I was too tired last night; therefore, I went to bed around 9:00 pm. At 8:00 am, I went down stairs, the Round Hearth Café and Marketplace, for breakfast. I met the owner and his wife. They are a young couple who run the café as well as the B&B upstairs. Nice folks!

I went to the Stowe Resort around 9:00 am. It was raining lightly. I put on my skis and went to the trails. The conditions were OK. I picked up carving on my skis again, but it still doesn’t quite feel natural to roll my knees and ankles. I ditched my poles so I could focus on my posture. Without the poles, I tried to grab my outside boot when I made the turn. I also turned my hips and pushed my knees to the side as I initiated my turns. I did those exercise all day.

I met a couple with two little boys (a two- and four-year-old). Because the four-year-old wanted to ski, they flew in from Florida and ski for a couple of days. Unfortunately, the learning side had closed for the season. The dad took his four-year-old to the bottom of the green slope and let him skied down. They did that all day long. Man, some parents are super patience.

Skiing in the rain was quite an experience. I was a bit hesitated at first, but after a few runs I just went with the flow. As I was sitting on the lift halfway up, the rain started to pour. I skied down quickly so I could get into the lodge to wait for the rain to die down. As I got closer to the lift, the rain stopped. I think Mother Nature was trolling me all day. I had a great time though.

Last night, I was too excited to sleep. At 2 am, I decided to hit the road. I drove 3 hours straight to New Jersey. I stopped at the service area and napped for about half an hour. I bought a coffee and continued to drive.

I arrived at Okemo around 11 am and the rain was pouring. I saw people soaking wet coming into the lodge. I asked them about the conditions and they all said “good.” I had lunch and waited for the rain to light up.

I hit the slopes around noon. I continued to carve on my snowboard. I lost count of how many runs I got in. At 4 pm, I drove 2 more hours to Stowe, where I will be skiing and snowboarding for the next 5 days.

This book released in 2015 when digital devices, such as iPads, started to take off. Reading it almost a decade later, it is has become out of touch. I am done catching up with the A Book Apart series.

As a visual designer, I have not ventured into voice-command territory. So’s book is a perfect primer into voice interface design. From inclusivity to diversity to accessibility to usability, this book will help make your site ready for voice-friendly design.

I am working with a proprietary CMS that might as well named “Fuck You Pay Me.”

We don’t have that feature in our CMS out of the box, but we can create it for you. “Fuck You Pay Me.” We don’t have that functionality right out of the box, but we can develop it for you. “Fuck You Pay Me.” We don’t support that technology yet, but we can incorporate it for you. “Fuck You Pay Me.”

The code we wrote won’t work with JavaScript turned off, but we can rewrite it. “Fuck You Pay Me.” We never worked with Service Worker API before, but we can implement it. “Fuck You Pay Me.” Our framework doesn’t support multi-column grid layout, but we can add it for you. “Fuck You Pay Me.”

I am not paying for the bill so go ahead and get your money.

Before reading Higgins’s book, I didn’t realize how much thoughts, strategies, and decisions go into the onboarding process. Thankfully, Higgins explains, illustrates and walks us through designing a successful onboarding experience. A recommended read for digital product designers.

When I registered Visualgui.com 21 years ago, I had no idea it would last to this day. Without a doubt, blogging is my longest hobby. I pour out my thoughts, my emotions, and my consciences almost everyday. As I am getting older, I find letting go keeps me at peace. When something bothers me, it stays on my mind until I write it down so I can let it go, but I still have a record of it. In that sense, blogging has become my therapy. I don’t need to talk to a therapist. I just talk to the world.

In retrospect, self-improvement has motivated me to write everyday. I have the tendency to constantly improve myself and it drives my wife crazy, especially after she got me into skiing and snowboarding. I have no special talent and I have no natural athletic ability. I just show up everyday and make progress. When I first started blogging, I stared at the blinking prompt for half an hour and couldn’t type a word. I had too many fears and anxieties. I worried about getting judged. Now, I just let words flow onto the page. I can just write whatever comes to mind. The only thing that can stop me is my own conscience.

I came to blogging from my web design background. I used to have a passion for design until I got paid to design. Now design is a job, not a hobby. I design for others, not for myself. Blogging, on the other hand, has given me a space to write whatever I like. I don’t write for anyone. I write for myself. I can write 1 word or 1,000 words. I can write in English or Vietnamese or both. I can write about my personal experience or I can write about my professional design and development. I have total freedom to write and control my own content.

After 21 years, I still feel the urge to write. Writing is a life-long improvement for me. I will never run out of room to improve myself. If this blog goes away tomorrow, I will damn sure miss it, but I will continue to write on another platform or on paper. Blogging is still my favorite space to write for now. I am glad I stuck with it for 21 years.

After hiring a handyman connecting the pipes for the bathroom fans yesterday, I noticed that when one bathroom fan was on, the air blew back to the other bathroom. I checked the fan and found out that the flapper was not closing.

Today, I decided to take the entire old fan out and install a new one. Taking out the housing was time consuming. I couldn’t remove the nails so I had to cut off the aluminum. While replacing the housing, I decided to redo what the handyman had done yesterday. He did such a shitty job connecting the 4-in pipes to the 3-in pipes. I streamlined the connection and used only 3-in pipes.

The process took almost six hours. I spent about half of that on the attic. Thanks goodness the weather was not that hot yet. I spent about $100 on the materials including the new fan. It was a good learning experience.

I am not sure if I will use the handyman again. I thought he was a friend since we liked to drink and I took him out to eat and drink before, but I guess money comes first.

As I was replacing the bathroom fan, I recalled that the pipe just blew moisture into the attic. When we first moved in, we hired an electrician to install recessed lights as well as the bathroom fan. He put the flexible pipe from the fan into open space in the attic. He told me it was the conventional practice. I trusted him and never questioned it.

Fifteen years later, I realized that was not a good idea. When I watched a few clips on YouTube, I was horrified with all the molds on the woods when people just put the exhaust pipe blowing into the attic. I always hated going up the attic, but I had to just to see if there were any mold. To my relief, I didn’t spot anything even though the only circulation system we had was the ridge vent on the roof. The electrician was probably right.

Nevertheless, I wanted to get it right. When I watched YouTube videos, the consensus was to cut the roof and install the pipe to let the moisture go outside. No way I was going to cut the roof myself. I called Ricardo, my trusted handyman, to make an appointment for today to do the job.

Last night, however, I sought out advice from a friend who is an architecture. He told me I could connect the pipe from that bathroom to the pipe from another bathroom, which already had a vent to the roof. As long as both fans had flappers, I should be fine. All I needed was to remove the pipe to the roof and attach an aluminum T connector and hook up the other pipe from the other fan.

I went back to the attic and figured I could do the job myself, but I already called the handyman and didn’t want to cancel him. He showed up late and his eyes were all watery. I asked him if he was drinking last night and he told me he was drinking every night. Nevertheless, I let him do his job. We went to Lowe’s to pick up the flexible pipe and the aluminum T connector.

When he tried to install it, the materials we bought were bigger than the ones already installed. I told him I could run to Home Depot to pick up smaller pipes, but he me told they don’t make those anymore. He ended up taping the big pipes to the smaller pipes. It was a hack of a job. It didn’t look nice at all, but I could careless since it was on the attic. He charged me $150.

I am thinking of taking everything apart and repipe them myself. If I could find the right size for the pipes, I could do it with minimal tapes. I am not going to sweat it for now. I’ll revisit this project later on. The materials were about $40. It was not a bad $150 lesson.

Here’s the sixth iteration of this blog. I just copped a license of Euchre, designed by Jackson Showalter-Cavanaugh, and I just couldn’t wait to use it. Euchre goes well with Lavishe, designed by Dương Trần.

I am also returning to readability first. The previous iteration was cool, but could be a bit hard to read. I still like to change it up once in a while. I think I’ll stick with this design for a bit. Then again, maybe I won’t.

We’ll see how it goes. This iteration is quieter, but good for reading the text. I hope you enjoy it.