Last night Cu Dan woke up every two hours and refused to go back to sleep. The only way to get him to settle down again was to lock ourselves in the bathroom with the fan turned on and rock him in my arms. In order to keep me energetic, I jammed Thanh Thao’s remix in my headphone and it felt like I was in a club again. The room was dark and the music was pumping. The only different is that I was getting my groove on with a baby instead of a chick.

My car stereo died on me last week; therefore, I have been commuting with no music. This evening when I parked my car at Dao’s daycare, I put on my headphone and listened to Thanh Thao’s remix album for ten minutes before picking him up. Once we were in the car and driving home, one of the songs stuck in my head so I sang out loud: “Thà là bỏ đi hết ta làm lại từ đầu / Thà là bỏ đi hết ta chẳng nợ gì nhau.” Dao immediately told me, “Daddy, don’t sing.” I asked him why and he replied, “I am allergic to your song.” I flipped out hysterically. That has to be one of the most hilariously sad criticisms I have ever heard.

Hôm nay là ngày cuối trong văn phòng của năm. Hai tuần đến phải dành trọn thời gian cho gia đình và ngủ bù. Không blog, xem email, Facebook hay Twitter nữa. Chúc các bạn một mùa Giáng Sinh vui tươi hạnh phúc.

Lại thêm một nạn nhân của ung thư. Căn bệnh hiểm nghèo đã cướp đi một giọng ca hiền hòa của nền âm nhạc Việt Nam. Mông anh trọn một kiếp đam mê.

Hardcore designers and developers tend to giggle when I tell them that I am still using Dreamweaver for my editor. It doesn’t bother me at all as long as I still churn out impeccable markups. I have been using Dreamweaver for many years because it comes with the Adobe CS suite. Why not just stayed with the whole Adobe line? I tried Coda in the past, but didn’t really get into it.

Coda 2, however, is a game changer for me. I started using it a couple months ago and getting a hang of it. I made the switch because Dreamweaver has become way too slow. Firing up the same file in Coda 2 and Dreamweaver CS6 and the result is quite drastic. Coda 2 launches much quicker. One thing I still don’t like about Coda two is the preview. I keep previewing my CSS and js files by accident. I still like to preview my page in real browser like Chrome or Firefox.

Now I find myself using Coda 2 more and more and Dreamweaver less and less. By the end of this year, I should uninstall Dreamweaver to avoid accidentally launching it.

Not sure what prompted me to ask Dao, “Are you a train?” He replied, “No, you silly. I am not a train. I am a people. I have feet. Trains don’t have feet. Trains have wheels.” Sounds like he made his case clear.

As we were stuck in traffic on our way home yesterday, Dao said, “Cars please move out of the way so we can go home.” I asked him, “Why do you want to go home?” He replied, “So I can see my mommy. She’s my best friend.” I asked, “Am I your best friend?” He said, “No, I am not your best friend. Baby is your best friend.” I said, “Oh I see. Baby is my best friend. I miss my baby.” He said, “And I miss my mommy.” He made his case once again.

The other night, Dao took a dump in the potty, got up and shouted, “Daddy, daddy, I pooped butterfly.” I took a look and his shits somehow curled up like a shape of a butterfly. I invited my wife to take a peek and we laughed hysterically. Dao actually is more of a visual guy than me.

The funny thing is that Dao poops a lot even though he hardly eats much. On the other hand, Dan eats everything and yet he poops so little. He does only once a day and his shits look like chocolate chips (the ones that you put in cookies). The biggest he created is about the size of a Hershey’s Kiss. Sorry if I ruined your appetite.

By the way, our little Dan has started to walk. Love seeing him taking his first steps.

I used to be terrified when I had to go to job interviews. In the early days of my career, I couldn’t land on many jobs because I screwed up my interviews.

Right off college, my goal was to work at Millersville University as a webmaster. The University was closed to my mom’s house and I had always liked the environment. When the position was posted, I applied immediately and I was so anxious about the interview that I couldn’t sleep the night before. I chugged down two bottles of Heineken to help me too sleep, but I couldn’t.

The next day, I was so nervous that I basically fucked up the entire interview. I couldn’t answer questions like how would you resolve a conflict with a coworker, how would I supervise student workers and what do I see myself in five years. My work and my portfolio were not even mentioned.

I hated myself and I blamed on my poor English for the screw up. Then again, I knew that I was not going to get away with this if I want to land a job. So I made it my priority to practice this skill and there’s nothing better to do it then to go on interviews. Once I pulled together my portfolio, I applied to many jobs that were related to web design as possible so that I could get an interview. Even when I had a job, I would go on to interviews just to practice.

Today I can confidently say that I have 80% chance of landing on a job I applied for with only three rules.
My first rule is to dress to impress. You could never be over-dressed in an interview. I always dressed to an interview like I go to a wedding. Truth be told, I only have one suite; therefore, I wear it to any formal occasion.

My second rule is to take control of the interview. I think of an interview as an opportunity to share my passion for what I do. Most family members and friends do not care what I do; therefore, I rarely get an opportunity to talk about about the things that get me out of bed every morning. I might never see the interviewers again, but I get to tell them that I eat, drink and live this shit everyday. In addition to showing my client works, I try to bring in my personal projects like Sketches of Miles, Simplexpression and even my involvement with Thirsty.

My third rule is to be honest. Not everyone could do everything. When I applied for my current position, I told my supervisor that I didn’t have any Linux or server admin experience, but that I am willing to learn. She trusted me. To not let her down, I picked up Linux books to learn before I even started the job. Now I am so glad that I did and that she gave me the opportunity.

I don’t get to sit on the other side of the table too often, but there was an interview that I could never forget. I still remember the day we interviewed Kevin for the web design position at Vassar college. He made such an impact on me that I couldn’t care for anyone else after him. He talked about design and how it reflected his own life. He used to be depressed and design gave him a way out. His exact words were: “Design makes life more beautiful.” I was sold.

When I finally “graduated” from ESL class in seventh grade, I was very excited. My first day in regular English class, I wanted to participate in the lesson. I can’t recall what the topic was, but I remember the teacher was asking us what would we train a dog to do. My classmates’ answers included: to sit, to catch a ball, to sniff out strangers. I raised my hand and said, “I would train my dog to flirt with a bitch.” The whole class looked shocked. I stuttered, “you know, to flirt with a female dog.” No one was in on the joke and the teacher gave me a look that suggested I should roll my ass back to ESL class.

Several weeks later, the teacher gave us an in-class writing assignment. I can’t recall the exact topic, but it had something to do with love. I sat staring at the blank page for half an hour and nothing came up. I had fifteen minutes left and I had to figure out something quick. Out of desperation, I wrote down the lyrics of “There’s Only You In My Heart,” which came to my head at the moment. When he handed back the paper, his comment was that it was so good, it almost sounded like a love poem. The man obviously didn’t listen to Chinese melody love songs and thankfully the Internet was not around yet.

T.I. is indeed a Trouble Man. He goes in and out of jail for all sort of misdemeanors including drugs and weapons. The good thing is that he always bounces back as he reminds us on “Who Want Some,” in which he boasts, “We’ve been through this how many time? Have you nigger forgot? I got locked up get out on top whether you like it or not.”

Yes, like it or not, T.I. remains one of the top emcees in the game. Straight hard tracks like “Trap Back Jumpin’,” “Go Get It” and “Addresses” are the proof that he’s still a dope lyricist underneath all that swaggers. He could kill it without the help of r & b hooks. Unfortunately, Trouble Man is filled with r & b crossovers from the guest appearances including R. Kelly, Pink, Cee-Lo Green and Akon, which turns the album into a big, soft, commercialized product.

“Ball,” a club joint with Lil’ Wayne, comes across like two misogynistic assholes bashing women. T.I. raps, “The club full of bad bitches and they came to play / OK it must be your hair cause it ain’t your face.” Then Lil’ Wayne adds, “Bitch shake it like a dog, hop like a frog, ride it like a horse / I throw that dick like darts.” Yet worse is when T.I. sings on “Cruisin’.” Auto-Tune makes him sound terrifying. Stick with rapping, hommie.