Chưa từng nghe qua Hiền Lê. Nhìn tracklist toàn là nhạc ngoại lời Việt nên cũng không hứng thú cho mấy. Khi nghe thử rồi thì thích cách chơi acoustic. Giọng hát Hiền Lê dễ thương cùng với nhạc đệm guitar mộc mạc nên dễ đi vào lòng người nghe. Cô hát lại ca khúc “Ngày mai không có anh trong đời” với cảm xúc nhẹ nhàng và tiếng đàn violin của cô mang một nỗi buồn da diết. Với “Còn làm mưa mãi” cô thả hồn theo tiếng đàn guitar và tiếng sáo xôn xao. Album được khép lại với “Mưa trên biển vắng” gợi lại với bao ký ức xưa.

When I heard George Mason working on the rebranding a few years ago, I predicted it wouldn’t be good. Today the new logo was revealed and it’s shockingly bad.

The university claims to create a brand for the future, but the “GM” monogram appears to be stuck in the 80s. The use of green and gold colors on the outlined typeface makes the monogram appear more amateurish than prestigious and more athletic than academic.

The connection between “G” and “M” doesn’t feel natural. The two letters were forced together instead of being “All Together Different” as the university has claimed.

Now we are stuck with a bad brand. Let’s see how long it will last.

My Dearest Đạo,

It is hard to believe you are turning 15. I used to hold your tiny body in my arms and now you are even taller than me. You are becoming a fine young man. I might be strict on you at times, but I am proud of you.

Thank you for helping me out when I needed a hand. I can rely on you to complete the job. I ask for your help so you can learn to work with your hands. When I was your age, I didn’t fix anything around the house. I ended up not knowing much.

When we first moved into our house, which was when you were born, I hesitated to repair anything. Unfortunately, hiring a handyman these days is much more expensive than my own income. I ended up learning as much as I could from watching YouTube videos and trials and errors.

I used to lack the confidence to fix things on my own because I was afraid of making them worse. I don’t want you to lack the confidence like I did. Having some extra skills on your hands will always be useful. You don’t need to depend on others to do the jobs for you.

In sports, you are a fantastic skier. I loved shredding on the mountains with you. I hope we can continue to do so in many more winters to come. If you ever decided to pick up snowboarding, I can give you some tips.

I hope I drilled enough in your head about the importance of education. Call us old school, but your mom and I still believe that education is the standard for having a good life later on. When I was your age, I was more interested in getting that piece of paper than learning, which was my mistake. If you have to go to school anyway, you might as well learn as much as you can. Again, don’t be like me. I learned more after I graduated than I did when I was in school.

In regard to our digital consumption, I am deeply concerned, but I also understand it is hard to pull away from our screens. I didn’t do a very good job of guiding you and your brothers through the digital temptations. As you are getting more mature, I hope that you can manage and balance your time.

Happy birthday, my oldest son. I love you with all my heart.
Dad

I gave iLoveNgocLan.com a new set of typefaces. Body copy is set in Platypi, designed by David Sargent. Headlines, UI elements, and small texts are set in Bricolage Grotesque, designed by Mathieu Triay. Just wanted to jazz the site up a bit.

Lần cuối cùng tôi nghe album của chị Lilian là những ca khúc ngoại remix chị hát bằng tiếng Anh. Tuy đã mấy mươi năm rồi nhưng tiếng hát của chị vẫn in sâu vào tâm trí của tôi. Mấy ngày gần đây tình cờ tìm được album Không thể của chị trên Spotify. Với chất giọng khỏe khoắn, chị xử lý “Không thể và có thể” của Phó Đức Phương bằng cảm xúc của chị hơn là kỹ thuật nên người nghe dễ cảm nhận và dễ gần. Có lần xuất hiện trong chương trình “Tuesday Live Music” của Lung Tùng Xèng, chị cho biết là chị chưa từng đi học hát bao giờ. Nhờ có chất giọng trời cho cùng với kỹ năng tự học hỏi, chị đã tạo một phong cách riêng cho chính mình. Chị có thể chuyên chở nhẹ nhàng trong giai điệu bossa-nova qua ca khúc “Vết thương cuối cùng” của Diên An. Chị có thể hòa quyện với giọng ca Quang Tuấn trong “Nỗi đau vô tình” của Huỳnh Nhật Tân. Chị có thể bốc cháy trong “Trống vắng” của Quốc Hùng. Album này đã phát hành năm 2011 nên một số bài hòa âm nghe hơi bị lỗi thời nhưng tiếng hát của chị vẫn đỉnh.

Damn! I am turning 46 already. The years are just flying by. I am not complaining though. I am incredibly happy to be alive. Life is treating me well. I can still do all the activities I love including skiing, snowboarding, and skating.

I try to stay as positive as possible. I don’t let negativities, anxieties, and uncertainties get to me. I just want to live a simple, stress-free life.

I am blessed for my family. My wife and I are on excellent terms. We get along better than we ever had. Our trust is still strong. A good marriage goes a long way. It helps us focus our attention on our kids.

Being parents in the digital age is a huge challenge. I am just trying to navigate through one issue at a time. I am learning to worry less and trust them more. They will be fine—I hope.

I have been fortunate to have a few friends along the way. They help make my life a bit more pleasant. I appreciate all the bonding, drinking, and bullshitting.

As far as my professional career goes, I still have a job on my birthday. Tomorrow I will have my annual performance evaluation. Let’s see if I still have a job then, but I can’t worry about tomorrow. Today is my day.

Với chất giọng trầm ấm và sâu lắng, Nguyễn Đình Tuấn Dũng trình bài lại những ca khúc quen thuộc theo dạng acoustic mộc mạc và gần gũi. Chẳng hạn như anh biết bài hit thị trường của nhạc sĩ Thái Thịnh “Nếu anh được chọn lựa” thành một bài thính phòng êm dịu với tiếng hát của anh cùng với tiếng đàn dương cầm. “Hãy đến với anh”, ca khúc Pháp lời Việt, cũng được anh hát nhẹ nhàng và lãng mạn cùng với tiếng dương cầm êm dịu và tiếng đàn violin da diết. Các ca khúc như “Tình bơ vơ” (Lam Phương), “Cây đàn bỏ quên” (Phạm Duy), “Cà phê một mình” (Ngọc Lễ) đều có trong Tuyển tập những bài hát hay nhất của Nguyễn Đình Tuấn Dũng. Không rõ đây có phải là một official album của ca sĩ hay là Spotify chọn lọc.

After hooking up the pipes for the bathroom vent, we decided to give the attic an extra layer of fiberglass insulation. The installation process didn’t look so bad from watching this video.

It was the worst job I had ever done. I spent 4 hours yesterday crawling around the tight space full of nails on the top and dust at the bottom. Thank goodness the weather was not too hot. I finished spreading all of the insulations around 7:00 pm. Then I realized I covered both sides of the vent.

This morning, I had to crawl one more time at the edges to tuck the insulations underneath the carton vent. It took 2 more hours.

I hoped the insulations worked. It took 24 rolls at $34 per roll. The total for the materials was $816. The labor was priceless.

I broke my own record for the number of days I spent on the mountains this season. We started the Epic Pass in winter 2021/22, in which I spent 26 days. In winter 2022/23, I spent 37 days. This season, winter 2023/24, I spent 49 days. I put my Epic Pass to good use.

In the past few months, I made decent progress on skiing and snowboarding. My skills on both were about at the same level. It was fun learning new techniques in skiing and snowboarding as if I were competing with myself.

I was glad that I picked up snowboarding. A forty-something guy learning snowboarding for the first time was a huge challenge, but I conquered it. Snowboarding definitely had a young, punk-rock vibe to it. Although I picked up snowboarding, I made the right decision not to give up skiing. I still have so much love for skiing. It got me into the game and I got hooked.

I enjoyed the ability to switch my brain from skiing to snowboarding and vice versa. Both sports gave me so much joy on the mountains. I didn’t feel any stress when I hit the slopes. I just let myself go. I tried to alternate between skiing and snowboarding from one day to the next so I would never get bored. When I didn’t feel like snowboarding, I could switch to skiing. The only downside was that I needed to be on the slopes more to do both sports.

My wife was not happy about it, but she always supported me. She understood my relentless drive. If I get into something, I go all in. Just like when I fell in love with her, I went all the way. For skiing and snowboarding, I wouldn’t do it just for pleasure. I would need to make some progress. I wouldn’t train hard to be a pro and I wouldn’t compete with anyone else. I competed with myself. I wanted to learn something new. I am still working on my carvings.

I had a fantastic season with my family and myself. I can’t thank my wife enough for buying our passes, booking our spots, and supporting my passion. No doubt, skiing and snowboarding are expensive sports. If our family of six would go skiing for one day, it could cost us over $1,000 if we needed lift tickets, rentals, and lessons. With our own equipment, Epic Passes cost us about $2,800. With rentals and food, our entire season cost about $7,000. That was more affordable than a week of vacation, which would cost $8,000 to $12,000, or a trip to Việt Nam, which would cost us $15,000 to $20,000.

The Epic Passes were an investment upfront, but they were worthwhile since we skied and snowboarded more than 10 days. The Epic Pass was also controversial as Vail acquired more and more resorts. On the good side, we could explore different mountains. If we didn’t have all the options, we probably just skied at Liberty, which is located closest to us, and nowhere else.

My wife had already purchased Epic Passes for us. Let’s do it again next season.

As I was driving on the road, I received text messages, emails, and phone calls about our site was being hacked. When someone clicked on an email link on any page, they would get a pop-up form instead of their email client. The recipients would get an email from [email protected] instead of the senders’.

My first thought was our site was being hacked with XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) . I called my assistant on my phone and walked her through the diagnose. I asked her to look for strange scripts in our templates. Then I asked her to comment out the script tags, which included Google Tag Manager and Pixel Tracking. When she commented out the Pixel Tracking script from a third-party vendor, the pop-up form went away.

The Pixel Tracking script allowed them to hijack our site and inject XSS into our pages with any email links. The JavaScript codes created the pop-up form. The submission from the pop-up form allows them to obtain all of the email messages. This is a serious privacy concern. Email communications should be between the sender and receiver, not the third-party.

I didn’t work with them on this Pixel Tracking script. When I worked with third-party vendors in the past, I made sure that they told me exactly what they were capturing. They would need to check with me first before they implement these types of dark patterns. I would also limit their tracking to a specific set of pages under a directory instead of the entire site.