Truth be told, I didn’t read the first edition of Janice (Ginny) Redish’s Letting Go of the Words simply because I couldn’t get past the reprehensible cover design. After hearing a couple of recommendations from the folks in the web content industry, I decided to give the second edition a read and it turns out to be quite useful, especially tips on writing effective headings, clear sentences and meaningful links. Must-read for anyone who writes for the web.

I rarely listen to Vietnamese instrumental albums simply because most of them seem to be recorded for restaurant’s background music. Occasionally there’s an exception, like the most recent Tiếng Sáo Thiên Thai, which is an elegant interpretation of Phạm Duy’s timeless classics from a nameless quartet: pianist Vũ Hồng Khanh, violinist Nguyễn Tạ Thiện, violist Bùi Anh Sơn and cellist Võ Đing Kuân.

Even though the quartet places heavy emphasis on Phạm Duy’s gorgeous melodies and hardly deviates from the written notes, it has dynamic moments of interaction. Vũ Hồng Khanh opens “Kỷ Niệm” with a short, classy intro before diving into the lovely melody. His solo is slow but full of confidence. Nguyễn Tạ Thiện joins in for a brief piano-violin duo. Half way into the tune, Nguyễn Tạ Thiện and Bùi Anh Sơn play in unison while Võ Đing Kuân anchors the beat. Together they painted a nostalgic picture. In “Nghìn Trùng Xa Cách,” Bùi Anh Sơn starts off the low notes on the viola and Nguyễn Tạ Thiện takes over on the high notes creating a magnificent contrast that suggests ocean apart. In “Chiều Về Trên Sông,” Nguyễn Tạ Thiện’s violin soars like songbird flying on the river in a melancholy evening.

Although the ten tracks on Tiếng Sáo Thiên Thai have been covered endless of times from countless singers, the wordless, instrumental versions, which have a wide range of tones, stand out on their own.

Colin McFarland’s Experiment! is a refreshing approach on usability. One of his conversion techniques is to “take things away.” He suggests, “Sometimes taking things away is just as good as adding new things. Before you add, experiment with taking things away to the cancel the noise.” I couldn’t agree more. If you’re looking for guiding principles to improve your web site’s user experience, this book will show you how to do so through experiments.

Dealing with two boys with two opposite personality is quite a challenge. Whereas Dao is very careful and meticulous, Dan is careless and incautious. Dan walked right into the wall simply because he turned his head sideway instead of looking straight ahead. He banged his head against the exercise bike yesterday for the same reason.

When they play together, Dao takes his time to coupling the trains together. He makes sure the wheels align perfectly on the rails. Even I have to ask him to help me with it. When coupling the trains, I did the most obvious: connected the hooks together. One time I watched Dao did it. He pushes the train together and the hooks connected automatically. No wonder he calls himself the “engineer.” Then comes Dan pushing the trains and wrecking the track. Dao gets furious every time that happens. I have to calm down Dao and restrict Dan from messing up the trains.

Once Dao is into something, he stayed really focused. Dan just roams free all over the place, specially now that he is capable of walking. If I don’t hear him in a minute around the house, I better check the stairs. He’s probably climbing upstairs. He used to go downstairs facing in. Now he just tries to walk straight down. This guy is fearless. I am hoping that he’ll learn to be more careful soon.

Right before Christmas break, I received a referral from Jennifer Karin, who is one of my favorite clients, to work on a project for her husband. Dr. Chris Sidford who owns Black Bag, a private emergency medical consultancy, needed a completely revamp of his web site. He would like the new site to be attractive, responsive, optimized for search engines and manageable through WordPress. (I have a feeling that Jen came up with the requirements herself.)

I was planning on taking my Christmas break and not doing any work because I was burnt out from grad school, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity. Dr. Sidford turns out to be a fantastic guy to work with just like his wife. I have the complete freedom to redesign the web site based on existing contents. The logo is the only visual element that I need to keep. Since the logo was set in Baskerville, I started with that typeface to set the tone for the body text. I found a nice, legible version of Libre Baskerville on Google web fonts to be used for the main copy and complemented with Open Sans Condensed for the headlines. They turned out to be a perfect match. For color, I used the red ribbon for links and standout elements.

As for the homepage, I put myself in the user’s perspective when I designed the layout. Since Black Bag is about emergency services, the first impression I would want to convey is trust. Can I trust this service? Nothing could get that message across better than the face of the people behind the agency. The nice, friendly photo of Dr. Sidford assures me that I can trust this guy when I am in an emergency situation; therefore, I used it as the main attraction.

Per the client’s request, WordPress is implemented for managing contents and the design is responsive to be displayed on various digital devices. For the first time I didn’t have to convinced my client that responsive is the approach to take. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy working with return and referral clients.

So go check out Black Bag. You might be interested in this unique, personal, immediate physician access, especially if you travel to foreign countries.

We were at the mall and I took Dao to the restroom. As we were having our dialogue in Vietnamese, two twenty-something white dudes in flannel shirts and tight jeans laughed their ass off.

At first I paid no mind because I was just taking care of my business. As I washed my hand, Dao walked out of the restroom. I called him in Vietnamese, “Dao, wait for daddy.” Then I quickly ran after him. The two dudes laughed harder and one of them yelled, “This is America.”

At that point, I realized that they were laughing at us the whole time. I was not upset. I had faced far worse in the past; therefore, I didn’t let it get to me. I was a bit disappointed because this is 2013—five years after we elected the first black president. Then I thought about it for a second and I concurred with the guys.

This is America and she embraces diversity, which makes her one of the greatest countries in the world. I can’t let those whippersnappers weakened that magnitude of hers.

If you’re a Web designer and haven’t jumped on the responsive bandwagon, Tim Kadlec’s Implementing Responsive Web Design will help you make the transition. As the author states it, this book is about “embracing the flexibility of the Web and practicing responsible responsive web design.” He’s done a thorough job of covering the key components (fluid layouts, media queries and responsive media), but the sections on planning, design workflow, responsive content and experiences are the gems of the book. I’ll recommend this book to my professor to be used in our Advanced Web Design class as well.

Dan visited the allergist yesterday and unfortunately the result is not so good. He needs to avoid peanut, milk, egg, sesame and shell fish. His mom who is still nursing him needs to avoid those as well. Poor babes.

Dao went to the clinic last Friday and he’s still highly allergic to peanut and cashew. Speaking of Dao, he said some funny things today. When he was done eating, he said, “Đạo xong ăn.” He literally translated from English to Vietnamese.

The last few nights, he prefers one-piece pajama. The only problem is that when he needs to poop he has to unzip the entire suite. Last night when he needed to go, he called me, “Daddy, I need to go poo-poo. The poops wake up.” Really, the poops wake up?

Seeing his mom coming home from work, Dao opened the door and greeted, “Hello mommy! I miss you very much.” He went on, “Do you have something special for me?”

As we walked to our car yesterday from the daycare another Asian kid, probably a bit younger than Dao, was screaming while walking with his mom. I asked Dao, “Why is he screaming?” He replied, “Because he’s not listening. Bạn hông có ngoan.”

At dinner time last night, Dan fell and hit the chair. he had a deep cut in his upper eye right above his upper eyelid like he has a blepharoplasty. We knew that he was alright when he took toys from Dao and ran toward me. It’s always painful to see your kids getting hurt. The playground accident with Dao still haunts me. The good thing is that Dao’s head is very hard. My mother compares his head to a coconut.

I know I always whine about how hard it is to have kids, but they do changed my life. I am thankful everyday to see them play and grow.

I started blogging in 2004 to improve my English and it has turned into my longest hobby yet. Somehow the ability to write anything and publish immediately have been so gratifying to me. I spent an incredible amount of time, energy and gut feelings on this blog. For nine years, I always feel the urge to write about subjects that I am passionate about. Lately they have been mostly about my kids.

While many have moved to social networks like Facebook and Twitter, I still prefer having my own blog. At the end of the day, the blog is more of what I am identified with. I have complete control of every aspect of the site and every design decision. I probably feel different if I am not a web designer, but this is my territory.

Late last year a friend and a reader asked me why I disbanded the comment section and I gave him several reasons:

1. Spams were simply a pain to deal with.
2. I constantly got suck into checking for new comments.
3. I always felt obligated to response to comments, especially the negative ones.
4. Comment trolls were also pain to deal with.
5. Conversations had moved to social networks.

Without the comment section my traffic has dropped tremendously, but then it also allow me to be more focused. Initially, I was just going to shut down the comment section for a month to see how things went and it turned well so I haven’t turned it back on.

So yes I’ll continue to blog or find time to blog as long as I still maintain this site.