Our whole family arrived at Liberty around 4:30 pm yesterday. I skied with my wife, Xuân, and Vương while Đạo and Đán went on their own. We began on Dipsy Doodle. Although it was a green trial, it seemed to be more dangerous than the blue, black, and double black trails. Experienced and inexperienced skiers and snowboarders just zoomed down. I had to turn around many times to make sure no one would crash into me.

After one run, I decided to take Vương on the blue trail, which would be safer than Dipsy Doodle. We started off on Upper Heavenly. Xuân guided him through the moguls. When we reached Whitney’s Way, however, he was just gunning down. I freaked out trying to keep up with him. Fortunately he didn’t fall. After we met up at the lift, I asked him what happened. He replied, “I couldn’t control my speed, but I remembered you told me to bend my knees.” I was glad he made it. He wanted to do it again, but I didn’t let him. I need to teach him parallel turns and proper stopping techniques.

We didn’t get home until 11:00 pm and went to bed around midnight. No one could wake up this morning, except for me. I left the house around 6:30 am and arrived at Liberty at 8 am. I went to the back side to practice my carve turns. I determined to get it down this season. This tutorial helped.

I switched out to my snowboard for two runs and left at noon. The crowd was picking up when I left. The rental line was long. I was so glad I didn’t have to wait in line for rentals.

When we go skiing, I am responsible for bringing most of our things. I am getting used to it now, but here’s the checklist:

Must-Have

• Epic Pass

Equipments

• Skis
• Ski boots
• Ski polls
• Snowboard
• Snowboard boots

Protective Gears

• Helmet
• Goggles
• Beanie
• Neck gaiter
• Knee guards
• Padded shorts

Clothes

• Thermo pants
• Thermo shirt
• Ski socks
• Ski pants
• V-neck sweater (optional)
• Fleece vest
• Ski Jacket
• Mittens

Cooler

• Water
• Gatorade
• Beer
• Cold cuts
• Cheese
• Tortilla wraps
• Hot sauce

Snack Bag

• Noodle cups
• Chips
• Candies
• Electric kettle

Transportation

• Collapsible folding wagon

Extra

• Selfie stick

SEO is often targeted machine algorithms. In SEO for Everyone Rebekah Baggs and Chris Corak make the case to cater to users. They called it human-centered SEO. Make your pages readable to the users first then you don’t need to worry much about search engines, particularly Google. For example, make your page title as it is reads as a headline. Baggs and Corak keeps the technical details to the minimum to make SEO more approachable to non-developers.

After snowboarding for several days, I missed skiing. This morning, I left my snowboard at home and only brought my skis. I took Đạo, Đán, and Xuân to Liberty. We arrived at the resort around 8 am—just in time the resort opened. We went to the back side to do runs on the blue and double black slopes. I was amazed that three of my kids just zoomed straight down the double-black slopes without turning.

Three teenage snowboarders saw Xuân went down and one of them said, “Oh my god, that kid just want straight down. How crazy is that?” At another time, an older woman said to me, “They shouldn’t go straight down like that. It’s not safe. They need to turn.” I asked Đán why he snowboarded straight down and he replied, “Lazy has its advantage. I was too lazy to turn.”

I still did short turns on the double-black slopes to control my speed. On the blue slopes, I practiced my carvings. I was getting it now and it felt great. I will spend more time carving on skis.

By 10:30 am, the kids were already hungry. We took a break and had an early lunch. We went back to do a few more runs and left at noon. It was a great day.

The conditions were decent. Upper Ultra, the double-black-diamond slope, had no moguls. I had more chance to practice my short turns on snowboard. I am still learning to carve harder. I arrived at Liberty at 9:00 am and departed at noon. With not much of a crowd, three hours were good enough workout for me.

The latest design of this blog dedicates to snowboarding, a sport I am obsessed with. I just can’t wait to hit the slopes. I don’t have much else to say. If you want to follow my journey, check out my YouTube Shorts or subscribe to my YouTube Channel.

Thank you Sameera Kapila for shedding the light on the dark corner of marginalized identities. This book is an invaluable resource not only for the designer communities, but also for leaders who hold the privileges in their hands. They are the ones that can make the change for their communities. No matter what industry or sector or institution, we deserve an inclusive environment. Just open up your mind and eyes and Kapila will guide us there.

I made a trip to Liberty today at noon since it had a few inches of snow. The wet snow, however, made snowboarding a bit tough. I was having a hard time maneuvering around the huge moguls on the double-black diamond slopes, but I had fun. I did about six runs and headed back home. I was trying to carve, but the conditions were a bit rough. Not a bad day at all.

Grilli Type Foundry:

The Standard GT Pressura encoding now supports 196 Latin-based languages. We’re also offering a Vietnamese add-on to complement the typeface, created in consultation with Donny Trương.

It was my pleasure to play an advising role in GT Pressura.

It’s time for the annual performance review. Started last year, I am keeping track of my responsibilities. Since I write on the daily basis, documenting my work flowed smoothly into my routine. Around this time of the year, I had always dreaded the self evaluation. This year, I am going incorporate my year-long tasks into the evaluation.

Specific examples which demonstrate the employee’s job knowledge and execution:

• Created Scalia Forum Save The Date Invitation
• Worked with the alumni office on class notes
• Worked on WordPress update requests
• Worked with University on moving to GA4
• Provided ITS access to our Google Tag Manager account
• Reworked the slides to double up the dimensions to ensure better image quality on large-screen TVs
• Attended 2023 Computer In Libraries Conference
• Created promotions for the 23rd Annual Judicial & Legislative Reception
• Met with Beacon Technologies to get quotes on HTML and migration for Cascade
• Met with Cascade to get quotes for portion of migration and templates
• Recommended specs for the production server: Cloudflare Add-on for CDN and security, 16 CPU Cores, 20GB Memory, 160GB SSD Space, and 5TB Data Тransfer
• Compared monthly price for cloud hosting services including DigitalOcean, SiteGround, etc.
• Worked with colleagues on Google Tags.
• Provided feedback to a fellow designer on banner designs
• Worked with director of technology on the calendar
• Work with the web content specialist on site updates
• Worked on WordPress support with colleagues
• Researched on Cascade to understand more about its architecture and to ask questions.
• Discussed server administrations with Beacon Technologies
• Upgraded MODX to 3.0.3
• Upgraded PHP to 8.1 on production server
• Upgrade MySQL 10.3.34 on production server
• Rewrote the NGINX web rules to force HTTP to HTTPS on production server

Specific examples which demonstrate effectiveness in organizational relationships:

• Published MVETS’s 2022 Year in Review. Highlights of what they had done in 2022.
• Worked with Law Review staff on developing their new website. The current site was a huge mess. It was powered by the Elementor Full Site Editing plugin. The plug-in was not working correctly. They kept running into issues. I had a meeting with them and I suggested that they need to get off Elementor and migrate over to Gutenberg. They hired developers to do the redesign. I gave them advice and guidance.
• Made ppdates for Voices for Liberty’s Call for Proposal Request
• Worked with Admissions staff to show them how to update the CAS intranet so they can link to videos and PDFs
• Restructured Working Papers on our site and on SSRN
• Posted course schedules
• Attended 2023 Computers in Libraries Conference
• Discussed whether higher institutions should continue to use social media. Why do we send our users to other social media sites where we don’t have control of the content? The sources aren’t reliable. We should instead draw the users from other networks to our site where we have complete control.
• Discussed Open AI (ChatGPT) and Metaverse (VR)
• Attended sessions on web content strategy and web security, which I found useful.
• Tested out WordPress 6.2 release. The Site Editor was out of beta and very stable. You can do anything without knowing any code. It’s quite impressive.
• Worked with the Director of Technologies to move the courtroom videos to WordPress so he can shut down the server upstairs. We should consider moving it into Cascade as well for the migration.
• Renewed SiteImprove for another year.
• Worked on Scalia Forum graphics for print menu, signages, and digital screens.
• Collaborated with the Web Content Specialist to take care of change requests.
• Supported WordPress sites for the Centers.
• Worked on the Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Clinic website in WordPress.

Status and results of previously agreed-upon performance goals and objectives:

• Launched Student Bar Association Website
• Launched the Art Clinic Website
• Published the Request for Proposal for Voices for Liberty Website
• Put together the landing pages for the IP program
• Handled update requests
• Added new adjunct faculty members
• Updated profiles and People Finder
• Updated course schedule
• Updated tuition costs
• Updated student organizations and their officers
• Published the web version of the fall 2023 course schedules.
• Fixed the Events Calendar Issues with duplicating titles.
• Published the Transcript Information for International Students for LLM and FLEX LLM pages.
• Work with the Dean of Admissions on the admit/incoming switchover.
• Designed Voices For Liberty’s speakers page with bios and photos.
• Finished putting up the summer course schedule
• Put the fall course schedule together. The page was ready. Just waiting for the greenlight to publish.
• Added 3 new courses: Law 246, Law 370, Law 427
• Worked with career staff to post the job fair on the CAS intranet
• Worked with career staff to upload videos to the CAS intranet
• Worked with Director of Admissions to add transcript evaluation on LLM and Flex LLM pages
• Worked on adding Google Scholar for faculty members
• Worked with Gray Center to give vendor access to their site
• Worked on the IP Program landing page.
• Worked on updating MVETS pages.

Examples which demonstrate the supervisor’s Operational Leadership

• Created email invitation for the Annual Fall Kick-off Reception.
• Ran a report in Eventbrite for the Capitol Hill Alumni Reception.
• Worked with students to put together the announcement for the Moot Court Competition.
• Participated in the Law Library’s summer workday & Learning institute.
• Updated and added new Faculty pages.
• Created Mason Mentors Profiles for Fall 2023
• Created an online form for students to submit their profile pictures.
• Worked on admissions orientation agendas
• Updated JD Tuition & Costs
• Added new full-time faculty members
• Updated the course schedules for David and Margarita
• Updated forms for Record Office
• Added and trained new content editor for Trial Ad student organization
• Added request form for Event Planning
• Added new content editor for Admit Intranet
• Updated Incoming information for the intranet and switch from Accepted homepage to Incoming homepage
• Worked with Beacon Technologies to set up SSL certificates and sFTP access for the new server.
• Took the FREE Annual Cascade CMS End User Training Webinar.
• Worked with outside consultants to set up 4 WordPress microsites: JurisMasters.gmu.edu , JMCyber.gmu.edu , JMCriminalJustice.gmu.edu , and JMGovCon.gmu.edu
• Worked with ITS and HR to get outside consultants access to our VPN.
• Updated the Fall 2023 Incoming Class Profiles
• Updated the ranking page
• Worked on revising the Online LLM in U.S. Law and Online Global Antitrust Law & Economic landing pages.
• Attended the WordCamp Conference. Since I had been getting lots of requests for WordPress sites, the conference was very helpful. It had a very strong, passionate, and ambitious community. They focused on Gutenberg, accessibilities, and longevity. They were working on a 100-year goal.
• Removed all course schedules and syllabi.
• Republished 2 years course schedules and syllabi.

Examples which demonstrate the supervisor’s Mentoring and Coaching

• Fixed CAS login issues.
• Contacted an alumna about accessing the alumni directory site.
• Completed training: 2023 Mandatory Role-Based Technical IT Security Awareness.
• Completed training: University Policy 1204: Prohibited Relationships with Students.
• Updated webinar pages for Online LLM.
• Updated course schedule.
• Created HTML version of course schedule.
• Updated course descriptions.
• Designed Sixth Scalia Forum’s save the date, invitation, and graphics.
• Replaced the WordPress sliders for the monitors. Soliloquy cut off the top of the slides every time new sliders were added. Smart Slider solved that issue.
• Fixed the WordPress Events Calendar for Voices for Liberty website.
• Re-uploaded course schedules and syllabi from 2021 to 2023.
• Relaunched the Online LLM U.S Law and Online Antitrust pages.
• Updated admissions pages requested by Sabrina.
• Supported outside consultants on WordPress for the 4 JM sites.
• Assisted the Gray Center WordPress site including adding new editors and authors.
• Assisted Law & Liberty WordPress site to provide editors and authors access.
• Continued to update Fall course schedules and syllabi.
• Updated the WordPresss kiosk site.
• Upgraded to MODX 3.0.4
• Created Alumni News block on the homepage and archive page.
• Trained alumni staff to make updates in MODX.
• Updated Voices for Liberty pages.
• Designed Sixth Annual Scalia Forum Invite
• Updated Records language
• Created a faculty site for a faculty member
• Created and updated Voices for Liberty pages
• Updated Admitted Student Intranet
• Updated Mediation Course Description
• Updated Arts Clinic webpages
• Created a form for Alumni Newsletter
• Updated Flex LLM Spring 2024 Course Schedule
• Migrated CDN and Firewall from StackPath to CloudFlare
• Created a Thanksgiving card.
• Created a holiday party card.
• Updated requests from the Records office.
• Updated U.S. Law and Antitrust Online requests.
• Updated MVETS requests.
• Updated course schedules.
• Created new events pages for Voices for Liberty.
• Created a new site for Global Wealth Management.
• Reviewed the testing pages and templates for the new law.gmu.edu.
• Switched to CloudFlare’s CDN and Firewall for MODX Cloud.
• Switched the Admit Intranet from incoming landing page to accepted landing page.
• Created a new subscriber user for Admit Intranet.
• Changed student org’s descriptions.
• Fixed the job links on the homepage.
• Fixed SSL Certificate issue for JM landing sites.
• Created save the date card for the Sixth Scalia Forum.
• Created graphic banners for CMEIL.

Performance and development goals and objectives

• Complete the migration to the new content management system (Cascade)
• Make the transition to the new CMS
• Learn the admin side of the new CMS
• Provide support for the new CMS
• Collaborate with colleagues on the new CMS
• Continue to support WordPress Multisites 
• Grow the network of WordPress-powered sites
• Make the transition to the Gutenberg editor
• Create new WordPress theme to meet the Mason new branding
• Support the law school members (faculty, staff, admin, students) with web-related technologies
• Support the web team members
• Collaborate with the library technology admin
• Attend web development conferences to sharpen up my skills
• Attend design conferences to stay on top of the trend
• Dive deeper into web accessibility
• Get ready for AI, especially ChatGTP