Quite a striking story from Zeldman:

While my great grandfather hid in a rain barrel, a Ukrainian villager raped my great grandmother. Some time later, my grandfather was born.

Malcolm Jones on Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue:

Why this album? Out of the thousands of jazz albums ever recorded, why does “Kind of Blue” maintain its hold on our imaginations more than any other? The simplest response is to say, because it’s beautiful.

We just added four brand new gorgeous earrings: Dinah, Christina, Dee Dee and Ida.

Online chats and blogs are changing the youngster language in Viet Nam. For expample: “Ấy check cái phần test đó rồi send cho tớ, nếu thấy good thì sẽ request lại nhé.”

Environmental Studies web site gets a new clean and simple design. Good job, Kevin.

NPR gives us a taste of fusion from Miles Davis to Weather Report to Herbie Hancock.

Gorgeous shots of London at night by Jason Hawkes.

And he hates his job.

The University of Texas at Austin has a beautiful web site for the Office of Communications and perspective students.

Fixing up the house makes me think about my old man. My father and his entire family in Viet Nam are into construction and they are making quite a decent living at it. If I were to live in Viet Nam, I would have followed the same career path. Actually, I thought of him a lot lately and all the anguish I had accumulated over the years have gone. What if he was around me all these years? How would I turn out to be? One thing I know for sure, I would have a much stronger confidence.

When he arrived in the States for a few months, our family went to Dutch Wonderland, an amusement park close to where we lived. Dad lost his glasses in a bumper car ride. He asked me to report to the staff, but I refused. I was shy and didn’t have enough faith in my English skill to do so. He went to up to the guy and made the gesture of the glasses. The guy understood him right away and returned his glasses.

Until this day, I could never forget that bold and strong impression of him. That particular moment gives me strength and confidence on numerous occasions. I would get nervous whenever I have to give a class presentation, but somehow thinking back to that time made everything seem fine. My father was not embarrassed, so I shouldn’t either. I thank him for that.

I called him on New Year Eve and he broke into tears even though we didn’t talk that much. Men have less communication, but we understand what each other mean.