Pierre-Simon Fournier, Manuel Typographique, 1764:

After the first necessities of life, nothing is more precious to us than books. THE ART OF TYPOGRAPHY, which produces them, provides essential services to society and secures incalculable benefits. It serves to instruct the citizenry, to extend the progress of the arts and sciences, to nourish and cultivate the mind, and to elevate the spirit: its task is to be the agent and broad interpreter of wisdom and truth; in a word, it is the portrayer of the mind. Thus one could rightly call it par excellence the art of all arts and the science of all sciences.

Saturday morning, I took Đán to ice hockey as our usual bonding time. Đán is an excellent skater. He has speed and perfected his hockey stop on both feet. His hockey skills, however, need more work. He couldn’t control the puck with his stick. He kept missing the goal. His coach loaned him a new stick for lefty, which seemed to help him. After class, his coach came to me and gave me the stick. He promised Đán that he would give him the stick if he finished level three. That was nice of him and Đán was happy about it.

We came back home and I took Đán, Xuân, and Vương to a Japanese ramen house for lunch. Đạo didn’t want to go. The night before, I promised Đán that I would take him out to one of his favorite restaurants if he read Let’s Read with Xuân. He was more than glad to do it. When I read this book with Đán when he was in kindergarten, he struggled quite a bit, but Xuân seemed to pick up the words quickly. In any rate, Đán and I ordered our favorite spicy miso ramen while Xuân and Vương ordered their favorite pork and chicken buns.

After lunch, we went back home and relaxed until 2 pm. Then I took Đạo, Đán, and Xuân to get their flu shots. Xuân volunteered to go first. This guy had no fear of the needle. He later described getting a flu shot was as painless as marrying his mom. His analogy was hilarious and I wish our marriage was that easy. Đán took the shot without a fuss. Đạo was a bit nervous, but I reassured him again that he wouldn’t even feel it if he would just relax. I told him to work with the needle instead of against it. He took my advice and we were done. He didn’t feel a thing. We were out of the pediatrician office in less than 15 minutes.

I took them to Veterans Memorial Park in Woodbridge to check out the skatepark, which has the tallest halfpipe I had seen yet. We had to take the stairs to go to the top of the pipe. If I were to drop in, I would either break every bone in my body or die. No one was dropping from this pipe; therefore, the kids used it as the slide instead and they loved the thrill. The skatepark also has a humongous bowl. Again, if I were to drop in, I would break my ass even at the shallow end.

Most of the skating activities took place in the area away from the bowl and the halfpipe. Đán rode the ramps with the skateboarders. He is a natural skater with confidence and a bit of fearlessness. Đạo and I hesitated a bit because of the crowd. There were quite a bit of skateboarders. Xuân rode around smaller ramps on his scooter. After spending nearly three hours at the skatepark, we headed to an ice cream parlor close by. The menu items were written in Spanish. All of the employees spoke primarily in Spanish. Although all three of my sons are enrolled in Spanish, only Đạo put his foreign language skills to use. Đán was shied and Xuân could only count from 1 to 29 in Spanish. I let Đạo order for us. After that, we went home and had dinner.

On Sunday, we got to sleep in a bit. Around 10 am, I took Đạo to the library to return some books and to pick up new ones. After reading a novel, I wanted to switch to nonfiction. I picked out two books. We went back home, tidied up the house a bit, and folded our clothes. We had a late lunch. Then I dragged my wife and all of our kids to Woodland Wonderland playground and Walker Mill skatepark in Maryland. I felt guilty for not spending too much time with Vương because he has not picked up skating yet. Since the playground and the skatepark were within walking distance, this place was perfect for us. My wife took Vương to the playground while the rest of us stayed at the skatepark. This skatepark was less scarier than the one in Woodbridge, but some skateboarders were a bit aggressive. Đán didn’t seem to mind. He went in and did his things. Đạo was a bit intimidated. Xuân tried out new ramps on his scooter. We were there for almost two hours and drove back home for dinner. That was pretty much how we spent our weekend. I was glad that the kids got to do outdoor activities rather than stayed home playing on their digital devices.

A week ago, I had a weird dream. In my dream, I was having an affair with someone I had never met, yet I knew everything about her. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t resist. I woke up and felt terrible. I was glad it was just a dream. Then I realized that Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends had gotten into my head. I was half way through the novel where Frances and Nick were having an affair. Nick was married to Melissa. Although the sex scenes in this book were not as descriptive as in her latest book, the story was emotional and engaging. Rooney is a master at storytelling. I am glad that I picked up this book after reading Normal People last year and Beautiful World, Where Are You a couple weeks ago. I have become a Sally Rooney fan.

I was late to the party, but I was filled with joy when I found out last night that The King Radio account on YouTube got shut down. Ngụy Vũ, the self-proclaimed the King Radio, is more like the Vietnamese Alex Jones who spread misinformation including wearing a mask can kill you.

Ngụy Vũ’s studio is located right inside Eden Center. It used to be a Kobe Phở restaurant. I knew then that this guy was a scam because his phở was plain. He just beefed up the Kobe steak. There were not many customers and the rent in Eden Center was not cheap. He shut down the restaurant and converted it into a radio station. His YouTube account was pulling in over 90K subscribers.

I tried to listen to one of his episodes, but I could not get past 10 minutes. He was rambling on and on about right-wing conspiracy theories. I did not understand how YouTube allowed his misinformation to spread freely and dangerously on its platform. It took John Oliver who pointed Ngụy Vũ out in his Last Week Tonight episode on digital misinformation for YouTube to take action.

When I found out last night through one of the Cub Scout parents, I checked YouTube immediately. Ngụy Vũ already set up a new account with less than 5K subscribers. Although John Oliver brought the attention to YouTube, users who reported his account got him banned. We need to stop him from poisoning our Vietnamese-American community. I reported his new account as well.

After I picked up Đạo, Đán, and Xuân from school yesterday, we headed straight to the skate park. We skated for 45 minutes and headed home. My wife made udon. Đạo, Xuân, and I ate quickly and headed to ice skating lessons. Xuân took his test. He didn’t do too well because he didn’t practice much. Except for one girl, all of his classmates struggled with backward crossovers and T-stops. I am not sure if I should sign him up for Gamma since he isn’t into it.

My wife took Đạo and Xuân home instead of waiting for me to take my lessons. When I came home, Xuân didn’t look too well. I took his temperature and it was around 102.2F. He fell asleep and I carried him to my bed. I checked his temperature again and it was still high. I was a bit worried even though he had his mask on the whole time he was taking his ice skating test.

I tried to go to sleep as well, but woke up after he made some noise. He opened his eyes and spoke a few words in Spanish. I didn’t know what he was saying, but I asked if he was feeling OK. He nodded and went back to sleep. Around midnight, he woke up again and said, “udon.” He must be hungry and wanted udon. I was getting a bit hungry as well because we didn’t have much udon for dinner. I took his temperature again and it hadn’t decreased. At this point I couldn’t go back to sleep.

Around 2 am, he sweated profusely. His hair and the pillow were all wet. His temperature went down to 101.6F. His immune system must have fought hard. I was a bit relieved but couldn’t go back to sleep until 3 something in the morning. I woke up around 6:30 am and checked his temperature again and it was down to 99.1F. I am happy about it, but I will be miserable all day due to lack of sleep. We’ll let him stay home today to keep an eye on him.

Having a fever is not uncommon, but I am a bit panicked because of Covid. I tend to worry too much because my mother-in-law is living with us. I do not want anything to happen to her even though she got her third booster shot.

Learning ice skating is like building LEGO. Each step is a LEGO brick that is designed to let you create a work of art. While practicing yesterday, I combined the jump and dance steps into a long sequence. I am sure the professional skaters already knew, but it was a revelation to me. Here are the steps I did:

1. Begin with a backward crossover with your left foot over right.
2. Repeat another crossover with your left foot over right.
3. Transfer your weight to your right foot and glide with your left foot.
4. Do a waltz jump with your right foot.
5. Tap your left toe pick and do a tap-toe jump with your right foot.
6. Continue with a 3-turn on your left foot.
7. Tap your right toe pick then finish with a one-half flip jump.
8. Instead of checking out, continue on with your left glide.
9. Glide right.
10. Glide left.
11. Glide right one more time.
12. Do a left mohawk then stand on your right foot as you skate backward.
13. Cross your left behind your right foot and transfer your weight to your left foot.
14. Place your right foot back to the parallel position and transfer the weight back to your right foot.
15. Cross your left foot in front of your right foot.
16. Check out with your right foot.

I like jumping more than spinning. I supposed to learn how to do a one-foot spin, but I kept tripped up the left-edge entrance. As a result, I just focused on the jump and dance sequence.

The no-name aggressive inline skates I bought for Đạo and Đán on eBay were no good. My wife broke the strap buckle on one pair and I broke the other as we let the kids try them on. Fortunately, we can return them.

I am searching for better quality skates for them since aggressive skating can be dangerous. I want them to be safe. I am not sure if I can find anything under $150 a pair. I spent way too much time online shopping already. I was looking forward to hit the skate parks with them.

At lunchtime yesterday, I drove to Shaw Skate Park in DC. The weather was beautiful and there were a handful of skateboarders. They seemed to be friendly. A black guy encouraged me to drop in. I asked if he’s from around here (DC) and he asked me where I was originated (I think). I forget the term he used. There were two girls whose skills were impressive on roller skates.

The park seemed to be newly renovated. I would come back if it was not too far from my work. It took me 20 minutes each way; therefore, I could only skate for half an hour. I was skating in my khakis pants and buttoned-up shirt. I just strapped on my guards and wore my helmet. I came back to work a bit sweaty. It was my workout for the day.

I had been skating consistently at lunchtime on the days that I worked in my office since Powhatan Springs Skatepark. I can skate there for about 45 minutes since the park was only eight minutes away from my office. It’s a decent park.

I found a pair of Flying Eagle Enkidu aggressive skates on Amazon Warehouse that fit me perfectly. It was such a great deal that I couldn’t resist. Except for the damaged box, the skates were brand new. I gave the pair a try at the skate park yesterday and I am loving it.

I went down a few curved ramps and a quarter pipe, but I did not try the higher curved ramps yet. The skates are a bit heavy, almost five pounds on each foot, but they felt so comfortable. I predict that the smaller wheels and the heavy boots were designed to keep me balanced. Aggressive skates don’t come with the heel brake; therefore, I need to learn to do the T-stop or other braking methods without relying on the heel brake. I am taking my time because falling at my age takes too long to recover.

I need more time to adjust to the new Flying Eagle since I had gotten used to the Zetrablade, which I still love. It was the first inline skate that didn’t hurt my feet. I didn’t even realize that the Zetrablade was designed for skating on the road instead of at the skate park. I changed the heel brake and still keep the pair for skating with the family when we go biking on the trails.

Đán also wanted a pair of aggressive skates. I wanted to get him a pair of Rollerblade NJR, but I could not find his size. Fortunately, I found a different pair with his size on eBay. Since it was a great deal, I bought one pair for Đạo as well. They look great, but they have no brand. I called the skate shop and the seller told me that there were no boxes and they could not find the brand on the skates. They just found them in their warehouse and listed them on eBay for sale. They already sold six pairs and haven’t heard any complaints from their customers.

I can’t wait for their skates to arrive. We’re now moving from recreational to aggressive. Đạo, Đán, and Xuân who uses a scooter prefer skate park over ice skating. They had been willing to go to the skate parks with me more than ice skating rinks.

This is a super quick introduction to web design for non-designers. Osborn shows the principles of design, which include layout, hierarchy, color, and typography. She keeps each theory short and sweet and without a line of code. I read the entire book in an hour. I am not the target audience, but I have not read a book on web design in a long time. Plus, the book is beautifully typeset in Tisa family.

Today marks my 10^th year working at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School as Director of Design and Web Services. A decade in the web-industry timeline is eternity, but it still feels like yesterday when I took on this position.

In my first three months on the job, I single-handedly re-coded the entire website from scratch. I ripped out all of the HTML markups and CSS presentations and rebuilt everything from scratch. Our site was one of the first higher education websites that went responsive. In retrospect, I am glad I took that approach right from the get-go. In the past nine and a half years, our website has gone through many iterations instead of major redesigns. Because of the solid foundation I built from the beginning, our website stands the test of time.

In the last few weeks, we conducted a handful of user studies, in which we asked current students to share their experience using our website. We gave them a few tasks and asked them to do as we watched their browsers. They found our website easy to navigate and they could find what they needed. They provided us suggestions we can improve, but the feedback had been positive.

As CSS grid has become stable, I wanted to go back to replace complicated floats with grids, but the task seemed overwhelming. In the past five years, I have taken on new roles beyond the web, which included marketing designs and email newsletter. I could not dedicate my time to make the transition. Every time I looked at my SCSS file, I wanted to just throw it away and start from scratch. Unfortunately the site had grown so much in the last decade.

After our latest redesign under the new dean direction, I decided I need to tackle this issue. Now that I have a designer to help me with graphics and a developer to help me with day-to-day requests, I could focus on refactoring the CSS elements as well as cleaning up the HTML markups. Simply replacing float layouts with grid layouts make the CSS file much more cleaner and manageable. In addition to simplifying the CSS elements, I was able to get rid of tons of unused styles.

Although the work was entirely behind the hood, it made me feel great. I had accomplished something that I had wanted to do for quite a while. The overall visuals haven’t changed much, but the details have been hammered out. Because I have invested my time, energy, and effort into our website, I take great pride in my work and I treat it with tender, love, and care as if it is my own baby. I take the responsibility and the ownership of it. I expect my developer to do the same. I wanted him to put his care into it instead of just dashing off to complete the requests. Every piece of markup needs to be clean and no inline styles unless absolutely necessary.

I understand that we have to do things quickly, but doing so carelessly will come back and bite us in the long run. Our website has come a long way. The day of hosting it on a GoDaddy dedicated server is long gone. I am so glad that we had migrated to MODX Cloud with the help of the incredible MODX team. From the server side, our site is now fast, secured, stable, and in good hands. From the frontend side, the HTML markups and CSS presentations are streamlined. The design is still fresh and modern with exceptional typography.

If everything goes well, I will stay with the law school until my retirement. I only have about 20 odd years to go. I don’t know if I will be able to keep up with the web industry in my 60s. That’s a scary thought. Then again, I have not kept up on the latest trend a decade ago. I am still doing fine thus far. I can’t see myself doing anything else besides web design and development, but I never know what the future will hold.