Dana, Duke and I had lunch at Roti. We felt the booth shaking. I thought the other folks at the end of the booth were shaking it. Dana thought the Metro was running beneath us. Then all of the sudden everyone ran out of the place. The workers told us to evacuate. I grabbed Dao and we ran out. My work place closed down after I sent Dana and Dao home. The Metro is now crazy crowded. So I am stopping by Starbucks waiting for the traffic to calm down.

That was the first time I felt the earthquake. I didn’t really know what it was. Thank goodness nothing happened.

Dao’s summer camp ended last Friday. His teachers sent some photos of him singing, dancing and playing with the water. Dao made some impressive progression over the summer.

Dao no longer cried when we dropped him off in the morning. He could sing the entire “ABC” song and six bars of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” He also mastered “The Wheels on the Bus.” He could count in Vietnamese from 1-8 and 10 (he still leaves out the 9). In English, he counted “1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16.” I am sure he’ll fill in the missing numbers one of these days.

What impressed me the most is his manner in communication. For example, when he wants to play with the iPod, he would ask, “Ba, ba cho Dao muon iPod, please” [Daddy, daddy, let me borrow the iPod, please]. As much as I try to restrict him from using the iPod, I cannot say no to that. When I handed over the iPod to him, he would response, “Thank you, daddy.” We no longer have to reminded him that.

Whenever one of us sneeze, he would say, “bless you.” When I coughed, he said, “Ba, ba, be careful.” Earlier today, Dana expressed some pain and he asked, “Mommy, are you ok?” I rested my leg against the table, he said, “excuse me,” as he tried to walk by. Whenever he needed me to do something for him, he would tell me, “Ba, ba, help Dao.” The other day I spilled milk on the floor. He ran into the kitchen, picked up the towel, wiped up the milk and said, “Dao help daddy clean up.” The only thing I could do at such moment was held him tight and gave him a big kiss. What a sweet boy.vSure there are sweet moments like that as well as not so sweet moments that I just wanted to spank him, but kids are kids.

I am really glad that he’s picking up quite a few good manners over the summer. I also think that he’ll be a great big brother. He gets along well with other kids and has not have any problems like fighting for arguing with his peers. As seem in this video, his treated his six-month cousin with love and kiss.

Spent the whole morning attending student orientation. I sure felt like being a student again. I only have one more week until classes begin. The good thing is that I’ll start out with foundation courses: “Introduction to Structured Programming” and “Database Design and Applications.”

About two weeks ago, I met with the chair and she is super wonderful. She looked at my transcripts and told me that she doesn’t see any of my undergraduate classes that are equivalent to the foundation courses for the program. I quickly told her that I don’t have a problem taking the prerequisites and then she enrolled me into the foundation courses.

I am going to have to put my design aside and concentrate on the programing side. Looking at the core and elective courses ahead, I am actually very excited because they seem to complement well with my current direction in web development. So I am definitely looking forward to going back to school. One of the perks of working at the school I am attending is that my colleagues who work in the program are looking out for me. Awesome!

Update: My professor uploaded the syllabus on Blackboard. The book for the class, Modern Database Management (10th Edition), is $190. Back in my days (10 years ago), books were about $60 on average and I thought they were too damn expensive. $190 for a book? Holy smoke.

New to Drupal? Ric Shreves and Brice Dunwoodie’s Drupal 7 Bible is a perfect starting guide. From the painless installation process to all the core features to customizations, Shreves and Dunwoodie make Drupal seems less intimidating than it appears to be. By using Drupal, one can set up a solid, powerful content management system without touching the codes.

I am fairly new to Drupal simply because most of the work I have done could be accomplished using WordPress. While both WordPress and Drupal are content management systems, they serve different purposes. The choice to implement one over the other is up to the web designers and developers, but to have both for us to use for free is a huge advantage.

Column count is one of my favorite CSS3 properties. If you’re using modern browsers, you can see that I am using it right now on this site. Each blog post is divided into two columns. The big headings separate each post. Column count works well with long posts, but not for shorter ones. The one-sentence post would look awkward with one line being spread out into two columns.

After digging around, I found a simple solution that allows me to set a limit number of words before making the split. So now the post will remain one column if the text is less than 100 words. Isn’t that sweet? Another reason to love WordPress.

We had a blast at my in-law’s annual family reunion last week. We booked an eight-bedroom house at Indian Beach, NC. More than thirty of us from Canada, Texas, California, New Jersey and Virginia gathered under one roof for a whole week. Dana, Dao and I only stayed for half of the week and that was way too short.

The day started out with breakfast including banh bot loc (vietnamese clear shrimp and pork dumplings), xoi lao Xuong (sticky rice with Chinese sausage) and green (avocado) eggs and ham. After breakfast, we headed toward the beach, which is about 10 feet from the house, then back to the swimming pool on the deck and then the jacuzzi.

Everyone gathered around the house for lunch, which included bun bo Hue (Hue’s vermicelli soup), roast pig, and pork chops with rice. Each individual family prepared a meal a day. After lunch, some folks took naps; some went back to the water, some played pool and foosball in the basement. Most of the women gathered into the entertainment room to watch kdrama.

Then we returned once again for dinner, hung out, watched TV or just chatted. On Thursday night, I bought a bottle of Patron and thought that not too many people would drink it. We only ended up with 2 and a half shots each. I should have gotten two bottles.

Dao had a lot of fun hanging out with his cousins, particular Aiden who is a couple months older than him. They chase each other around the house for Thomas Train, but then sat together to watch “Curious George” on my iPod. Dao loved both the pool table and foosball. Everyday he made me play with him. He didn’t like the water, yet the last day he wanted to stay in the pool.

Last night, I put together a video with various clips I filmed.

These days I no longer have the luxury of reviewing music in depths so I am just going to drop a quick list of what I am listening to.

Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne. A fruitful collaborative effort between two rap giants. Although Kanye can’t match Jay bar for bar, he holds up on his own. The beats are crazy. Check out “Niggas in Paris.”

Toc Tien’s My Turn. Toc Tien is one of Thuy Nga’s bright young stars. She’s not one of the sexiest singers, but still a pleasure to watch and to hear. My Turn is a bit bland, but enjoyable for a trendy pop album.

Siu Black’s K’Bing Oi. Siu Black gives some classic tunes some rock flavors with her big voice. Her version of “Con Chut Gi De Nho” is pretty damn hot.

Giang Tu and Phuong Hong Que’s Can Nha Mau Tim. Giang Tu has become one of my favorite war-related singers. His version of “Mot Mai Gia Tu Vu Khi” is quite captivating. He has a big, raspy voice similar to Duy Khanh without the over-emphetic and over-phrasing issue. Like most of the older singers, Phuong Hong Que hardly changes her singing. Maybe she doesn’t have to since she has a distinctive voice.

Uyen Trang’s Khong Bao Gio Quen Anh. Uyen Trang is new to me, but her remix version of “Xin Dung Trach Da Da” is an instant hook. Even the rapping is forgivable.

This is the first book I read on mobile web development; therefore, I find the first few chapters to be very informative, especially the concise history of the mobile web. While I am familiar with the general mobile techniques, the book has tips that I find helpful like using Sencha.io Src to deliver optimized images with responsive web design.

While the discussions of incorporating mobile web with WordPress, Drupal and Joomla! are short (mostly involve activating plug-ins and modules), the book provided some valuable comparison between the three platforms to help readers pick the right one for the project.

Mobile web is clearly on the rise and us designers need to jump on the bandwagon. Even if you don’t work with WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal, James Pearce’s Professional Mobile Web Development provides a great introduction to one of the future’s most popular web browsing devices.

I am using Sencha.io Src to deliver the homepage banner and screenshots for my sites and motion. Sencha.io Src is a free service that optimizes images and delivers them according to user’s device. Sencha.io Src is a perfect complement to responsive web design. The implementation is very simple. All you have to do is attaching this url (http://src.sencha.io/) in front of your image source.

A few weeks ago, I played Jazz for Kids: Sing Clap Wiggle & Shake in the car hoping Cu Dao would like it. He was hooked immediately, but only to the opening track, Ella Fitzgerald’s playful rendition of “Old McDonald.” As soon as the song is over, he would request, “Daddy, daddy, McDonald please.” The song has been repeat whenever we’re in the car.

Yesterday, I finally was able to draw his attention away from the song by playing Clark Terry’s “Mumbles.” He started to imitate the scatting and sounded hilarious. I wish I had the camcorder with me. Dao has learned to sing “ABC” and the first four bars of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” He sang and danced every night before going to bed.

On a different note, I moved his photos from Flickr to Picasa.