I had two hamburgers this week. On Tuesday, I visited Bobby’s Burger Palace and ordered a classic and beer battered onion rings. The meat was moist and juicy, but lacked the flavor. I suppose a true classic doesn’t need any marination. The service was good and the place was packed after 12:30pm. The line was long and the price was decent.

Early today, we went to Dish for a farewell lunch. One of my co-workers is leaving GW. Of all the choices, I picked an angus beef burger. Yes, I know I am addicted to hamburger. The meat was just perfect and the size was not as big as Tonic’s so I didn’t feel so bloated after lunch. I also had a Chimay pale ale to complement the burger. Not bad at all.

I had a morning meeting; therefore, I asked Dana to take Dao to the daycare for me so I could drive straight to the Metro station. The rain caused a bit of traffic. By the time I arrived at the Metro parking, no space were available. I tried to call Dana using a public phone in case she was still home so that I could drop off my car and ride with her. She never picked up the phone when she didn’t recognized the number and it was not an exception. I called again just in case she would think it was an emergency, but still no answer. The day I needed my cell phone, I left it at home because the battery was out and I left the charger at my sister’s house over the weekend.

I then immediately thought of the shopping center nearby. I drove over and left my car there even though the sign said “no parking for commuter.” I didn’t have a choice. The rain started to pour as I headed to the Metro station. I spotted a guy at the gas station so I asked him for a lift. He was Asian so I thought he would help out an Asian brother, but he didn’t. I walked ten minutes in the rain and I was soaking wet. The good thing was that I made it on time for the meeting.

The meeting last to noon so I went back to the Metro to move my car on my lunch break. The rain poured harder so I took the cap over. It cost me $5.65 and I handed the cap driver my credit card and he said, “You use a credit card just for that?” I replied, “I only got $6 left in my wallet.” He said “That’s fine.” I felt bad that I couldn’t give him any tips. The rain was still pouring hard so I decided to have a bowl of Pho in the plaza. The Pho wasn’t that good and the condensed milk in the coffee had a sour taste.

After lunch I took the Metro back to work soaking wet once again. Boy, what a rainy day.

Damn, Dam Vinh Hung hasn’t sound this good in years. Anh Con No Em is a return to his syrupy signature that once made him popular. Other than the title track, which is passable, and a pseudo-swing rendition of “Bien Can,” the album heads straight to trendy pop shop filled with ear-candy hooks and DVH knows the important of singing the hooks. On the rest of the tracks, particularly “Khong Con La Tre Dai” and “Loi Thoat Nao Cho Nhau,” DVH caresses the hooks, makes luscious love to the hooks and even married to the hooks. Unlike many of his previous releases, DHV knows how to control himself. Instead of belting out at the top of his lung, he gives the notes just enough force and power to let you feel his pain and soul. Sure, Anh Con No Em will be forgotten in the next six months, but right now it is on heavy rotation.

Being home for a week sets Dao back to morning crying. Yesterday and today, he clung on to me like a monkey holding on to a tree branch. His arms and legs wrapped tight around my leg. This morning I stayed with him for a bit trying to get him to play with toys, but still didn’t work. I just had to hand him over to his new teacher, Ms. Amanda.

By the time I left his daycare, the parking lot at the Metro was full. I had to drop by the nearby Starbucks to work remotely until 10 o’clock when the reserved spaces were freed to park. The rain was pouring hard. I got to work all wet.

These days Dao and I sleep together. He got up several times looking for my arms. I had to get up to wrap him around me or else he wouldn’t go back to sleep. The problem is that he fell back to sleep much easier than I could.

An informative email from Dana’s aunt’s husband explaining “anh em cot cheo”:

Any way, it’s not C. Bé that I want to write about, it’s about the “coc cheo” that was mentioned in your email. In Vietnamese cọc means a rod or a stick, and chèo means a paddle or rowing. The proper term should be “cột chèo”. Cột means a post or column. I went to Google translator and typed “anh em cột chèo”, it translated to “Brothers rowing”. These four words are used to describe the relationship of two men that are married to two sisters.

Last night we had dinner at B. Minh-Mai home with B. Hương and I consulted with B. Minh about the meaning of “anh em cột chèo”. B. Minh explained the proper term for “cột chèo” is “cột kèo”. Kèo is the sloping part that support the roof (rafter?). Indivdually, cột and kèo are not related, but when they are tied together to become a structure of a house, they are somehow related.

I also asked B. Minh about using “anh em cột chèo” for cousins. B. Minh answered yes and no. No, if family is a single family. Yes, if family is a big family that all members are related up to four generations.

My definition is very simple. We are “anh em whatever” after drinking tequila from the same shot glass.

Here is my response to him:

Thank you for your thorough definition of “Anh Em Cột Chèo.” For someone like me, whose Vietnamese is moving backward and whose English is not moving forward, your explanation is very helpful. Technically, Anh Ky and I are “Anh Em Cột Chèo,” but since we all are on the same boat, we might as well “row” together. LOL!

I also like your simple definition of “anh em whatever.” We’re not related by blood, but we’re related by tequila 😉

We were watching choo choo train on YouTube together yesterday after dinner. Dao rested his cheek on my arm and uttered, “I love you, daddy.” That was the first time ever he said those words to me. I was touched.

Over the weekend, Dao met his niece who is four months younger than him. He held her hand and give her kisses. He also spent time with his cousins Eric and Sammy. They enjoyed mini-golf.

After replacing the steps to the deck on Saturday morning with my handyman father in-law, Dana, Dao and I headed to Lancaster to visit my mom and my sister for the long weekend. Later on that night, after giving Dao a bath and sending him to bed with his mom, I went out with my cousin. He took me to the grown-ass man’s club.

We walked in and greeted by about a dozen of Vietnamese grown-ass men (30s and up) and one woman. My cousin who is in his early 50s seemed to know everyone. They were sitting at a table, drinking Heineken, and singing terrible karaoke. I sat in had a beer and couldn’t take it anymore so I went over to the three-ball billiard table. The two tables that looked exactly like the ones I used to play in Vietnam many years ago. Back when I was eight or nine, I spent all my morning allowances on billiard instead of food. Rather than buying a bowl of hot and savory noodle soup, I bought 15 minutes worth of pool time. If I were still living in Vietnam, my billiard skill would have been pretty good. I probably wouldn’t have to college and go to work. I could make money shooting pool all day. But now, my skill is just horrible. I couldn’t even make a gio ga (chicken thigh).

About half an hour later, a few more fellows walked in. One of them was Dung Lai who is half Vietnamese and half white. I haven’t seen this guy over ten years, but he still recognized me. I also remembered him. His mom and him used to stay at one of my boys’ place. She was something else. She smoked, cursed and watched Chinese TV series all day and night. He was nutty, dusty (bui doi), but with a good heart. His ex-girl who has two kids with him used to go to my middle school. I still remember walking home with her. She biked to school, but she would stopped her bike and walked with me when she saw me. One year after the summer, she never returned to school. A couple years later, I found out that she was pregnant with Dung Lai. I haven’t seen her since.

An hour or so later, another dude walked him. This guy is actually a couple years younger than me. We never hung out but seem each other around when we were in high school or at some clubs. We caught up on each other’s life a bit and he informed me that him and his girl broke up last year. He’s now a “single dad” and “taking care of his three kids.” I thought, “Why the hell are you here? Aren’t you suppose to be home with your kids?” Lancaster sure is a small place. His ex-girl and I used to catch the bus together way back in elementary school when I first arrived in the States. She was smart and sharp. She used to translate for me when I didn’t understand a thing. She stood up for me when the Spanish kids made fun of me. I thought that this girl would go far in life. We went to separate middle school so I didn’t see her until we went to the same high school again. Unfortunately she hung out with the wrong crowd. First she dated his best friend, then him then got pregnant before she could finished high school. Not sure what she’s up to now.

In any rate, the place seemed like a hang out place for Vietnamese guys who were either have nothing else better to do or who were out of a relationship and have nothing better to do. I was so glad that my cousin got so drunk that I had to drive him home. Three hours of smoke and terrible singing gave me a headache the next day. I am not really sure how the owner makes money out of these guys. Time will tell when will the place will be closed down since it only opened for a week. I hope that I won’t end up spending my lonely nights like that in the future.

They say when you married someone you’ll married her whole family. I am grateful to be part of such a loving, bonding, harmonizing family. Make no mistake. I am now inseparable from the clan, but looking from an outsider point of view, the week-long annual reunion is a remarkable effort, something my side of the family hasn’t been able to organize for over ten years. We had one back in 1997 and it was the most memorable gathering yet.

What makes the annual event successful is the commitment from the elders. They show us the value of family’s bonding time. Despite their frail health and hardship of mobility, they managed to attend every year. The youngsters, on the other hand, are the ones that need to step up our game and do our part. We need to cherish these invaluable moments.

For me, seeing Cu Dao playing and laughing with his cousins he might only get to see once a year melted my heart; therefore, my wife and I will make the family reunion our top priority when planning our vacation time.

If you have seem some funkiness on Visualgui in the last hour or so because I was updating the markups to HTML5 Boilerplate 2.0. I am getting into a habit just doing it on the live site rather than on my local copy purely out of laziness.

The design shouldn’t have changed much except for some paddings and margins because Boilerplate 2.0 uses normalize.css instead of reset stylesheet. I also wanted to incorporate respond.js for IE6-8 support and point to the new Modernizr as well as the latest jQuery library.

Big prop goes out to Paul Irish and the rest of the HTML5 Boilerplate folks for sharing this invaluable default template, which I have been using as a starting point for all of my projects.

My first class will start tomorrow and I know for sure that I won’t have too much time to dedicate to this site; therefore, this is the last thing I can do so that I won’t feel so guilty for neglecting it.

Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter IV is finally here and well-worth the wait. Weezy is still at the top of his game. His flows are impeccable and his punchlines are as vivid as ever. Tha Carter IV boasted an impressive guest list from Rick Ross, Drake, Nas, Jadakiss, Bun B to Cory Gunz, but Weezy is still in the spotlight. Because even when he rhymes at ease, his guest stars have to push themselves hard to keep up with him. Weezy has his way with the beats on highlights including “Blunt Blowin’,” “MegaMan,” “President Carter,” “John” (featuring Rick Ross) and “So Special” (featuring John Legend). “How to Love” is the weakest track on the album. Weezy needs to get off the Auto-Tune singing.