This year we welcomed the newest member into our little family. He’s healthy and lovely. His big brother continues to challenge us and enlighten us. As a father and a husband, I am very fortunate to have such a dynamic, vibrant clan. We’re also very lucky to have the unconditional support from our parents and siblings.

This year I took on a new job and the new position has been nothing but positive. I enjoy coming to work everyday and interacting with a nice group of people around me. Like it or not, work plays a big part of our lives; therefore, work can make us miserable or pleasurable. I am fortunate to have found the latter. Let’s hope it will be that way many years to come.

This year freelancing has been a very interesting. I had much more inquiries than previous years, but landed on less projects than before. The economy might have something to do with it. Clients shopped around for cheaper price than quality of work. Some prefer a pre-made WordPress theme over a customized theme that is tailored to their business. Some would rather pay for an existing template than a unique design for their brand. Even though I have done my research and offer fair prices, I couldn’t compete with lower bids, especially with HTML5 and responsive design as part of my standard offering. Since freelancing is only a side job and my time is very limited, thanks to the two boys, I didn’t worry about losing bids. I want to take on projects that are worth of my time and effort. So a few rewarding projects (big or small) are better than just taking on everything. I will be satisfied If I can get a few of those next year.

I have always wanted an iPad, but my wife wouldn’t let me have it. Her reason is that I don’t need it. She’s right, between the MacBook Pro and the iPhone (both courtesy of George Mason Law), I don’t have a need for an iPad. It’s a luxury that I could do without even though I have used my sister-in-law’s first iPad and really like it. My main use of the iPhone, beside work, is mostly reading online and catching up with social media. I am not much of a gamer. The only app I purchased is Instapaper.

Since my wife is not too crazy about the iPad, even though she also uses it when we spend time over her sister’s house, I wanted to give her the Kindle Fire so she could do her reading. The Fire arrived two weeks prior to Christmas and she couldn’t help using it. What really annoys us is the user interface.

I tried to look past the fact that I can not compare the Fire to the iPad, but the user experience really breaks the Fire. It wouldn’t do what we wanted to do like typing. It keeps recognizing the wrong keys. When I tapped on the web pages that aren’t designed with responsive layout, it doesn’t zoomed in the contents where I want to do my reading.

I have subscription to The New Yorker and Time, but in order to read on the Kindle I have to download the entire magazine, which is about 80mb a piece. The downloading time took forever and the Fire sometimes froze in the process, which forced me to quit.

Even though we’re disappointed, my wife was planning on keeping it just for reading and browsing the web, but now there’s a black line that runs down the screen. Just already three weeks and the screen already has a problem. We’re just going to have to send it back to Amazon.

Came back to work for the first time this week and my supervisor told me to go home at noon. I am off work until January 3, 2012. My two-week holiday break will be filled with sleepless nights with Cu Dan and sleepy days with Cu Dao. Still I am very grateful that our little family is doing well. Hope you all enjoy your time off with your love ones.

Over Thanksgiving break, I spent some time browsing through George Mason’s programs of study to see if I could take advantage of the tuition benefit. I found a few that would not only enhance my job performance, but also further my career interest. For instance, the Server Administration and Management certificate program would be very beneficial to my current job even I have requested a training on Red Hat and my supervisor already signed me up for the end of February 2012. I am also would like to enroll into Web Design and Developer just to have the certificate listed on my resume.

The one that really caught my interest, however, is the Master of Arts in Graphic Design. The courses that stood out to me are Advanced Web Design, Brand Identity Design and Advanced Typography. My job nowadays involves more technical than design; therefore, this program will balance out the two. Although I have always been a self-taught in design, I also believe in academic so this would be a great opportunity.

I am so excited about the program that the first step I did was pull together a portfolio, which is one of the requirements for the program. I selected twenty pieces that showcase my web design and development, motion and graphic design, brand and identity. Tomorrow I’ll schedule an interview with a design faculty to see where I’ll go from here.

Update: The certificate programs aren’t covered by tuition benefit, but 50% off for full-time employee. Not only to take them unless really necessary. MA in Graphic Design is still on.

I am thankful for the great new job and a fantastic new boss. I am thankful that my mom made it through a life-threaten situation and recovering. I am thankful that my sisters were looking out for mom when I am not around. I am thankful that my in-laws are helping us out. I am thankful that Cu Dao continues to surprise us with new words and new skills and be himself. I am thankful that my lovely wife is carrying our love that is growing inside of her. He is getting quite big now. With less than four weeks to go and we’re very anxious to see him. Lastly, I am thankful to those who come here to read my thoughts. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving time with your love ones.

I hate coughing. I am sure every does as well. It is extremely irritating. Sometimes I just feel like ripping my throat out. I took over-the-counter medications like Robitussin, NyQuil, Delsym and nothing worked.

A few years ago, my mother gave me the syrup medication that her doctor prescribed to her. I was hesitated at first because it was a prescription drug, but coughing was already worse than hell so what do I had to lose? I took a table spoon, got knocked out, woke up and the cough was gone. Holy smoke, it was like magic potion. So whenever I was coughing that syrup was all that I needed.

Then my mom lost the medication and she couldn’t remember the name. I had to call her previous doctor to track it down. The last time I called the record keeper gave me the wrong one. I finally got it today after speaking to the nurse. The cough killer is Phenergan with Codeine. According to Drugs.com:

Codeine is a narcotic. It is a pain reliever and a cough suppressant.

Promethazine is an antihistamine. It blocks the effects of the naturally occurring chemical histamine in your body.

The combination of codeine and promethazine is used to treat cold or allergy symptoms such as runny nose, sneezing, and cough.

Now I am not going to let the cough ruin my day and night anymore.

Found out that a friend got canned. She was professional, down to earth and an excellent team leader. With such a positive attitude and superb communication skills, she’ll have no problem finding a new gig for sure. What I respected her the most was her calmness even under tremendous pressure. I can still picture a smile on her face even though she got it bad and it ain’t no good.

Even though we never really get beyond the professional relationship, I will always draw back to her as a mentor. She never gave me any advice, but I could learn from the way she treated and inspired the people around her. Think positive and keep moving forward. Hope someday, we’ll reconnect.

It’s already three weeks. Time flies by so fast when you have so much to learn. Mad kudos to my predecessor for being so patience with me. He already took on his new job, yet he is still very responsive to my questions. He has been teaching me so much in the past few weeks. I wish he had documented all of these tasks so I don’t have to bother him, but I am getting more comfortable using command line and finding my way into the servers.

I have been reading vigorously on Linux and Apache and trying to learn as much as I possibly could. The experience has been daunting and rewarding. In addition to server administration, I have redesigned a new layout for the main site and it has already been approved. I am now in the process of turning into HTML pages. I am also rewriting the front-end codes from scratch using HTML5, CSS3 as well as making the layout responsive. ModX looks very straightforward to switch out the templates. I hope that’ll be the case, but will find out when I get to that point.

I am very happy so far with the new gig. I started out being fearful to gaining confidence, thanks to my new awesome supervisor for her support and encouragement. I feel very lucky to be in such a great environment learning new stuff as well as doing what I like.

These past few weeks, I have been watching with Dao one favorite movies, The Little Engine That Could, and the lines that stuck to me was, “If you think you can, you will. If you think you can’t, you won’t. Either way you’re right.” That’s my inspiration. I think I can.

I just made the idiot mistake ever. I have two external hard drives for back up. One is a WD and one is a Maxton. They both contain almost the same contents in case one is screwed up. I wanted to transfer my latest work folder from the Maxton to WD. So I deleted the work folder on the WD and brought the latest stuff over from WD. My Mac stalled and nothing copied over. I got impatient and force quitted my Mac.

When I restarted my Mac, the Maxton didn’t mount. I was like there goes another Maxton. The thing was all of my work had just been lost. I started to panic and thinking of cracking that piece of crap open after wasting an hour trying to get it to work. Then I started to Google and found this advice: “I had a similar problem, then I tried swapping the Maxtor’s USB cable with my digital camera’s cable and the Maxtor started working again.”

That can’t be it, but I tried it any way. I plugged in my camera’s USB cable. The first time the light blinked but still no sign of the hard drive. I took out the USB cable and plugged it back in again and voila. The icon appeared on my desktop. Holy moly, that’s the best freaking advice ever.

New job comes with new perks. I got an iPhone on my first training day. My office comes with a gigantic glass window. I could see an airplane flies by every now and then since we’re closed to Reagan National Airport.

My predecessor used an old Dell laptop since he was not a designer and only used command lines. I gave my supervisor this list a week before I came on board and everything was there when I started my job.

I no longer need to commute into DC. The parking here is cheap and the flexible hours allow me to avoid traffic. I come to work at 10; therefore, don’t have to rush in the morning to get Dao to daycare. Getting up at 8 am instead of 6:30 am makes a whole lot different, especially the winter is coming.

The main campus is just right by my house. I had my orientation today and I dropped by the library to check it out. When I was at GW, I loaned most of the tech books through GM. Now I have access to a huge library within a walking distance.

The best part is that my workplace is only 10 minutes away from Eden Center. The folks around here are so nice and diverse. Now the hard part is to do my job well so I won’t disappoint them.