00 am. I took three runs on the blue trails with Xuân (on snowboard) and Vương (on ski). Of course, I was snowboarding.

I checked into the ski school and asked my supervisor about KMC (Kids Mountain Camp) and he sent me over to the camp. I taught an eight-year-old Chinese girl and a ten-year-old Vietnamese girl. They did alright.

After that a friend came and asked me to show him some pointers. I gave him a quick lesson. He wanted to stop after I showed him how to stop on heel and toe edges.

I went up back to the lift to see if I could find my wife and kids. I couldn’t find them. I took the long green trail and carved. My carving is getting much better. I can pick up more speed. I felt great.

We left around 7:0 pm and decided to stop by Ugly Dumpling Express for dinner. The food was not bad.

I am now exhausted. I need to go to sleep so I can get up early tomorrow to drive back to Whitetail to teach.

Whether skiing, snowboarding, web design, or jazz appreciation, when I wanted to explore something new, I dived in as deep as I could. Typography was no exception. I spent years not only practicing typography, but also picking up every book I could get my hands on. I even collected them so I can reread them in the future. If you are interested in typography, here are 30 books, which I have on my bookshelf, for you to discover the art and science of typesetting.

Last night, I upgraded the Law School website to MODX 3.1.0. With MODX Cloud hosting, making an upgrade was just a click of a button. Of course, I had to make a backup first and that was also a click of a button.

MODX has to be one of the most unappreciated content management systems. After working with other systems, both open source and proprietary, I appreciate MODX even more.

As a designer, I appreciate the freedom and flexibility MODX offers to create a unique experience without any compromise. I don’t need to rely on bloated frameworks or predetermined templates.

As a developer, I appreciate its powerful architecture to deliver a rich experience. Its reusable code keeps the content manageable. I reuse its code plenty of times to create dynamic content.

As a server administrator, I appreciate its cloud hosting service for a peace of mind. Since we switched to the cloud-based subscription, I no longer have to manage the server. From security to backup management to failover strategy, MODX takes care of everything.

The MODX support team is superb. I can reach out to them at any time and they would respond promptly. Obviously no one knows MODX better than the people behind the CMS.

After more than 15 years of using MODX, I still can’t figure out the reasons it is not widely adopted. I hope MODX continues to thrive even if it stays small.

In the past two nights after work, I tuned up 3 boards and 6 pair of skis. Xuân and I have a board and a pair of skis. Đạo has a new pair of skis. I also tuned up his previous pairs to store away. I just looked up Alpine Ski Shop and price for basic tuning is $65 for skis and $50 for snowboard. I am saving us $540 by tuning them myself. Skiing and snowboarding are not cheap. I have to save whatever I can. I will finish up scraping the wax tonight.

Upon hiring me for the instructor position, the manager invited me to the Instructors Training Course. The first order of business at the ITC was introducing ourselves. Most instructors had been either skiing or snowboarding for at least 10 seasons. I only snowboarded for 2 seasons.

I had the least experience, but I could ride comfortably on any terrain from the greens to the blues to the double blacks. Some people think I have a natural talent, but I don’t. I only have the passion and the determination. I had to work hard at it.

My second son has a natural talent. I have always been so envious of him. In December, 2021, he and I took a semi-private snowboarding lesson together for the first time. I fell, got up, and fell some more. My feet were uncomfortable. My body was exhausted. I bruised my thumb on the magic carpet. I went back to skiing. My son went on and excelled in snowboarding. He could ride down the double black terrains in his second season. These days, he can zoom down the double black with ease.

After giving up snowboarding, my skiing soared. I could ski anywhere on the mountains. Nevertheless, I felt somewhat of a failure. I couldn’t accept the fact that I could not snowboard. The next season, December 2022, I decided to give snowboarding another shot. I made myself a challenge. Age was not an excuse to back down.

I took another group lesson, but the class was only me and another beginner learner. I was catching the edge like crazy. I could not make it down the lift without falling. I skated on one foot and almost twisted my ankle, but I did not give up. I kept at it for two weeks. I watched countless tutorials on YouTube and learned how not to catch an edge. I progressed to the blue and black terrains. I still fell on the double black terrains and I didn’t conquer them until season 2.

The Epic Pass motivated me to ski and snowboard as much as I could. I loved both sports; therefore, I didn’t give up skiing. As I was getting excited about snowboarding, my son was getting bored. He was gifted, but he didn’t want to learn new skills. On the other hand, my goal was to learn how to carve. Something about leaving a thin line on the trail fascinated me. I kept working toward my goal. This year, I am starting to get it. I encouraged my son to learn with me, but he refused. I am sure he could pick it up in no time if he wanted.

I keep telling him how good he is and I wish I could have his skills. With his talent and my hard work, I would go far. Then again, when something comes easy, you take it for granted. In contrast, you treasure it when you work hard to earn it. I am happy to be where I am today, but I will continue to grow.

Check out my snowboarding shorts on YouTube.

When I started getting into jazz, I spent time listening to George Gershwin’s songs through jazz singers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and of course Billie Holiday. I got familiar with his lyrics through their singing. Yesterday, I came across Oscar Peterson Plays the George Gershwin Song Book and I was hooked. Oscar Peterson (piano), Ray Brown (double bass), and Ed Thigpen (drums) played these tunes with such delight. They swing on “They All Laughed” and get down to the blues on “Oh Lady Be Good.” I have been listening to the albums on my way to the ski resorts and back.

Ali Wong is back on the stage after her divorce in 2022. Most of the materials from her latest special is about dating and fucking. No crime in that. Male comedians talk about sex all the time with graphical, vulgar details. Don’t hate the player; hate the game. Then again, I am not interested in her subject matters. I am more intrigued with her writing. I could tell she has all of her jokes written out in her head. She delivers them line by line and in complete sentences. She definitely puts in the work. Good for her. Get them millions.

Despite getting up early and driving to Whitetail on time, I missed the morning ski clinic. I was a minute late, but I forgot my pass. The lifties didn’t let me on even though I was wearing my uniform.

For the morning lineup, I was assigned to teach a beginner lesson. A nine-year-old girl was waiting with her mom. I asked her if she needed to use the bathroom before we got started. I needed to use the bathroom myself. When I came back, she was with about 7 or 8 more students. I also saw another instructor take over my spot. I was cool about it. I could just go riding.

The group headed out to the learning center. As I was about to punch out my time, 2 girls came out from the rental. I was asked once again to take on. Then the dads told me that 2 more will be joining the group. Then 4 more came out. Then 5 more came out. Suddenly I had 16 students altogether with ages ranging from 9 to adult.

I asked another instructor to help me out, but he had to check in with the supervisor. He took away the 5 adults from me. I still had 2 moms who wanted to stay with their kids. I had 11 students left and we were about 15 minutes behind schedule. Fortunately, I had another shadowing instructor helping me out.

The lesson went better than I had expected. We made it through the entire curriculum. Students were able to do some J turns and began to do S turns.

In the afternoon, I didn’t have any lessons so I went riding solo. The crowd was not as bad as yesterday, but it was still busy. I went home around 2:30 pm.
Despite getting up early and driving to Whitetail on time, I missed the morning ski clinic. I was a minute late, but I forgot my pass. The lifties didn’t let me on even though I was wearing my uniform.

For the morning lineup, I was assigned to teach a beginner lesson. A nine-year-old girl was waiting with her mom. I asked her if she needed to use the bathroom before we got started. I needed to use the bathroom myself. When I came back, she was with about 7 or 8 more students. I also saw another instructor take over my spot. I was cool about it. I could just go riding.

The group headed out to the learning center. As I was about to punch out my time, 2 girls came out from the rental. I was asked once again to take on. Then the dads told me that 2 more will be joining the group. Then 4 more came out. Then 5 more came out. Suddenly I had 16 students altogether with ages ranging from 9 to adult.

I asked another instructor to help me out, but he had to check in with the supervisor. He took away the 5 adults from me. I still had 2 moms who wanted to stay with their kids. I had 11 students left and we were about 15 minutes behind schedule. Fortunately, I had another shadowing instructor helping me out.

The lesson went better than I had expected. We made it through the entire curriculum. Students were able to do some J turns and began to do S turns.

In the afternoon, I didn’t have any lessons so I went riding solo. The crowd was not as bad as yesterday, but it was still busy. I went home around 2:30 pm.