Work has been crazy for the past few days. Last night, I pulled an all-nightner to catch up on my freelance projects. The beautiful snowing scene outside and the hot jazz from Dextor Gordon inspired me to stay up to work. I thought I wouldn’t have to go to work the next day, but there was not even a delay.

Here at work, there are so many projects that I need to do so I don’t even need coffee to stay awake. It sounds scary, but I am working around the clock. The only time I get a break is when I am with Duke, which is about two to three hours before he goes to bed. After heading home from work, I played with him, fed him, bathed him and sent off to bed with mommy. I powered up my laptop and got to work again.

I am not complain though. In fact, I am glad to be able to stay busy in this economy. Many friends and family members are losing their jobs and are collecting unemployment. Finding a job these days is not easy anymore.

Lisa Delpy Neirotti, GWSB associate professor of tourism and sport management, will be headed to Vancouver with 28 selected students from her “Behind the Scenes at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games” class.

I am responsible for setting up the Olympic web site as well as coordinating and posting her daily video blogs, photos and press coverages. I just filmed the first blog for her using the Flip as a demonstration to show how the camcorder works and how she could upload directly onto our YouTube account. It’s going to be a fun project and I am looking forward to it even though I don’t get to go to Vancouver.

As you might have noticed, I added a very subtle background to this site to give it a bit of texture. The challenge is obviously not to let the background interfere with the texts. In this case, the content is much more than the background so let me know if you find the text hard to read.

In the section showcasing sites, I broke the projects into different categories. As much as I like to keep everything in a single page, the list is getting long and I am planning to add more as sites go live.

Update: I broke down the motion section as well.

Vinh Thuyen Kim’s “Teen Vong Co” is a typical mid-tempo tune with Chinese-inflected melody until she busts out two Vietnamese operatic bars at the bridge. This hilarious track is the only one that stands out from her new release 180 Do.

Two years ago, I left Vassar behind to join The George Washington University School of Business for personal reason. I couldn’t let go of someone who I knew I would spend the rest of my life with, even though we weren’t even engaged. It was a bold move for me because Vassar was the place I wanted to be professionally. I loved the folks I worked with and I got to design.

GWSB was quite a transition for me. I had to switch from being a web designer to a webmaster. I moved from designing original web sites to following a designed template and I hardly get to work on something from scratch. Furthermore, I am just a one-man shop since I don’t have a group of designers and developers to bounce ideas off with.

The different environment forces me to adapt to the new changes. Most of the time I have to come up with the solutions myself. Sometimes I have to take on more roles than just the web like print, marketing, coordinate, as well as research. In a way, it’s rewarding to learn different aspects of communication.

Although I don’t get to collaborate with my peer designers, I get to work with folks in different field like writer, videographer and advertiser. The trade off of not designing much allows me to focus on the contents and conserves my creative fuel to take on freelance projects. The new adjustments actually work out well for me. Adaptability challenges to grow and I am grateful for that.

Nguyen Khang launched a new site and he has been very enthusiastic about it. He posted on his Facebook page and sent out a blast email asking for feedback of his site. One of the site’s admins also asked me to weigh in on the new site. Since they sound so sincere about it, I’ll give them an honest critique in hoping that him and his team could improve the web experience.

The site opens with a flashy “Happy New Year” animation. It looks cute, but New Year is over. It’s time to take it down. The main page is simple, stark and dramatic, which is very fitting to Nguyen Khang’s dark, compelling style. The design is straightforward and beautiful until you look under the hood. Whoever put the site together is obviously not a web designer. While the visual is hip and cool, the code is at least 10 years old. The extremely unaccessible markups seemed as if they were exported straight from Photoshop with the images sliced up. If you were to turn off image in your browser, all you see is a blank black page with just the footer.

The site designed with tables instead of CSS for layout. The pictures take at least a minute to load. The blog is obviously coming from a free WordPress theme; therefore, you can see the drastic different from the rest of the pages. So there you have it my friend. You know I don’t bullshit. It’s now up to you to make the site function better.

We just launched nine video capturing what our faculty has to say about The George Washington University School of Business. The clips are also featured on the faculty’s directory.

Maybe I have been living under a rock, but I am surprised that the oversea Vietnamese community hasn’t bottle-bleached Dam Vinh Hung yet for his performance of “Bai Ca Nho Bac.”

I was assigned to sell the office’s Panasonic Camcorder on Craiglist. I listed the item on Monday and received two interested buyers with very similar purpose:

Rebecca Law:

Thanks for your mail,i am buying the item for my son who school in oversea.i will add $60 for shipping,i will have do it local transaction but i am out of town presently…so you can get me back with your paypal email account so i can pay now.hope to hear from you soon.
best regard

I wasted my time responded to her back and forth about how I can’t use my personal PayPal account for the school and dismantled the deal. Today I received another inquiry from Mon Wall:

Thanks for your reply… I’ll like to buy your item and pay you with cash through my PayPal account.. Currently I’m out of the State and won’t be available for pick up. moreover, I’m buying this item for my company agent located oversea as a gift, i’ll add the sum of $100.00 to the amount to cover the shipping expenses to him through (USPS) Global Express mail International 8-10 days business. i want you to send to me your PayPal account id, so that immediate payment can be done, and if you are new to PayPal, you can easily log on to http://www.paypal.com/us and set up an account with them with either your Bank account Information or your Credit/Debit Card details and its simple and easier, just in few secs; you get your account activated. PayPal is very secure and reliable.. anticipate a favorable response from you.

Thanks.
Get back to me immediately.

Thanks, but no thanks. Anyway, if you’re around Metro area and interested in the Camcorder, come by and see me.

I am taking a much-needed break from now until next year. I need to rejuvenate myself and spend time with my family, especially with little Duke. I feel that I have not spent enough time with him. On Christmas day, he will be eight months. Time is flying and Duke is growing up way too fast. I want to enjoy the time while he’s still young.

We will be traveling to New Jersey tonight to be with the in-law side until Friday night then head to Pennsylvania to be with my family. Somehow the schedule has been working out so perfectly that we always Christmas dinner at my in-law on Thursday night and another one at my big family gathering on Saturday night. When my big family (aunts, uncles cousins, nieces and nephews) gets together, the party never ends before 2am. We just eat and talk and eat some more and talk a lot more.

We’ll drive back to Virginia on Sunday because my wife has to go to work. I’ll get to spend more time with Duke then. My mom will also come to stay with us for a week. It’ll be nice to be with her as well.

In any rate, I wish you all a holiday season filled with joy, love, and food. See you all next year for lots of new, exciting stuffs.