The night the undertakers took grandpa to the funeral home, Dao was still up. He ran into my lap and asked, “Where are they taking grandpa?” It then struck me how should I tell a three year-old that his grandpa is gone forever. I replied to him, “Grandpa is going to a better place.” He pressed on, “Why?” I didn’t know what to say to him so I told him the truth, “Because he was sick and…” He interrupted, “The doctors take him away to make him feel better.” I replied, “Well, yes” and he said goodbye to grandpa.

The next day at dinner table, Dao asked his mom, “Mommy, grandpa is missing. He’s sick and the doctors took him away to make him feel better.” His innocent words put tears to all of us, especial his mom and grandma.

Dao had played a special role in grandpa’s heart. Dao was his first grandkid. Grandpa used to pick Dao up from daycare and he recognized how articulate this kid was by just talking to him. Of all the grands, Dao would be the only one that has the most memory of grandpa. We will certainly keep grandpa’s legacy alive.

May your soul rest in peace. Although we’re missing you madly, we know that you’re in a better place. The deadly lung cancer claimed your life, but not your spirit. I could see it in your eyes. You battled it to your last breath and I respect you deeply for that.

In fact, I had great respects for you even before we met. When I dated your little girl, she had always spoken highly of you. The first time she introduced me to you, I had nothing but admiration for a man who would be my father-in-law even though I almost blew my chance. By the way that I was holding the wrench, you knew that I had never done any fixing around the house. Not only you didn’t hold that against me, but you also took me under your wing. I still wish I had a tiny bit of your craftsmanship.

Thank you for being a loving father to me in the past few years. Life won’t be the same without you. I will miss those dinnertime moments when we rolled fried tilapia, sipped wine and chatted about Vietnamese culture. I loved our little discussions on music and lyrics. These last few days, Trịnh Công Sơn’s “Ở Trọ” reminded me of what you had explained to me. These lines have become clear to me: “Tôi nay ở trọ trần gian / Trăm năm về chốn xa xăm cuối trời.” You’re just leaving this temporary place and eventually we will see each other again.

Just wrapped up another project for my Advanced Typography class. I didn’t think I would like it, but the annual report turned out quite well. Accor was one of my selections, but I didn’t know why I picked it. Luckily it has many content I could work on. I focused on the sustainability theme and made it into a mini annual report. Here’s the original (PDF) and here’s my redesign version. Now I have three more projects for two classes to complete the semester.

In another update, I reworked my resume once again using san-serif typeface. I actually got a few calls from recruiters after the found my resume. Microformat seems to work well for findability. I encourage you to make a Microformat resume if you look for a job.

This morning, I had a flashback of Vanilla Ice while driving to work. The memory is vivid. It was recess time at elementary school playground. White girls were jumping ropes and singing: “Lay down and boogie and play that funky music til you die.” I was watching and cheering, “Go white girl, go white girl, go!”

A reader reminded me that I haven’t written a Vietnamese music review for a while. It’s true that I have been extremely busy and my focus had been on the election in the past couple of months. The real reason for the hiatus, however, is that I haven’t heard any Vietnamese album worth writing. I simply got tired of uninspiring pop formulas that polluted the airwave and I also want to stray away from negative criticism. That way I can save my words and time on albums that truly deserve the praise, like Thu Phương’s Hà Nội và Tôi.

Although the concept of Hà Nội has recorded numerous of times including Hồng Nhung’s classic Đoản Khúc Thu Hà Nội, Thu Phương is capable of carrying her own emotion and memories of Hà Nội. From the title track to “Hà Nội Ngày Tháng Cũ” (Song Ngọc), “Hà Nội Ngày Trở Về” (Phú Quang), “Hà Nội Mùa Vắng Những Cơn Mưa” (Trương Quý Hải & Bùi Thanh Tuấn) to “Hướng Về Hà Nội” (Hoàng Dương), Thu Phương has the city locked down. Every corner, every street and every scent come to life in her introspection.

Yet the most personal to Thu Phương has to be “Mong Về Hà Nội” (Hoàng Dương), in which listeners can feel the yearning of childhood when she sings, “Tôi mong về Hà Nội / Tìm lại tiếng ve ngày trẻ dại.” While the bossa-nova flavor gives Trịnh Công Sơn’s “Nhớ Mùa Thu Hà Nội” a fresh new vibe, I wish she stays with the piano solo in the intro throughout the song. The simplicity is just too damn captivating. The only throwaway track is Nhật Trung’s “Tìm Về Phố Xưa,” which samples the bass lines of The Police “Every Breath You Take.” Thu Phương probably throws Nhật Trung a bone for his arrangements on the album.

With Hà Nội và Tôi, Thu Phương once again demonstrates the craft of album concept and the art of storytelling. Unlike her peers, she has yet to let the bar down and for that she remains one of my favorite Vietnamese artists.

On album design: While the music is high-quality, the CD design is horrendous. Tiến Dũng (DT Media) definitely needs to take typography 101. Setting script typeface on a busy background is embarrassing. The text is so hard to read that he has to put heavy drop-shadow on the type. Even with the text-background, the script type is still not readable. He broke major rules of typography: readability, legibility and widow.

I still don’t own an iPad. I was going to get the Mini as my first reading device, but I changed my mind after checking it out at the Apple store. The reason is simply no retina display. Comparing the Mini and the fourth generation is a huge different.

I pulled up this site simply to check out the type and the fourth generation is simply stunning. Because I wanted the iPad to be my reading device, clean and crisp type is very important. Without the retina just doesn’t cut it. Maybe I should just wait for the next Mini release. I wouldn’t mind one of those MacPro laptops though.

My little guy will be one at the end of the month. Damn, a year already? I spent a whole day with him yesterday and realize how much he has developed in such a short time. In additional to food, I learned something else that he liked. As we were stuck in morning traffic, I listened to some political talk on the radio and he screamed. I switched to classical music and he stopped crying and fell asleep. When he woke up I tried again switching from political talk to classical and he listened without a sound. This is definitely a good sign, not like Dao at all. Dao is so funny. Anything that he doesn’t like such as 80s rock and classical music, he would say, “that music is old.”

Before having a second kid, my biggest concern was that I would prefer one over the other without realizing so and that I wouldn’t pay much attention to Dao because of the second baby. Fortunately both are boys and so they could relate to each other. Now it is actually more fun with the boys. Once Dan is a bit older I could just sit back and watch them play. Obviously every once in a while I will have to be the judge or referee.

Yesterday while Dan was sleeping in the car, I browsed a bit on my iPhone and watched a clip of judge William Adams beat his daughter for using the Internet. (Don’t watch this, kids.) Not only he whipped her with a belt, but he also used the “F” word repeatedly. Man, the clip is too brutal.

They say behind every successful man, there stands a woman. I say behind a successful politician there stand many women. Obama’s victory is the proof. Women’s vote helped the president gets re-elected. Among women voters, Obama outnumbered Romney 55 percent to 43 points.

One of Romney’s failures in the campaign was his lack of concern and respect for women. He referred to them as a binder full of women. From abortion to contraception to healthcare, Romney imposed too much politics into their rights. His Republican party includes Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock and running mate Paul Ryan has very extreme opposition on abortion didn’t help either. In revenge, the women has showed these guys that they have no fucking business in their private sector.

Big up to women in power: Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, Claire McCaskill and Mazie Hirono.

I believe Obama will win today. Giving a benefit of a doubt, however, America will face a new low in political system if Romney wins. The truth in politic will no longer matter since a candidate can say whatever the fuck he wants to get votes. The Romney campaign declared early on that “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” Romney has done so in so many issues that still on this day most Americans don’t know where he stands. He made up so many lies about his opponent and faced no consequences. If Romney wins, how would I tell my kids not to lie? President Romney lied and it worked. In fact, he would be reward for lying if he wins. If your children want to be a politician when they grow up, all they have to do now is start lying. Please please please, don’t let this happen. Go vote.

Three Words to describe student:

• Loving
• Talkative
• Imaginative
• Fearless

Likes to play with

• Cars
• Trains
• Nathaniel and Aidan
• Legos or blocks

Child’s strength are:

• Retains information
• Very verbal
• Imaginative
• Fine motor skills

Areas that we are working on:

• Using words when disagreeing with a peer
• Self-soothing methods
• Interest in art

The feedback overall was positive. We still need to work on his anger management. He made tremendous improvement when he started this new class. We’re on the right direction in guiding him to calm down.