Back in 2000, I spent a summer month interning at Trump Maria, which now turned into Golden Nugget. What was nice was I had a hotel room and three meals a day for employees. What was suck was I didn’t have anything to work on. I didn’t learn anything except clipping path in Photoshop, which is quite a useful skill to have. My internship was supposed to last three months, but I resigned after a month a half, which was long enough to satisfy the college’s credits.

One of the things that I loved was whenever a co-worker took me out to a bakery that baked fresh, delightful baguette. I am not sure if the place is still around, but I couldn’t remember exactly where it is. I remember faithless that it is a few blocks from the Taj Mahal toward AC express way. My mission in the next couple of days, a last-minute getaway, is to find out if the place is still around. I used to love the smell of that fantastic French bread.

Anyway, I am going to be on the road today; therefore, I’ll missed the Euro 2012 final. With the way Spain play, I doubt that it’s going to be excited game so I’ll just catch up with the scores afterward. Peace out!

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With the support from Stephan Crump’s strong, anchored bass and Marcus Gilmore’s crisp, propulsive drums, renowned pianist Vijay Iyer explores with shifting polyrhythms on Accelerando. Whether reinterpreting Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature,” Heatwave’s “The Star of a Story” or Duke Ellington’s “The Village of the Virgins,” the trio makes each experimentation highly artful yet accessible. One way to approach Accelerando is just to sit back and feel the grooves.

Met up with MODX’s founder Ryan Thrash and a small crowd at LeapFrog Solutions, which located about five-minute drive to my house, last night. Ryan gave a quick demo of MODX Cloud and it looked impressive. I would love to move Mason Law up there one day. Ryan is a real down-to-earth fellow. I am also glad to have met Lee Brinckley who is a MODX developer at LeapFrog. Thanks Lee for bringing Ryan in town.

Dao came home from his first day at summer camp yesterday and was thrilled when May opened the door for him. Since the weather was so beautiful (sunny and breezy), Linh and I took the kids to the playground. The horrendous memory of last year incident has completely gone. Dao and May are now bigger and they much more skillful at climbing and sliding. Fifteen minutes went by and lil Dan got hungry so Linh brought him back home while I stayed at the playground to look after the twin. We had the whole playground to ourselves. Watching the two kids played together made me want to freeze the time and let this precious moment last forever. I was also getting a bit of nostalgia.

We didn’t head back home until 8 something. Then we set up an indoor picnic table for the kids and served them hu tieu My Tho, one of my favorite noodle soups, Linh had prepared. Yes, I had two bowls. Speaking of food, Linh made us canh kho qua (bitter gourd soup) and mam chung (Vietnamese meatloaf) in addition to the noodle soup. We will be all set for the rest of the week.

We were ecstatic to have Linh and May spending a few days with us. The two kids who shared nothing in common except their birthday could hang out together. Despite the drastic changes in personality, Dao and May can still play together for most of the time. One thing hasn’t changed is that Dao is still very attracted to May and May is still giving him a cold treatment. For instance, Dao tried to rest his head on May’s shoulder, but she pushed him away. Dao has yet to learn about rejection. Whenever he got frustrated, he took it out on me.

Linh and May arrived last Thursday and rested for the entire day because they took a red-eye flight. On Friday the weather reached above 90 degrees. They went out to DC and we went to Dao’s summer camp open house. Then we headed straight home afterward to stay cool. So the kids stayed at the house for the rest of the evening. On Saturday, May went to get her haircut and we went to VietFest at George Mason. Again, the heat was so hot that we got tired after just an hour or two outside. Again the kids on played together for a bit in the evening. On Sunday, we all went to an indoor swimming pool and they had a blast. Even lil Dan loved the water. He kicked his feet and slapped his hands in the water non-stop.

Five days went by so quick even though we didn’t get to do much. Still I am glad that the two family could spend some time together. Yes, Dao will come home from school today to find May gone. I could already see the sadness in his face and the disappoint in his voice asking, “May dau roi?”

We’re very grateful that Linh and May had made an effort to come to us all the way from the west coast. That alone makes our friendship invaluable. Thank you for the wonderful time and memories. Let’s do it again next year.

Five years after introducing her impressive debut, Xin Cho Tôi, Thủy Tiên follows up with yet another Trịnh Công Sơn record titled Ra Đồng Giữa Ngọ. The second album has a few lighter moments like the folksy vibe on the title track and the Latin flavor on “Chiều Một Mình Qua Phố.”

Yet Thủy Tiên sounds best when she expresses Trịnh’s lyrics with her personal interpretation. On “Lời Thiên Thu Gọi,” She sings in slow tempo and phrases each word with ease while backing up by soulful violin and sensational piano. “Phúc Âm Buồn” gets a dramatic orchestration with a duet treatment. Đoàn Minh’s charming tenor is a perfect complement to Thủy Tiên’s sensual alto. “Xin Mặt Trời Ngủ Yên,” “Chiều Trên Quê Hương Tôi” and “Một Ngày Như Mọi Ngày” are well executed.

The album closes out with a new arrangement of “Xin Cho Tôi” to remind her fans where she has left off from the last album. Five-year span is a long time for a release, but the wait is definitely worthwhile. Thủy Tiên is a perfectionist and the Ra Đồng Giữa Ngọ proves it.

Created an email newsletter template for Mason Law. The layout is simple and responsive.

I also reworked my portfolio for Mason’s School of Art & Design graduate program. Markup and CSS has been streamlined. Speaking of school, I’ll start classes in the fall with Graduate Design Seminars and Advanced Typography. I am not sure what the Seminars are about, but am looking forward to Advanced Typography. I actually have never taken any course in typography before. Everything I have learned up to these points are from reading and practicing on the web. I am excited to get formal training in design.

When I checked out the Senior Show to see what the students had done for their final project, I sort of having an idea of what I want to do with mine if I ever make it there. It would have to do with Miles.

Thanks Zeldman for sharing this:

And then, bang. Your kid is laughing ecstatically in a seemingly utopian environment you did not provide for her and you are not part of. The easy adult social interactions that are unfolding belong to your ex’s new life, not yours. You are watching your family move on without you, you are discovering all over again, as if for the first time, that your family has exploded, your wife does not love you, does not need you, the world goes on without you, this is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife.

When I took on the position of web services developer at the Law School, I didn’t even know what a command line is, and yet most of the tasks that I would need to do were through the text-based interface. I sat down with the previous developer for one day and he overwhelmed me with all the commands.

As I started my new job, I had to explore my way around Linux environment. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I picked books and learn on the job. Every time there was a request, I didn’t know what to do. Nothing was written down so I had to contact my predecessor. Fortunately he was very responsive to my questions, but I still felt bad that I had to bug him.

Whenever he explained to me something, I took notes and kept them so that I could refer to them later. Now I would like to keep all of that valuable information somewhere so that I won’t be the only one to know do a certain tasks. If I were to move on, which is very unlikely because I love this job, the new person can have all the information accessible to him.

A blog would be a great place to keep all of these information so I started the Web Services Blog. Since our blog network is powered by WordPress multisite, creating a new blog is just a few simple clicks.

The primary purpose of the blog is to house the documentations, but I wanted to expanded to web-related topics like latest projects at Mason Law, current trends, practices, and emerging technologies in the web industry. I also hope that the information could be useful to the public.

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