The Boston Globe relaunched with responsive design, as noted on New York Observer:

The spare Globe website has a responsive design that adapts to different window sizes, browsers and devices.

Take a tour of the new BostonGlobe.com to see it in action.

ASU Online is the first higher-ed web site that I know has a responsive design. If you come across more examples of responsive higher-ed sites, please send them my way.

For responsive design inspirations, check out Media Queries. Jeremy Keith’s talk on “One Web” is also highly recommended.

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.

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 😉

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.