This Wednesday I will complete my ice skating lessons for Adult 2 level. The class started out with 12 students. In the past few weeks, only me and two ladies were left. Our coach has been great. She gave more individual attention with only the three of us. She kept reminding me to look up. I looked down quite a bit and it is a hard habit to break.

In retrospect, what have I learned? I spent the last eight weeks mastering forward one-foot glides. My right foot was better than my left. Now I can glide across the length of the rink on either foot. I found skating on one foot to be crucial. It helped me balance better and more confidence. My favorite technique was forward slalom. It looks nice and is easy to do. I am still struggling with backward skating. Fortunately, for this level I only had to do backward swizzles. I need to pick up and practice more backward skating. I also learned 180 two-foot turns in place.

I am very satisfied with my ice skating lessons. It only took half an hour a week and another half an hour for practice. I needed more time to practice; therefore, I have been going to public sessions almost everyday with the kids for an hour and fifteen minutes.

Hitting the ice arena after a long, stressful day of work helped me relax and get me off my office chair. It also gave me some bonding time with my kids. Xuân, my five-year-old, has been enjoying ice skating. I tried to give him a bit of lessons, but I let him find his own rhythm for the most part. Đạo, my twelve-year-old, is very careful; therefore, he picked up techniques slowly. He is still working on his hockey stop, but he is a bit frustrated because he doesn’t think he is making any progress. Đán, my nine-year-old, is the best skater out of all of us. He excels because of his fearlessness. I demonstrated whatever I had learned in class and he would master it. For example, he now can complete a 180-turn and continue to skate backward. I still can only turn in place. I wanted him to take ice hockey lessons, but he refused. I also wanted him to wear his helmet and protective gears, but he only wears his helmet and not protective gears. Last week, he banged his knee against the wall. If he had his knee pads on, he wouldn’t be hurt so bad.

I invested in a pair of Bauer Supreme S29. Because I fit in a junior size, it cost $130 instead of $260 for senior size. It has been a painful experience to break in. When it was brand new, I could barely stake for three minutes. Despite the expert advice, which I had to lace up as tight as possible, I loosened up my lace a bit. Now I can skate for ten minutes. As I get more comfortable, I will tighten it up bit by bit.

I am looking forward to my next Adult 3 ice skating lessons. I signed up with Fairfax Ice Arena to be closer to home. The current one is with Medstar Capitals Iceplex, which is closer to my work. My plan was to go to ice skating lessons after work, but the pandemic has changed that. Now I work from home. The curriculums for the two locations are different, but I tried to match up as best as I could. I hope this one will be as good as the current one. I also want to compare which place provides better lessons.

Short, stirring, and soul-shattering, Natasha Trethewey’s memoir recounts the unbearable tragedy of domestic violence. Growing up as a biracial child, Tretheway bonded with her black mother despite her parents’ divorce. Their mother-daughter relationship was great until her mother remarried to an abusive, possessive man.

Poetic, poignant, and piercing, Trethewey’s storytelling has multiple layers. She changed from first-person to second-person narrative. She included her mother’s own writing. She also transcribed the chilling phone conversation between her mother and her stepfather. Their exchange gives us a sense of how it was impossible for a woman to leave her abusive husband.

It’s a powerful book that can be read in one gulp, but the story will stay with you for a long time.

Note

When Trethewey discovered that her stepfather had read her diary, she writes (p.108):

No longer was I content to describe my days, to begin my entries “Dear Diary,” to write as if to an intimate friend, a second self. Instead, I turned the page on any notion of privacy, certain that he would read whatever I wrote, and began again.

“You stupid motherfucker!” I wrote. “Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing? You wouldn’t know I thought of you like this if you weren’t reading my diary.” Each entry thereafter was a litany of indictments, my accounting of all the things he had done. Not only had I stopped expecting that my words could be private, but also I had begun to think of them as a near-public act of communication, with a particular goal, and that there could be power in articulating what I needed to say. Even more, there was something powerful in writing it. In my first act of resistance, I had inadvertently made him my first audience. Everything I’d needed to articulate came out in those pages, raw and unfiltered, and I felt for the first time in this new voice I inhabited a profound sense of selfhood. I could push back by not holding inside what might otherwise have continued to divide and erode me.

In her riveting memoir, Mariah Carey opens up about her family, marriages, and music. As a child, she experienced abuse at home and racism at school. As a wife of a powerful man in the music industry, she lived under constant surveillance and imprisoned in her own extravagant house.

While her life was suffocating, her music was taking off. She writes, “Though I was recording Daydream, parts of my life were still quite a nightmare. I was writing and singing upbeat songs like “Always Be My Baby,” and sweeping ballads like “One Sweet Day”.” She also shares insights and inspirations for the songs she had written, sung, and recorded with top producers including Jermaine Dupri. Her success included 19 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Music saved her life.

With the help of Michaela Angela Davis, who makes her prose stronger, Ms. Carey has written a beautiful, heartbreaking, and hopeful memoir. I loved it.

Now for just $5, you can support my web book, Professional Web Typography, and download sample projects including résumés, branding guidelines, blog post, editorial design, and the demo for the web book itself. All of these sample pages are created using simple HTML and CSS to help you get started.

For example, you can use the résumés I have built, replace all the content, switch up the typography, and rearrange the grid to make it your own. You can use the blog post I have designed and adapt to your own blog. You can also use my web book as a template to build your own web book. I made this offer because people had emailed me to ask if they could use the template for their own project. Of course, I said yes.

When I first started doing web design, I learned by taking people’s source codes and changing them to make my own; therefore, I encourage you to download the source, spend some time reading the markups, and experiment. If you messed up, try again.

After the disastrous failure of trying to upgrade MODX, which brought down the Scalia Law website for almost an entire day, I needed to make a move. It was an embarrassment and my reputation was on the line.

I looked into the possibility of moving the site to WordPress or Drupal. The development would be expensive and the migrating process would be long, but we needed to get off MODX or move off a dedicated server I managed.

I presented the options and explained the pros and cons to my supervisor, but she had another idea in mind. She was neither impressed with WordPress or Drupal. Moving almost 1,200 pages to another platform seemed scary and daunting. She suggested that we should look into MODX Cloud. My worries turned into excitement when she made that suggestion. I didn’t think it would be an option because I strongly advised that we move to MODX Cloud a few years ago, but it didn’t work out.

I immediately reached out to the MODX Cloud team and they offered to take care of the migration for us at no charge. In the past few weeks, they worked closely with me to make sure the migration went smoothly. They explained everything I needed to know. They moved and tested our site on their Cloud platform. They made suggestions to improve our site. I was amazed with the level of support they had provided us at no cost. We were more than happy to pay for the business package and a few extra options they offered.

For the first time in almost 10 years at Scalia Law, I feel so good about handing over this part of my job. A huge rock has been lifted off my chest. Server administration was never my strong suit. I rather have the experts taking care of the server and I take care of the design and the development parts of the site. The most stressful part of my job has migrated. I now can enjoy and focus on what I do best for the law school.

The Scalia Law website is now in a good home. Who can take better care of MODX than the creators themselves? The team was a pleasure to work with. Special thanks to Jay Gilmore and Veljko Mirkovic for their patience and expertise. I am so glad that we’ve made the move. Although MODX is small and its adoption is not as popular as WordPress or Drupal, it is still a powerful and flexible content management system. The people behind it are just phenomenal.

Last night, I put together a webpage in memory of my father. It features photos, a couple of blog posts I have written here, and a video of his funeral. I hope my brother, sisters, and extended family members will send me their photos and written memories of him.

The typeface is the variable version of Piazzolla, designed by Juan Pablo del Peral for Huerta Tipográfica. Piazzolla is a versatile type system with great Vietnamese support.

This is my way of paying a tribute to him. I can always visit him here. He’s not just in my heart and mind, but also in my virtual home. I love you, dad!

My phone rang around 2:15 in the morning on Sunday. It was my sister in Vietnam. I knew something was bad. She cried and informed me that our dad was not doing well. She turned on the camera and pointed to our dad. He was on the ventilator and his skin already turned gray. Fifteen minutes later, he stopped breathing. My heart sank. My sister kept her camera on while everyone did something for him. My brother-in-law gave him a wash. My other sister changed his clothes. I was totally helpless from the other side of the world. My sister told me she needed to do something so we hung up.

I tried to catch some sleep but I just tossed and turned. Around five in morning, my sister called again and asked me to break the news to my mom. I called her to tell her about her husband’s passing and guided my nephew to help her make a video call so she could see his face for the last time before they placed him in his casket. I told my wife I needed to drive to Lancaster to be with my mother during this difficult time. I listened to Khánh Ly’s pre-1975 recording of Trịnh Công Sơn music the whole time I was on the road. I always turned to this special collection when I needed to console my own soul. Through his philosophical lyricism, he writes about death eloquently.

I stayed with her and we talked about my father a bit. We both were grieving in silence. I bought some lunch and we ate together. Her emotion was stronger than I thought. She had been through so much and weathered many storms that came her way. After she went to bed to rest, I went to the skatepark near my sister’s house. It was a windy, cloudy Sunday evening. The entire park was empty. I rollerbladed a few rounds in the beginner bowl then just reclined myself against the curved wall watching the dead leaves blowing and gray clouds floating. I reminisced about my father. I can only recall glimpses of him in my childhood memories. The time he made me a kite and we flew it together on the top balcony of our house. The time when I inserted a wire into an electrical outlet, which nearly shocked myself to death, and he saved me. The time when I sat at the front of the motorbike and shook the steering wheel, which caused the bike to swerve, and he saved me again.

The clearest memories were the two weeks in 2017 when I came back to Vietnam for a conference. Except for the two days I had to be at the conference, the rest of the time I spent with him. He was in such great health at the time. Each morning, we biked to his favorite Mỹ Tho noodle soup stalls then his favorite coffees shops. Then we relaxed by the river talking about life. He was much more expressive and communicative in person than through phone or video. Each night, we went out to different restaurants with our big family drinking and enjoying all the great food my hometown had to offer. I had such wonderful times and memories.

The day he took me back to the airport, he felt sad but didn’t want to show his emotion. He was quiet the entire ride. He didn’t want to eat. At the drop-off, he said goodbye and walked away quickly. I was shocked. I ran after him, hugged him tight, and kissed him on his rough cheek. Tears rolled down my eyes and I could not say a word. That might be the last time I would see him and it turned out to be the last time I saw him in person.

I kept staring at the dark clouds at the skatepark thinking about him. The physical distance between us in the past forty years of my life has shaped my relationship with my father. In my heart and mind, he will always be around as long as I live. I looked up and I could still hear his words and feel his spirit. I smiled at him as the rain started to drizzle. I packed and headed home. My sister called and invited us over for dinner. I picked up my mom and some liquors. I wanted to drink with my dad.

Sally Rooney’s coming-of-age novel explores the complexities of love, sex, heartbreak, class, and abuse. Marianne and Connell went to the same high school. They hardly spoke to each other in public. In private, however, they had unspoken intimacy. Marianne was confident in her own skin. Connell was popular, but had his insecurities. Despite their differences, they appreciated each other’s company. Their relationship went through different stages as they navigated life. Rooney’s writing is simple, poignant, and seductive. Even without the use of quotation marks around dialogues, the flow is never interrupted. It’s a damn guilty-pleasure read.

For the seventh iteration of my blog, I reset the typeface using the demo variable font of Roslindale, designed by David Jonathan Ross. Although this version of Roslindale is still a work-in-progress, David would send it to any member of his Font of the Month Club to try out. Of course, I jumped on the opportunity to test it out.

For big headlines, I wanted the ultra style to grab readers’ attention. For smaller headings, I used the bold display style. On mobile devices, body text set in text regular and text italic at 100% (16px). For large screens, I wanted to increase the size to 125% (20px). At this size, the text weights looked clunky and bulky; therefore, I changed to deck narrow regular and deck narrow italic. The deck style reveals less details at larger size. As a result, I am using six different fonts, but only needed one file. That’s the power of the variable font technology.

For code samples, I needed a mono font, but I hardly write about coding. It would be a waste if I had to include a font in my CSS, but would not using it much; therefore, I used Input Mono, also by DJR, for small details such as category, date, and pagination.

After taking a bath and brushing his teeth last night, Xuân asked me if he could play video games. I granted him permission, which was somehow automatically applied to his brothers. As they turned on their devices, I told Đạo and Đán to brush their teeth first before they could play. While Đán ran into the bathroom to get it done and over with, Đạo immediately released his frustration and protested, “You gotta be kidding me.” He did this every single time I asked him to do something and I had enough of it last night. I revoked his permission.

He threw a tantrum and said, “I hate you.” His sharp word was like a knife stabbing through my heart, but I stayed calm and quiet. I went into my bedroom to read. He brushed his teeth, stumped into my room, and dragged his blanket and pillows to his mom’s room. He came back and asked if he could play. I stayed firm and said no. He got more upset and accused me of singled him out and that no one loved him. I had to point out to him that if I didn’t love him or didn’t care about him, I wouldn’t have asked him to brush his teeth. There was no benefit for me to ask him to do it. My teeth wouldn’t get any cleaner or shinier if he brushed his teeth. He covered his ears and didn’t want to hear my explanation.

He said that I just wanted to make him unhappy. I asked him, “As a parent, what can I do to make him happy? Would allowing unlimited time for playing video games make you happy?” I explained to him the danger of addiction. The way he behaved when he was not allowed to play showed a sign of addiction. The fact that he hated me for not letting him play was a sign of addiction. Somehow explaining to him how game makers used psychology to get the players hooked got through to him.

He went downstairs to make me an ice cold cup of water because of all the talking I did. He brought back his blanket and pillows. He wrapped himself in a blanket, but reached out his hand to grab mine. We held each other’s hand and fell asleep. This kid can break my heart one minute and just heal it the next. I have nothing but love for him even when the love is tough.