I have been going back to the ice rink whenever I have a chance. I want to teach Vương how to skate. He can now stand and walk on his own without me holding his hand. He seems to enjoy ice skating. I also want to relearn figure skating.

I have been thinking of retaking group lessons to relearn the basics, but I am not sure if group lessons are necessary since I already know the moves. I just need to get them right. Private lessons would be much better for me to get one-on-one feedback. The rates for private lessons aren’t cheap and I also don’t have any goal. I am learning to skate as a hobby to keep me active.

I am taking the self-learning route instead. I am resetting my path. Instead of trying to learn the jumps, I am focusing on nailing down the basics. I am relearning the 8 variations of the mohawks as well as the 8 variations of the 3-turns. Once I nail these 16 skills, I will move on to the 8 variations of the edges.

I mapped out my lesson plan to relearn figure skating. I just need to follow up with it. Writing it down helps me to stick to my plan.

In this short, concise book, Dan Cederholm shares his experience and some tips on designing types. Dan has always been a self-taught learner. That was how he learned web design and now type design. As a result, his approach is less intimidating and more approachable to kickstart a type design journey. This book, which has 18 bits not 20, is a quick, digestible read. It’s inspiring, but not enough motivation for me to begin making fonts yet. I don’t think I ever will.

Over at donnytruong.com, I added a big typographic footer to give people a quick way to contact me. They don’t have to hunt around for me email anymore.

Over at simplexpression, I changed the logo once again. The wordmark is set in all lowercase to give it a simple style. I chose Pomfret, designed by David Jonathan Ross, because of its elegance. I like the simple, elegant, expression.

Because my wife has been so busy, she hasn’t had the time to devote to her passion project. We haven’t sold anything in a while. I want to see if I can use other platforms like Facebook Marketplace or Amazon to make some sales. I need get her inventory together before I kick off the experimentation. I did OK with selling used skis and snowboards on Marketplace. I want to see if I can also sell other things.

Just upgraded Scalia Law website to MODX 3.0.4. The upgrade process in MODX Cloud is simply a click of a button. This could be the last MODX upgrade. The new site is under development in a new CMS. It is expected to launch in March, 2024. We’ll see.

I wen to back Ravensworth Service for an inspection. The inspection took 10 minutes. My brake light burned out. The inspection cost $20 and the brake-light replacement cost $15. It was a fair deal.

I used Ravensworth Service years ago. It looks like the shop has gone through several management. From last year to this year, there are only two older Vietnamese technicians. They both are very nice, but their shop isn’t as busy as it used to be. I actually prefer that over Aalan’s Service. I was thrown off by Khang’s cockiness; therefore, I am going back to Ravensworth from now on.

Neither shop wanted to fix the AC issue. Driving in the heat without AC has been excruciating. Pumping refrigerant is no longer fixing the issue. There has a be a leak somewhere. I am not sure what to do with it. I am just going to drive it in the winter and decide next year what I want to do with it. Since I am now commuting using the Mason’s shuttle, I don’t need a car anymore. We still have the 2018 Sienna as our main vehicle for traveling.

I don’t want to spend any more money on car. It is such a waste, especially with all the maintenances and fixes. I don’t want to have to rely on a car anymore.

I have been using DigitalOcean Droplets to host my sites for over two years now. Setting up the cloud servers was a great hands-on learning experience. The Droplets has been stable and solid. The only downside is that I have to do the update and upgrade every few months. I am fine doing it for now, but what will happen when I am gone?

I just read blog post from Matt Mullenweg on “Preserving Harvard’s Blogging History” and Pressable seems like an ideal solution for WordPress in the long run. Pressable will take care of all the maintenance to make sure my WordPress site up-to-date. The prices are reasonable; therefore, I might consider moving my blog to it in the future. For now, I just continue to do the updates myself to keep myself up-to-date on the backend technologies.

As Director of Design and Web Services at Antonin Scalia Law School, I am doing more of directing than doing myself. I actually enjoying it. Our leader outsources all designs and developments to outside vendors; therefore, my job is to make sure that they meet our requirements. From design, accessibility, accessibility, typography, front-end development, to back-end administrations, I know exactly what we need each step of the way. I have been asking lots of questions and making lots of requests. They might get annoyed with me, but I am just doing my job.

It feels nice to be on the directing side instead of the doing side. I just need to know what the fuck I am talking about.

Do web designers and developers still use Sass? I am still using it everyday, especially for nesting. That might change once CSS Nesting gets more support in the browsers.

I just purchase Dan Cederholm’s Twenty Bits I Learned About Making Fonts and Twenty Bits I Learned About Making Websites (use FALLBOOKS promo code for 30% off). I downloaded the epub files to my MacBook Pro and imported them to Apple’s Books.

I preferred reading e-books on the phone; therefore, I opened up the Books app on my iPhone. I waited and waited, but the new books didn’t synced on my iPhone. I checked my iCloud to make sure the Books app was activated on both devices. Still, no new books showed up on my iPhone. I googled a bit and still couldn’t find the solution. I ran into this issue in the past and it frustrated me that Apple couldn’t just make this integration works.

The hack I came up was emailing myself the epub files. I opened up the message I sent to myself on Apple Mail, tabbed to download the files, tabbed it again to active the share screen, and select Books. That was it. I shouldn’t have to do this, but that was how I solved the issues. Now I can read the ebooks on my iPhone.

Toni Morrison:

I only have 26 letters of the alphabet;
I don’t have color or music. I must use my craft
to make the reader see the colors and hear the sounds.

Word!

I have been sick since last Wednesday. First was the sore throat. My throat was burning so much that I couldn’t sleep. Then the cough. I tried to beat the sickness by being active. On Thursday, I went ice skating because the skate park was wet. My skills are rusted. I tried to learn the waltz jump, the toe loop, and the salchow. I could only get the first two down.

I went back to the ice rink again yesterday. I ended up trying to learn ski carving on ice skates. I think I figured out how to transfer my weight to my outside ski when I carve. Of course, I have to try it out on the mountains to see if I can get it down. My goal for this winter is to nail ski carving.

Yesterday evening, I went to the skatepark myself. The weather was beautiful. I had on a light jacket to block the winds. I didn’t cough at all when I breathed in the fresh air.

Unfortunately, today my sickness is getting worse. I am coughing more. My whole body is a little sore. I am also having a headache. I haven’t done anything but lay in bed all day trying to catch some sleep with cải lương music. For some reason, I always return to cải lương when I feel sick.

I also miss my mother terribly when I am sick. She was always taking care of me when I was sick. I hate being sick. I can’t wait for it to go away. I hope that when the winter comes I won’t be getting sick. I have skiing and snowboarding to do.