The ultrasound result is in. Dao will have a little brother by the end of the year. The little fellow is doing well, no anomalies observed. He’s weighing in at 11 oz (41%). Unlike his older brother who moved around constantly, he stayed calm during the ultrasound.

Dana is also doing well. Her cervix is about 3.7cm long and appears closed. The doctor wants her to gain at least one pound a week. That’s not going to be a problem. I already feed her a huge burrito at Chipotle. We’ll just have to hit Cheesecake Factory for some hamburgers and revisit Blue Pearl buffets more often.

When Dana was carrying Dao, we used to hit iHop in the middle of the night for stack of pancakes or hit the diners for some late-night chicken wings. Now that we have Dao, we won’t be able to do that with the second baby. Maybe I’ll just buy stuff home for us, but it won’t be the same as experiencing the night life.

The “sites” section is the most important part of Visualgui in showcasing work to potential clients. I like to keep it just to one page so client can see example of my projects without having to click around. The problem is that the screenshots are huge and the number of projects keep on growing. The two biggest issues are scrolling and loading. So I spent the last few nights researching and figuring out the best solution to solve the problem.

I experimented with two methods: lazy load and infinite scroll. I really like the method of lazy load because I can still keep everything on one page and only load up images the user see. Unfortunately, lazy load is not working the way it should. In Safari, the images are being loaded even though they don’t show up until users get to them.

Infinite scroll, on the other hand, requires breaking down several pages, which I don’t mind much. The biggest drawback is the break of the back button. Once user clicks on a link, they cannot go back to where they were on. The loading of further down contents seems to be very disorienting.

After getting them to work, I was not pleased with the end result; therefore, I didn’t use neither one. I went back to the basic approach of adding a second page. So the first page shows the last 10 projects and the second page shows all of the older projects. So that’s the temporary solution until I could find a better approach.

After my 2001 graduation from La Salle University, I thought that I would be done with school for good. Academia was never meant for me. I spent more time learning the things that I wanted to accomplish than sitting in class. Yet a decade later, I enrolled myself into the Master of Science in Information Systems Technology program this coming fall. In less then two months, I will be back in school again.

Is this the right time for schooling? I am not even sure myself since we will be expecting our second baby at the end of the year. I actually applied into the program over two years ago. I sent in my transcripts, letters of recommendation, statement of purpose and resume. I filled out my online application, but couldn’t submitted it. Something went wrong. Before I could go any further, Dao came into my world. I dropped it aside and focused on becoming a parent.

About a month or so ago, I was notified that if I don’t do anything with my application, it will be dropped out of the system. So I called the office to find out what else I needed to do to complete my application. It turned out that I just needed to paid $60 and hit the submit button.

I am actually very excited about MSIST program because it seems like a great enhancement to my professional career. After meeting with the wonderful advisor, I immediately got into two classes that run from 4pm to 6pm from Monday to Thursday. The problem is I won’t be able to pick up Dao from the daycare because he needs to be out by 6pm and it takes me at least an hour to get to his place. Once Dana gives birth to the next baby, she won’t be able to drive for a while so we’re now begging our father-in-law to come help us out as well since my mother-in-law will give us a hand with the new kid.

After we welcome our new baby, our plan is to have Dana stayed home at least three months, which means she won’t be paid. At that time, we’ll depend on just one income; therefore, I hope to pick up more freelance projects to cover the expenses.

The next few months will be quite intense for us, especially for Dana. That is the reason I am still unsure if this is the right time for schooling. Then again, when will it be the right time? If not now then when? So my thought it that: Let’s just do it. Then again, I only have to give up a few things, like blogging, Netflixing, dining out, spending time and money at Costco, sleeping and most importantly wasting time on the Web. I am sure I can handle it as long as I can still keep up with web design and development. I have nothing to lose.

My only thing that I feel extremely bad and discomfort about is that Dana will be carrying most of the burden even though she is very supportive of my decision. I definitely picked an awesome partner even though I take that for grant at times.

The news of Amy Winehouse passed away today at the age of only 27 is heartbreaking but hardly shocking. She had lived the life she sang in her award-winning Back to Black. While the album was blowing up, Winehouse was on the road to self-destruct with drugs and alcohol. In the title track she claimed, “You love blow and I love puff / and life is like a pipe.” Whenever I listened to that two bars, I can’t help thinking of Nas’s “Life’s a Bitch.” Nas was one of Winehouse’s musical heroes. Could Winehouse took Nas’s words a bit too her heart? Who knows, but the chorus seems to describe her troubled lifestyle: “Life’s a bitch and then you die; that’s why we get high / Cause you never know when you’re gonna go.”

Goodbye, Amy.

I got home a bit late last night so we decided to eat out. I suggested Cheesecake Factory because it locates about five minutes from our house and I was craving for its Glamburgers. After we sat down and made our orders, I took Dao to the family restroom to change him and to wash his hands.

After putting on a new diaper for him, I told him, “Dao dung day doi Daddy dai nhe [Dao, stand here wait for Daddy to take a leak.” As I was doing my thing, he stood aside and cheered, “Daddy dai, daddy dai, daddy dai.” His voice grew louder and louder and he was jumping up and down clapping his hands as if he was a cheerleader. After I finished, he ran up and flushed the toilet. That was the first time in life I was being cheered for taking a piss. Only being a parent gets this kind of weird joy I guess.

So I had a banging wild mushroom burger with the ultimate glass of margarita and Dana had a delicious plate of shrimp pasta. Dao shared the pasta and my fries. We finished everything and even shared a slice of the original cheesecake. After that we all fell sleepy and didn’t want to do anything when we got home. Not bad for a Wednesday evening.

As a father of a two year-old, I sure got a kick out of Adam Mansbach’s Go the Fuck to Sleep. I could hear the voice in my head saying, “Please close your eyes and go the fuck to sleep. I got other shit to do.” Putting Dao to bed has always been a challenge for me. He kept wanting to play until he gets tired out. Usually I fell asleep before him.

As I was listening to Samuel L. Jackson narrating the book, I couldn’t help firing up Flash and create some animation. I haven’t touch Flash for a while; therefore, it is a perfect little project to brush up my chops. With this piece, I just wanted to play around with simple typography in motion. So check it out. It’s time for me to go the fuck to sleep as well.

Dao has been going to class all by himself for a week. No more carrying and no more crying. This morning when I took him off the car, he said “Bye xe cu [old car]. Di hoc [Go to class].” He held me hand we walked toward the building. He pushed the button to open the door and swiped my card to let us in. When I opened his class’s door, he ran right in and handed his hat to one of his teachers. He blew me a kiss and began to play with his classmates.

Dao also enjoys watching Japanese animation nowadays. He liked Ponyo and My Neighbor Totoro. He refers to Totoro as “penguin bu [big].” Again, his ability to associate objects with things he already know is just hilarious.

Dao is already addicted to the iPod. He knows exactly what apps to play and he also knows which buttons to push. For instance, once he’s done playing with a game, he knows the “Not now. Thank You” and the “free version” buttons. He’s now a little pro with Angry Bird. He can sling that bird better than me. He prefer the iPod when he plays game and prefers the iPad when he watches YouTube. I am just amazed how kids pick up these things so fast.

Lately Dao have excuses for everything. When he wants to reject foods, he would say “nong qua [too hot]” even though the food is cool. I fed him ice cream the other day, but he didn’t want it. He was about to say “too hot,” but he realized that he couldn’t use that excuse so he quickly changed to “nhieu qua [too much].”

We were at the playground the other day and he said to me, “Dao so [scares].” I asked him in Vietnamese what was he afraid of and he said, “nang nong qua [the sun is too hot].” I asked him to go to the garden to pick cherry tomatoes with me and he said, “No, too hot.”

Here’s the best excuse so far. He was holding my iPod Touch and watching “Curious George.” A minute later, he told me, “Ba ba cam iPod cho Dao. Nang qua [Daddy, daddy, hold iPod for Dao. Too heavy].” To me, these are some of the best moments of being a parent. Love my boy.

This morning when I dropped him off at the daycare, it was time for them to go into the playground. I put his clothes and lunch in his cubby and watched him played outside through the window. I stood there observing for ten minutes before I left.

Bitches Brew is one of those albums that keeps me grooving as well as relaxing. Not sure why many people are having a hard time enjoying it. If you listen to Bitches Brew for the first time, I recommend starting with “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down.” If you don’t like that track, one of my personal favorites, don’t even bother with the double album. Here are two awesome live performances to get started:
October 27, 1969: Teatro Sistina (Rome, Italy)
August 18, 1970: Tanglewood (Lenox, MA)

The ladies put on one of the finest World Cup matches I have seen. They certainly made the men at the 2010 final game (Netherlands vs. Spain) look like bitches. Both USA and Japan gave their all.

The US women fought hard and they were clearly leading the game. I am very proud of my US girls. The Japanese girls, on the other side, worked hard and persistent, but patience is what made them the champion. They came back at the last minutes of the game. They were just phenomenon. The US girls just need be more precise in scoring and practice their penalty shots.

Truth be told, I couldn’t favor one team over the other. On one hand, I had to root for the home team. On another, I had mad love for my Asian sisters. In addition, Japan had gone through one of the worst natural catastrophes of all time. In my view, they were both winners.