Part biographical, part instructional, Rakim’s book tells the story of how a young boy from Wyandanch got his start in hip-hop and shares the lyrical techniques that earned him the name the God MC. As expected from a lyricist, Rakim’s prose is poetic and eloquent. His music-writing process is intriguing. I have tremendous respect for Rakim to stay true to himself and his music. An engaging and inspiring read.

I am still off Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg still has not learned from his mistakes; therefore, I have no hope for the platform to get better. I have deactivated my account, but I will not have any problem deleting all of my content on there. I need to hand the key over to someone else at work to maintain the Law School’s page. Until then, I just keep my account deactivated.

I have not deactivated Twitter and I am having a hard time staying off it. I keep logging back in to check for updates. I need to be more discipline with Twitter. I should just leave my my phone in my book bag instead of my pant’s pocket. That way, I won’t have access to it.

I read voraciously these days. I wake up at five in the morning and read until 7:30 before waking up the kids. At work, I read for half an hour or an hour during lunch. At night, I read again from 10 pm to midnight.

I am so zoned out of politics. It feels great not to get all worked up what that clown said or tweeted. Life feels much better without getting suck into his non-sense. Then again, I already have enough non-sense from my kids to deal with.

Have a great weekend, friends. I have Boyscott meeting, birthday parties, and a death celebration to attend. Life is never slowing down even on the days off.

Chăn lợn là một nghệ thuật. Bọn chúng không chỉ ăn no rồi ụt ịt cả ngày mà còn tranh đấu nhau mãnh liệt. Qua những chi tiết nuôi dưỡng lợn và những lời trò chuyện với bọn chúng, nhà văn Nguyễn Xuân Khánh dùng chất lợn để miêu tả những ô nhiễm của bản chất loài người. Những hư cấu đi quá xa với sức tưởng tượng của tôi. Tuy truyện khá thú vị nhưng tôi vẫn thích đọc sách phi hư cấu hơn.

Kantor and Twohey provide readers blow-by-blow behind the scenes of their investigative report into Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assaults. Their stories of talking to the sources as well as fending off the Weinstein army of lawyers and spies are fascinating. The book also covers Christine Blasey Ford’s account against Bret Kavanaugh. I have tremendous respect for both of these New York Times’ journalists. An engaging and enraging read, which caused me to stay up and get up early in the morning in the past three days to plow through.

A few months ago, a couple of young men knocked on our door during dinner time. I was about to send them away until one of them started to speak Vietnamese to me. He explained to me that he could get us a new roof from our home insurance if I let his crew inspect our roof. I couldn’t turn away a fellow Vietnamese so I agreed. They discovered that a hail storm sometimes in July had damaged our roof and they made a claim to our insurance. After they reached the deal with the insurance’s inspector, the insurance agreed to pay for our new roof as well as our shed.

Last Saturday, they came at 7:30 am and installed the new roof around 1 pm. I haven’t have a chance to go to the roof to check, but it looks good. They didn’t do the shed yet. I am hopeful that they will keep their word and come back to do it this weekend. Other than that I am satisfied with their service.

Update on November 3, 2019: Two weeks had gone by and they have not come back to do the shed. I called the Vietnamese guy last week and he he said this week. I am not going to waste my time complaining or making a big deal out of it. I am just disappointed. I also found a dozens of nail the left behind on the gutter. My wife found about a dozen on our yard. My son also found one on the driveway. Luckily, we didn’t drive our cars over it.

Update November 16, 2019: They finally came back to do the shed and they did a good job. I am not sure if they kept their word or they knew they wouldn’t get the second half of the payment if they didn’t finish the job. Early in the week, my insurance forwarded me the final bill they submitted claiming that the job was done, but I responded that they did not finish their job and told my insurance to hold off the payment. It turned out that the payment would go to me and I would pay the contractor. I would have refused to pay them if the job was incomplete. It’s all good now.

I recommend United Roofing & Exteriors after all.

It’s been only six months and I can’t even wait for our obligation to be over in another six months. I was expecting it, but it is getting way too uncomfortable. The level of awkwardness is getting unbearable. It is really a damn shame that it has to be this way. I hate to put a crack in a relationship, but we have offered what we could. We have done what we could, but we simply can’t change someone else’s thoughtlessness. It is what it is. I can’t do shit about it. I just have to patiently waiting it out.

On Saturday evening, I drove Đán and his cousin (same age) home after their Taekwondo’s class. I let them watched Curious George. At a red light, I peeped at them from the mirror. While Đán glued to the TV, his cousin turned away from him, put his finger up his nose, sucked the finger, and repeated rapidly. He definitely knew what he was doing; therefore, he tried to hide it from us.

I didn’t know whether I should let him know or let it go. Two years ago, he did it without hiding while I was driving and I told him nicely not to do that. For a while, I thought he stopped, but apparently he has not. He doesn’t do it in the open, but he does it when he thinks no one is watching. I decided not to say anything and just let him have his moment. I am sure he will grow out of it.

At dinner last night, his grandma (my mother-in-law) gave him a silkworm to tried. He tried it, liked it, and asked for more. She told him that if he like it he can ask his mom to make it for him. As he popped another one into his mouth, Đạo told him it was a silkworm and he freaked out. His face got red and he went to the bathroom trying to spit it out. He didn’t want to finish his rice with grilled pork. I thought to myself, “Dude, you ate your boogers yesterday. Silkworms aren’t as gross.” Then again, Đạo’s friends freaked out when he brought silkworms to school for lunch.

It was clearly a psychological effect. He was enjoying the silkworms until he knew they were “worms.”

Calport’s Digital Minimalism is a practical, approachable guide to unplug from the digital world and getting back to the real world. He lays out a plan for a thirty-day digital detox including uninstalling apps off your phone (especially social media apps), limiting access your phone (even when taking a walk), and learning new skills with your hands (setting goals for fixing your house). Whether I can apply his philosophy of technology use into my own life remains to be seen, but he has inspired and motivated me to make some changes to my digital life. I uninstalled Facebook app off my phone and temporarily deactivated my account. I unfollowed a handful of people on Twitter and logged off. I didn’t have Twitter app installed on my phone. My next goal is to limit my use of my phone. I am also intrigued with the concept of financial independence, but I am not sure if I can incorporate it into my life at this time. If you are thinking of minimizing your digital life, this book is worth reading.

I am reading Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism and trying to detox for the hundredth time. I am fed up with Facebook allowing disinformation to spread on its platform. I removed Facebook app off my phone and temporarily deactivated my account. I am logging off Twitter as well. I’ll spend this weekend hanging out with the kids and reading Newport’s book. Have a great weekend, folks.

When accepting the offer from George Mason University, I thought I would only stay for a year or two. Eight years later, I am still with the Law School. It has been a long, challenging, rewarding journey for both my professional career and personal life.

I joined the Law School after leaving a stressful job. At first, I hesitated to take on a new role as Web Services Developer, which included server administration as part of the job. I didn’t know anything about Linux. I had never used the command line. I never heard of the content management system called MODX. I spent my first week googling how to set up RSA and SSH to access the servers. I read online documentation just to add my own admin account in MODX. It was a huge hurdle to get through in the first six months. I almost quit.

While the technical challenges stressed me out, the people I worked with were awesome, especially my kind, understanding supervisor. I simply could not let her down. She gave me the support and the flexibility I needed to balance my work and life. It is extremely important to me to have the flexible schedule because I young kids. I cannot put all the burden on my wife. Getting them to daycare and school in the morning is a challenge. Taking days off when they got sick is a must. Chaperoning them to field trips is part of being a parent. In eight years, my boss never expressed any negative vibe when I requested time off, came to work a bit late, or left a bit early. To reciprocate her generosity, I never hesitated to work on weekends or late-hours when I had to.

What has been so great about this job is the trust she placed in me. Without micro-management, I thrived on my own. She didn’t have to tell me what needed to be done. I took on projects that needed attention and look for projects that would benefit the school. In the past eight years, I expanded from three sites to thirty sites. In addition to MODX, I implemented WordPress Multisites to offer anyone in the Law School a web presence and still manageable. Even though my responsibilities were strictly web services, I offered graphic design solutions and created a unified brand for the school. It saved the school tons of money from hiring outside design agencies.

Several years ago, I was promoted to Director of Design and Web Services. In the new role, I am supervising a junior web developer to help me out with daily requests and web support for the thirty sites we’re maintaining. I am giving him the flexible and the trust that my boss has given me. At the moment, everything seems to go well.

I don’t know what the future will be like as we’re the process of hiring a new President for the University and a new Dean for the Law School. I am not sure how the new changes will have an effect on me. I do not want to think too much about things that I cannot control. I do hope that my supervisor won’t be retiring anytime soon. That will change everything.