John Cassidy points out, “The Romney campaign is incompetent. Romney is incompetent.” We had eight years with Bush already. We don’t want another incompetent president do we? So make sure you cast your vote.

Hôm qua bà ngoại bận nên tôi phải trông cu Đán. Chở Đán vào mall chơi thấy thiên hạ xếp hàng cả đóng chờ mua iPhone 5. Tôi cũng ghé vào ngắm nghía cho đở thèm. Thấy cũng đã thiệt nhưng đợi thêm vài tháng nửa dụ dổ bà xếp cho mình đổi cái iPhone mới để test trang web. Cái 3G S cũ quá rồi nhưng hôm nay làm liều upgrade lên iOS6 luôn nhưng thấy nó chạy cũng được lắm không bị chậm.

Mình cũng chả đua đòi gì cần gì iPhone mới nên rời bỏ tiệm Trái Táo đưa con đi chơi playground. Cu Đán thì khác hẳn với cu Đạo. Nhớ ngày xưa cu Đạo nhát và cẩn thận lắm. Không dám chơi cũng không dám trèo. Còn cu Đán thì chẵng sợ gì cả bò hết chỗ này trèo lên chổ kia. Té cũng không sợ. Thấy gì cũng liếm nên phải đi theo ổng từng bước. Thấy ai mà chào ổng là ổng cười ngay. Rồi còn bò lại làm quen. Thấy ổng vui vẻ cởi mở cũng vui.

Cu Đạo ngày xưa rất cẩn thận nên không bị ngã nhiều và cũng không bao giờ bỏ đồ vô miệng. Chỉ ngã khi ba của nó không được cẩn thận cho lắm. Cu Đạo cứng đầu lắm và chỉ làm những gì nó muốn. Như ngày xưa một ngày nó vứt hẳn không thèm vú mẹ nữa. Khi đổi từ sửa mẹ qua sửa bò, nó cũng bỏ trong một ngày. Đến lúc bỏ tả tập hoài nó cũng không chịu cho đến khi nó chịu thì trong vòng một tuần là làm được. Hồi nãy hai vợ chồng đang lằm project thì thấy thúi thúi thì ra ổng ị trông bô. Ị rồi không nói năng gì cả ở chuồng xem TV. Project của mình nhưng cần sự giúp đỡ của bà xả. Mình design thì được chứ bắt cắt, dán giấy thì chịu thua. Học graphic design mà chẳng bao giờ đụng đến những thứ này cả. Hao tổn giấy và mực. Hôm trước bị ông thầy rầy cho một mạch. Ổng nói, “Mày học lớp advanced mà còn graduate nữa mà không biết làm khuôn hình.” Thôi kệ bơi đến lúc nào hay lúc đó. Mình không được khéo nhưng vợ mình khéo. Miễn mình thiết kế đẹp là được rồi.

Added two movie posters I created for my Advanced Typography class. The assignment was to choose a horror or comedy film, design for one genre and then flip it for the opposite genre. Since this is a typography class, I can only use 10% illustration and 90% typography. I ended up redesigning Donnie Darko, which I started out with the horror version and then flipped it for comedy. Though the process was a pain, I like the way they turned out. Now I have to frame the print versions on mounting boards, something I had never done before.

Paul Krugman:

Where does this disdain for workers come from? Some of it, obviously, reflects the influence of money in politics: big-money donors, like the ones Mr. Romney was speaking to when he went off on half the nation, don’t live paycheck to paycheck. But it also reflects the extent to which the G.O.P. has been taken over by an Ayn Rand-type vision of society, in which a handful of heroic businessmen are responsible for all economic good, while the rest of us are just along for the ride.

In the eyes of those who share this vision, the wealthy deserve special treatment, and not just in the form of low taxes. They must also receive respect, indeed deference, at all times. That’s why even the slightest hint from the president that the rich might not be all that — that, say, some bankers may have behaved badly, or that even “job creators” depend on government-built infrastructure — elicits frantic cries that Mr. Obama is a socialist.

These past few weeks had been crazy. I am back to 3-5 hours of sleep. The kids were sick over the weekend and throwing up all over the house. Dao got Croup and Dan got a little cold. My graduate classes are exhausting. My days had been going to work, going to class, eating dinner, putting the kids to sleep, doing homework until 1 or 2 in the morning. I feel bad that Dana had to look after both kids while I attended classes and had to do most of the work around the house while I spent time on the computer all the time.

I talked to my mom yesterday and I apologized that I haven’t called much or visited much on weekends because of my workload. Her first respond was “If you can’t handle school just quit. You have two kids and a full time job. Besides, what is that degree going to benefit your career? You’ll still do the same thing you do now.” I was like, “Thanks for the encouragement, mom.”

Workers at Sensata, which owned by Bain Capital, are fighting to save their jobs from being shipped to China by the end of this year. Romney who has a major investment in the company is the workers’ only last hope. I would love to be wrong, but it’s not going to happen. Romney simply doesn’t give a damn about these people. So there goes Romney’s job creation… in China.

Amy Davison:

Somehow, asking whether our economy might ever have victims is itself an act of victimizing Mitt. Resentment based in a sense of under-appreciation can be unattractive.

If you’re having money problem I feel bad for you, son. Mitt got 99 problems but a poor ain’t one.

Romney told millionaires:

[T]here are 47 percent who are with [Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them… These are people who pay no income tax… [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

My wife asked me earlier today, “Why would Romney run for President? He’s all set for life.” My answer was that because he wants to protect his wealth as well as the wealthy’s wealth. His talk above proved my point.

In the Advanced Typography class tonight, we presented a bunched of existing restaurant menus for a redesign project. One of the menus I selected was from Hủ Tiếu Mì Lacay Chợ Lớn. The professor looked at the menu and said “Lacay Cho Lồn.” Me and another Vietnamese girl laughed our ass off. The professor looked at me and said, “What did I say?” I told him, “You don’t want to know.” But he insisted so I told him, “You said, ‘give me pussy.'” The entire class laughed. He asked me to say the proper name as well as the one he pronounced. He couldn’t believe just a slight change of sound could change the entire meaning.

It’s my pleasure to present the new redesign of Poplar Springs, a family-owned restaurant, spa and hotel nestled in northern Virginia’s wine country. Working on the project over the last six months had been challenging but also rewarding.

When I first met the owner and chef Howard Foer and his team, I knew immediately they would need a content strategist. Mary Dempsey, a fantastic writer and journalist who I had the pleasure to work with at The George Washington University School of Business, came to mind. We brought her on board and she did an outstanding job of getting the contents from the client and writing them in a short, concise approach. Our collaboration worked out so well that I would love to bring her on for future projects.

With the content out of my way, I was able to focus on the design and development part of the site. My first task was to redesign the logo. The previous logo was slapped together using Edwardian Script. The logo looked outdated and not legible. With the new design, I kept the poplar leaf and used clean, thin Futura for a modern look and feel. With the new brand, I created a simple layout to show off the beautiful property, the mouth-watering dishes and the relaxing activities in the countryside.

The front-end design was built using HTML5 and CSS3 with a responsive layout. The most impressive part of the site is using MODx Revolution as a content management system. Before selecting a CMS for the site, I faced with two choices: WordPress and MODX. Poplar Springs is not a complex site; therefore, both platform could do the job well. WordPress could have been an easier choice for me, but I determined to use the project to learn MODX. Nothing beats learning by actually doing it. It was quite an incredible journey. Even though I ran into the wall in a few stages, I have learned so much about MODX. After this project, MODX will be my choice of CMS moving forward. With just a bit of knowledge, I could build the entire site with the exact codes I marked up. Nothing makes a designer happier than viewing the source code to see the exact output he had intended. Try that with Drupal.

I am extremely satisfied with the outcome of the site. Thanks to Howard and his team for putting their trust in me and thanks to Mary for a fruitful teamwork.