I had a blast watching Religulous because I have the same questions that Bill Maher had regarding to religion. Why do many so many people believe in something that has yet to be proven to be true? In the film, many hardcore religious freaks couldn’t defend the irrational biblical images such as a talking snake, a man who lived inside a fish and the inconsistency story of Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus.

When I first came to the States, my aunt persuaded me to go to a Vietnamese church and I did. I wanted to learn more about God and I wanted to find out what made these people believed in him. I dragged my ass to church every Sunday for about six months or so. The people at church were very lovely. They tried everything they could to get me to accept God, but I couldn’t do it without real evidence; therefore, I quitted going to church.

I have a cousin who has a PHD in information system. He’s way smarter than me and I always looked up to him as a role model. He showed me the value and the respect you get with an education. I get that and I followed him on that. He never smoked; therefore, I believed smoking is bad so I never did it. I get that. What I don’t get, however, is that he accepted Jesus so blindly. There are things that he has been praying to God for many years and obviously God hasn’t given to him yet, but he still thinks that one day God will.

After watching Religulous, it helps me understand why many rational people could be so irrational when it comes to faith. Religulous is a hilarious, eye-opening documentary on organized religion.

With a sleepless night and many hours of converting Flash to Quicktime movies, the motion pieces are now residing on YouTube. The process took much more time and effort then I had expected. Why am I making the transition?

Flash has become a legacy program and not supported on mobile devices, particularly on Apple products. I have been thinking of abandoning the entire motion section altogether, but then again I have invested tons of time in the pieces. Although I don’t do Flash motion graphic anymore, I still want to keep them for prosperity.

I only brought over the ones that I still have the original Flash files. The earlier pieces that I could no longer find the source are now gone.

When I met with a student to discuss about moving his organization web site into an open source content management system, I suggested WordPress and his face lit up. He was glad that he didn’t have to work with Drupal anymore. My predecessor set him up with a Drupal 6 installation for him to experiment with and yet he still has not quite learned how to create a simple Drupal theme.

My first approach was to intall WordPress on our server and then to provide him administration access to create the site himself, but then what happen if other student organizations, which scattered all over George Mason servers and some hosted themselves, would like to come on board? I would have to create individual WordPress. That didn’t sound like a scalable plan so I decided to experiment with WordPress’s multisite. It turns out to be a great solution and this is my first time using multisite feature.

Now I only have to maintain one installation of WordPress and creating new sites is just a clicks away. One of the advantages of using multisite is that the students can create their own design if they want to, but I have to install the theme. That way I can check the codes to make sure they are safe and secured.

I created a default theme, which is a child theme of WordPress’s Twenty Eleven, for the student organization main site. The students can use it just as it like this one or they can come up with their own theme.

I am also in the process of creating another network of sites just for the faculty so they can update the content themselves without having to know HTML. Multisite is another reason WordPress rocks!

So I got through 94 episodes of 70 Years of Vietnamese Ballad (1930 – 2000) produced by Hoai Nam. While the program is informative, Hoai Nam makes so many careless mistakes like introducing Lam Phuong’s “Bai Tango Cho Em” but played Hoang Nguyen’s “Bai Tango Cho Rieng Em” and explaining bolero but played the chacha arrangement in “Tau Dem Nam Cu” performed by Thanh Thuy.

After making his apology he went on to defend how the rhythm is the structure of a song. He stated that a songwriter picked out a rhythm that would best fit for his lyrics; therefore, an arranger or producer should stick to the written rhythm. Making the change in the tempo would consider disrespectful to the songwriter. With that kind of thinking no wonder Vietnamese singers who covered ballad make no attempt in reviving old songs. I rather hear an old song with a creative, innovative makeover than just singing straight from what was written.

While I understand that Hoai Nam has limited resource and budget to produce such a broad program, he should put more efforts into the third segment, which is from 1975 to 2000. From late 1930s up to 1975, he has done a decent job of introducing many Vietnamese songwriters at that time. In the third segment, he reintroduced Tram Tu Thien, Ngo Thuy Mien, Lam Phuong, Anh Bang and Tu Cong Phung and yet never even mentioned Duong Thu who is in my opinion one of the renowned ballad songwriters.

Nevertheless I have to give Hoai Nam the credit for attempting to do quite a daunting task of covering 70 years of Vietnamese music. Listen if you have a chance or if you’re interested in learning about a bit of history about Vietnamese music.

I am looking forward to the three-day conference, Computers in Libraries 2012, next week. The program featured some interesting topics including web and mobile development for library.

I will also be attending the five-day training for Red Hat System Administration I (RH124) on the first week of April. This is the skill tI need to pick up for my current job. I have learned my way into Linux by reading books and with the help of the previous developer. I am hoping to gain more knowledge and confidence through the training.

Install WordPress

wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar xfz latest.tar.gz
cp -r * ~/public_html/your/website/folder/

Change Permissions (rwx => 4 + 2 + 1 = 7)

For Directories:

find /path/to/your/directory/ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;

For Files:

find /path/to/your/file/ -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

Permissions

chmod -R 755 directory
chmod -R 644 files

Remove files and directory (use carefully)

rm -rf YourDirectory

Change Owner

chown -R apache new_name //change entire directory

Rename Directory

mv {old} {new}

Database

mysql -u root -p //To access database
mysql> create database [database name];
mysql> show databases;
mysql> drop database [database name];

Getting Dao to brush his teeth takes quite a bit of patience and effort. He doesn’t quite get the important of brushing his teeth yet. So I gave him a little demonstration last night using Photoshop.

I pulled up a recent photo of him and zoomed into his smiley face. I selected the yellow stains on his teeth using the Magic Wand Tool and pointed out to him, “You see all that germs running around your teeth?” He replied, “Yeah, like Curious George.” He referred to one of Curious George’s episodes on germs. I said, “That’s right and if you don’t brush your teeth, this is what is going to happen to your teeth.” I slowly darkened his teeth by adjusting the image’s level. He quickly ran into the bathroom and asked me to brush his teeth. I just took my time and did it slowly without having to hold him down. Afterward, he held water in his mouth and spat it out saying, “Go away germs. Go down the hole.”

With the daylight saving time changed this morning, he didn’t get up until almost 8 o’clock. I told him to go brush his teeth and the reaction was “no.” So I reminded him what happened yesterday if he doesn’t want to brush his teeth. He quickly got up and ran into the bathroom and we did the same thing we did last night. After we all done, he said, “The germs in my mouth are gone.”

I am not sure who long this method would last, but the message is definitely effective.

Seeing my wife breastfeeding my boy makes me understand why many women, especially working mother, don’t want to breastfeed their kids. It’s a hard commitment. She has to pump milk every few hours when she’s at work. Fortunately she has a very flexible job. Because breastfeeding baby gets hungry more often during the night, she has to stay up more often to feed him.

On top of all of that, Dana has to watch her diet. Our lil Dan has eczema and he gets worse whenever she eats beef or seafood. Now she has to give her favorite food like steak, lobster and crab for the sake of the baby. She doesn’t have to give up any of that if she simply gives him formula.

Every time I hold lil Dan in my arms, it never ceases to amaze me how a little boy who gets bigger and more beautiful everyday simply by drinking his mother’s milk. There’s a Vietnamese proverb that says, “Uống Nước Nhớ Nguồn” (drink water, remember the root). I say, “Drink milk and remember your mother.” Yes, breastfeeding is hard. It requires tremendous efforts. So my deepest respect goes out to all the mothers who breastfeed her baby.

These days we have tacos almost every week thanks to my mom-to-be sister-in-law. Last night we had tacos again for supper. Whenever I have tacos, I have to have some margarita to go with them. Last night I made a bit too much and I was the only one drinking it. After dinner I was buzzed and yet still had to do my parts: giving Dao a bath, brushing his teeth and putting him to bed.

Taking care of a kid with a bit of a buzz was quite fun actually. I was just bugging out with him. We splashed water all over the bath tube and screamed like drunken college kids. After giving him a bath and putting him on his new diaper, I told him to play in the bedroom so I could take a shower, but he wanted to come inside the bathroom with me. When you have kids, privacy is something that is completely lost. The other day, I was taking a shit while he was standing next to me watching YouTube video on my iPhone.

So I let him sat in while I took a shower. He told me to pull the toilet seat cover down so he could sit and wait. When I took off my clothes, he looked and said, “Wow, that’s a big one.” Then he pointed to his own and said, “I have small one.” Oh my goodness, I laughed so hard and I couldn’t wait to tell my wife what her son just said to me. I love this kid. He’s such a funny little boy.

I am admitted to George Mason School of Art‘s graduate program in graphic design. I feel like a high school kid getting his first college acceptance letter. In a decade of working in higher-ed institution, I am finally taking advantage of the tuition benefit for something that I truly want to learn and earn a degree. I am positive that the program will make me a better designer.

Many thanks to my bosses (past and present) for their wonderful letter of recommendation. Mad props to my sister-in-law’s husband for proofreading my expanded goal statements and my writing sample, in which I wrote about “White Space, Miles Davis and Responsive Web Design.” I am also sure that the portfolio that I put together in a couple of hours got in the the door. Visualgui not only landed me freelance projects, but also get me into graduate program. I am definitely looking forward toward the Fall semester this year.