My father-in-law is advocating 70 Năm Tình Ca Trong Tân Nhạc Việt Nam (1930 – 2000) to his friends and family. I started to listen to the first part on my way to work this morning. My commute is probably the only quiet time for me to focus on the program. I find it informative so far.

Có những niềm riêng làm sao nói hết.
Tôi viết rồi, rồi tôi lại xóa tôi ơi.
Tiến thoái lưỡng nan, đi về lận đận.
Tình không xa nhưng không thật gần.
Rừng xưa đã khép, rừng xưa đã khép.
Tôi lần mò leo mãi không qua được vách nghiện.
Để gió cuốn đi, để gió cuốn đi.
Hãy cố yêu người mà sống.
Và như thế tôi sống qua từng ngày.

In my freshman year in college, I had a young professor for my first English class. One of our weekly assignments was to read any piece in the New Yorker and write a summary about it. At the time, I knew nothing about design and marketing. I didn’t take the New Yorker seriously because of its cartoon illustrations. Furthermore, I didn’t understand a single thing I read in the magazine. The articles were so long and I got bored just looking at the pages I have to go through.

The young professor was really helpful though. Because she lived on campus, sometimes she invited me to her place to correct my massive grammar mistakes, something I don’t seem to overcome. I was in her class for two semesters in a row and I loved them both. Another assignment I enjoyed doing was keeping a daily journal. She then collected the journal on Friday, read them and wrote back her comments. Come to think of it, she is responsible for my addiction to blogging.

Even after I graduated from college, I never enjoyed reading, but I forced myself to read tech books to learn computer skills. I started getting into reading around the time I began my interest in blogging. I read mostly non-fiction books because I thought that if I spend time reading, I better learn something out of it. I read jazz books because the subject interested me. Then I finally figured out that reading is the best way to kill time like when I get stuck in a doctor office or riding on the train; therefore, I try to take a book with me whenever I go. I just hate waiting.

To find interesting topics for my blog, I started reading online. New Yorker then became one of my favorite sources. I read most of the articles posted online, but a year or so ago the New Yorker limited its online publications to its subscriber. I knew it was time for me to get the print edition. I kept pushing it off until late last year when my niece had a fundraising for her school. If I subscribe to a magazine, the school will get 40% (or something like that). Killing two birds with one stone, I couldn’t refuse. Since then I have always looking forward to Wednesday to read the New Yorker.

What I like about the New Yorker is that I read and learn something new every issue in addition to its political coverage and music review. I appreciate the level of detail in the pieces. I should have subscribed to the New Yorker a long time ago and I don’t think I ever want to cancel my membership. Then I read Raffi Khatchadourian’s “Transfiguration” last week and realized is it good to know all this information?

The excellent piece details the process of transplanting a face to a young man who was shocked by high-voltage power. He was burnt so bad that the doctors had to cut off his mouth, eyes and nose. They had to put temporary pig skin on his face to help him heal. Then there’s an account of a woman who took too much sleeping pills then collapsed. After she woke up and tried to smoke a cigarette only to find out that her whole mouth had been eaten by a dog. This is one of the reasons we will never have any pet in our house.

Sometimes I feel like ignorant is a bliss. The less I know the better. Being a parent every little thing makes me paranoid. What happen if something like that in the article happened to my kids? I was doing the dishes the other day and I turned on the food-waste disposer. Then something occurred to me. What if one boy tells the other to put his hand down there then turns on the switch?

When we bought the house, one of my favorite features was the laundry shooter. It’s great because we can just throw dirty clothes down to the basement. I was holding Cu Dan on my arms the other day and staring at the laundry shooter for a minute and thought what if Cu Dao decided to give his little brother a slide from the top floor to the basement? It’s damn near impossible to do, but the thought occured in my mind.

Then there are sharp toothpicks found around the house. What if one guy decided to poke his brother’s eye out with the toothpick to see what happened? Then the door to the basement, which hardly shut tight. What if one decided to push the other down the basement?

I talked to Dana about my paranonia and she felt the same way, especially about the toothpicks. I am really glad that I am not the only one. Still, reading things that happened to other people give me a chill. That’s also one of the reasons I don’t watch the news. It just creeps the shit out of me.

When you’re married with two kids, what you get for Valentine is something really hot and it is not hot love. That’s right, I got a big hot pot and nothing complement it better than straight shots of Tequila. I am referring to Baluarte Tequila, not Tila Tequila. Now I am bloated, but I got my Cu Dao to keep me warm. Life can’t get any better than this.

I recieved an inquiry from a Vietnamese lady about a web design project last Thursday. On Friday I called her around 11am Eastern time to find out more about the project. She woke up to answer the phone. She saw my New York number and told me she didn’t realize that I am in the east coast. She thought I live in California. I explained to her that with web design she doesn’t need to work with someone locally. I have clients all over the States. One time I even had a client in China.

In any rate, I didn’t get a chance to ask her who refered me to her. I emailed her after the brief conversation over the phone, but she hasn’t responded. If you made the referral and are reading this post, I just want to say thank you.

Almost all of my clients are through referrals. The great thing about recommendation is that I know I have been trusted; therefore, it’s much easier to work with the referred clients. Most potential clients who come to my site would probably see the design I have done, but they probably don’t look under the hood to see how I coded my page.

I prize myself in giving the clients the most up-to-date technologies so that their site will be in good shape in years to come. Now every new project will include HTML5 Boilerplate and responsive design as a standard offering no matter how large or small the project is.

Jane Mayer’s “Attack Dog” is an intriguing piece in the New Yorker profiling Larry McCarthy, a negative-ad master siding with Mitt Romney. She writes:

Romney, unlike the remaining Republican candidates, has served no time in Washington. Yet he’s relying on a media offensive managed by operatives who have long been at the heart of Washington’s Republican attack machine. One of the leaders of this advertising war is Larry McCarthy, a veteran media consultant best known for creating the racially charged “Willie Horton ad,” which, in 1988, helped sink Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for President.

If Romney wins the primary and compete against Obama, negative ads will dominate the media. Whatever side you’re on, don’t let the ads influence your vote. If you see something isn’t seemed right, fact check it.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post on “Carelessness Leads to Stressfulness” and I have tried my best to resolve the issue. After many phone passes, I thought I was not be able to clear the debts. I tried not to think about it, but today I decided to follow up to see where the issue is going. To my surprise, my debt has not only been cleared, but I might also get a big bonus. We’ll see if the check will arrive in my mailbox.

Roger Skalbeck published his annual report on the “Top 10 Law School Home Pages of 2011.” George Mason is #10 on the list. This is based on the older homepage from last year. I am wondering if responsive design will get a bonus for next year ranking.

Even though the George Mason Law web site relaunched more than two weeks ago, the work is still not done. I have been doing tons of tweaking behind the scene including cleaning up templates, CSS and contents that added by others. Editors like TinyMCE are quite evil for people who don’t write markups. Sometimes I just have to let it go and not too bothered with it.

The major work I have been doing is recreating all the banners on the secondary pages. For example, the top banner is now running across the page instead of splitting with the side navigation. So I spent most of my time looking for photos and recropping and recreating the banners. It’s actually a pretty fun, creative exercise. Now that I think about it, all the jobs that I held involved crafting banners. I did a whole bunch when I was at Vassar College. Then I crafted a collection for random rotation when the School of Business rebranded into the University look and feel. Here I am again, pumping out banners after banners. One of my colleagues also helped me out and she likes doing it as well.

Of course I also try to make something fresh for this homepage at least once a week. I like to use this space to not only promoting just my work, but also other things that I find interesting to keep you stay tuned.

Every once in a while, I manage to make some dumb mistakes that could have been avoided if I was being more careful. Last Thursday when I arrived home from work, I received a big bill for something I shouldn’t be responsible for. I knew that the bill was a mistake, but I was irritated. I told no one about it and I just couldn’t through the night. I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t wait to get it resolved the next morning. That’s one of my weaknesses.

The next day, I started to make phone calls and then realized that I am going to have to go through some hoops to get the charge drop. The lack of sleep of the previous night combined with the stress of not solving the issue sent my head straight to the depression camp. I finally told my wife about it after I got home from work and she assured me that it’s not a big deal and I shouldn’t have to worry. I took her advice because she’s my better half and she knows more shit than me.

So the weekend, I left it at the back of my mind and just enjoyed my time with my sons. Now I am just dealing with it as much as I could. If it doesn’t work out, fuck it. As long as I know in my heart I am not responsible for it. If I did I would have no problem paying for it. Though I blame myself for being carelessness, I never pride myself in being a perfectionist. I made many mistakes in the past and I’ll make many more in the future. One of the things wish I could learn from my wife is to sleep it off. She is a master at it. I also need to learn how to calm the fuck down as well to make my life less stressful.