“Confessions to My Daughter,” an opening track on When the Heart Emerges Glistening, kicks off with Ambrose Akinmusire’s mesmerizing, naked trumpet intro then teamed up with tenor saxophonist Walter Smith III for a hypnotic dual backing up by pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Justin Brown. On “The Walls of Lechuguilla,” Akinmusire once again plays a very intriquing unaccompanied intro switching between high and low notes and speeding into a post-bop thrills. As the apt title suggested, Akinmusire’s heart emerges glistening on all but one of his original compositions. With a promising debut, Akinmusire is the up and coming new trumpeter to keep an ear on.

By now, fourth album into their career, the Puppini Sisters are no longer an act of novelty, but that’s not a problem at all. They still have a few tricks under their sleeves. They swing the hell out of “I Got Rhythm” and get real hoedown on “Get Happy.” Hollywood opens with the sisters’ up-tempo original title track, then take listeners back to good old show-stopping hits (and a few misses) and then closes out with “Parle Plus Bas,” a playful French version of the theme from The Godfather.

Fellows, if you want to become a better man, you first have to become a father. With all the poops you have to put up with, you would have no problem dealing with all the other shit in the world.

Ladies, if you want to punish your men, keep breastfeeding your kid, especially the newborn. My wife is nursing my little son every hour. After he’s done eating she would handed him over to me. He would curl into my arm and make a really cute face then drop a few pooping farts. I think my wife is making some cruel revenge against me.

Changing the little guy’s diaper isn’t a huge problem at all because I got a really fantastic helper. As soon as I placed Dan on the changing station, Dao ran into the kitchen to get his stool so he could stand tall next to me. He then pulled out a new diaper, a piece of wipe, a jar of Vaseline and a piece of tissue. Dao learned very early on that a tissue is needed to prevent the little one from peeing on him. After I am done changing, Dao would take the dirty diaper and throw it into the trash can.

That was not so bad until Dao would say, “Daddy, my turn.” So we both headed toward the bathroom. Whenever I take the diaper off him, he would ask, “let me see.” Once I showed him his poop, one of his frequent comment would be, “I pooped a lot.” One time he said “cookie” and another time he said “hamburger.” I just couldn’t stop laughing at this little fella’s imagination. We never knew what word would come out of his mouth.

This morning before we head out of the house he said, “Dao thui thui” (stinky stinky). So I had to take off my jacket, hat and roll up my sleeves to do one more job before going to work. As we headed toward the car, a trash truck pulled up. He said to the truck, “Thung rac (trash) truck, where is my iPod?” I was puzzled for a second until I realized that about a month ago I confiscated the iPod from him because he kept throwing it when he got mad. I warned him a couple of times, but he didn’t learn his lesson so I took it away and said that, “You keep throwing the iPod; therefore, you must not want it so I thrown it in the trash can.”

When I accepted the position of Web Services Developer at George Mason University School of Law in October 2011, I took on the technical challenges such as server administration, content management system support and database maintenance. What attracted me the most to the job, however, was the opportunity to design the school’s web site. In my twelve years of experience in web-related fields, design has always played a major role in my career path.

My passion for design started in my sophomore year at La Salle University where I received my undergraduate degree in Digital Arts and Multimedia Design. Even though I wanted to do creative work, I had no clue about design. When I turned in my first web page for a class in digital art, the professor shook her head in disbelief. The page had six different typefaces, a bunch of uncoordinated colors and a handful of animated graphics. The expression I saw on the professor’s face, which I still remember today, gave me a hint that I didn’t do something right. We had a talk and she suggested that I start from the basics.

I took her advice to heart, and began learning color, typography and white space. Working with these three basic visual elements, I developed an appreciation for simplicity. When designing web pages, the minimalist approach allowed me to concentrate on the content and message. My style came together when I landed my first professional job as a web designer at Vassar College. In addition to creating design work for the school, I was surrounded by a group of talented individuals including graphic designers, illustrators and typographers. I have learned so much from this group simply by our daily interaction. By taking each other’s constructive criticisms and insightful suggestions, we grew together as a team.

After Vassar, I took on a new position as a web developer at the George Washington University School of Business. Although my main role was to maintain the school’s web pages in accordance with the University’s unified web presence, I always sought out creative opportunities like creating banners, book covers, print ads and web promotional materials. In addition, when not working at my fulltime job, I took on freelance web design projects to keep my creativity flowing.

Over the years, design has stayed with me no matter what career I embark upon. Pursuing a Master of Art in Graphic Design would not only strengthen my professional career, but also channel and broaden my passion for design. I am looking forward to studying the theory of graphic design as well as advanced topics including typography, brand identity design and web design. One of my goals in the future is to share my knowledge for design, and the Master of Arts program at George Mason University School of Art will qualify me to do so.

(Written for Master of Arts in Graphic Design George Mason University Admission)

Over the weekend, I spent an hour updating this site’s CSS for mobile-first, responsive design. I used em unit instead of pixel for breaking point, which I have reduced to just one media query.

I added a new testimonial from my latest client.

Also a big shout out to the Text Link Ads for the sponsor links on the right column. Vistaprint also renewed its ad placement for 2012.

Some of my family members who are avid Amazon shoppers asked me to put up the Amazon.com’s Affiliate link so that they can make me some money. Thanks for the support.

Paul Krugman:

Think about it: someone who really wanted equal opportunity would be very concerned about the inequality of our current system. He would support more nutritional aid for low-income mothers-to-be and young children. He would try to improve the quality of public schools. He would support aid to low-income college students.

We started co-sleeping with Dao when he was very young and now he needed one of us to be his side. Now that we have Dan, Dana sleeps with him so that she could nurse him at night and I stay with Dao. I really enjoy being with him. In the beginning, I was irritated that he keeps on rubbing my arm and scrapes my skin if he runs across something rough like a scratch or a cut. He even presses down on my keloid sometimes, which stings a like needle. Now I don’t mind at all. In fact, I get to kiss his smooth and soft cheeks, thanks to all the organic milk he has been drinking.

When Dana was pregnant, she told me that she would train Dan to sleep all by himself in his own crib, yet every time I come over they both sleep in bed. Unlike Dao, Dan likes to be nursed constantly and now he has unlimited access to the breasts. He wants to be fed too often that she just nursed in in bed until they both fall asleep. His cheeks are getting puffy now and I can’t tell if he’s getting chubby from the milk or his jaws are getting swollen. Either way, they are perfect to be kissed. Whenever I get the chance, I kiss those cheeks until he screams.

Dana says that she enjoys her time with Dan because she is now less worried. With Dao, we didn’t know much and anything appeared a bit unusual put us in a panic mode. Now we know what to expect and we can navigate our way around him. I also enjoy being with him. He stares right into me whenever I talked to him or playing with him. I can feel the special connection between us. It’s the kind of connection that makes it worthwhile to be a parent, even though it’s a tough responsibility and it is only get tougher as time goes by.

We just learn as we go along. It’s a very long journey so we might as well get used to it. One of Dana’s uncles warned us that if you let your kids sleep with you, they will until they turn 18. I don’t think he’s exaggerating. Well, if that’s how long it will take than we might as well enjoy it.

Dr. Ken Murray:

Of course, doctors don’t want to die; they want to live. But they know enough about modern medicine to know its limits. And they know enough about death to know what all people fear most: dying in pain, and dying alone.

Insightful and informative. Must-read.

Introducing a blog for Ambulance Service of Manchester (ASM) and Aetna. My role for the project was to implement WordPress. I worked with the graphic designer who brought me into the project to turn her design into the blog. I worked directly with the client to create all the requested functionalities. I also provided training on using WordPress to its full potential. The project was a nice collaborative experience, in which I didn’t wear my design hat.

Thanks to Ms. Kristin Bair O’Keeffe for the referral.

New year starts out with a brand new site. I am very exciting to relaunch a small-but-fun professional web site for Jennifer Karin. The new site highlights Ms. Karin’s creative boxes that are “filled with books, awards, and accomplishments.”

Having worked with Ms. Karin in the past on her blog, I am delighted to have another opportunity to rework her web site. She has once again given me full creative freedom to shape the design. As a communications expert with over 25 years experience, Ms. Karin knows the important of clear and concise content. Before we even settled on the agreement, Ms. Karin already sent over all the contents. Comparing the new copies to the ones on the previous site, she cut the texts down to its essential.

After reading the contents, I know that the site needs to be simple, attractive and readable. The boxes she used in her writing gave me the idea of using icon box for each of her profession. Alex Brush, an elegant script typeface, is used for the header as well as the background, which is also a typographic treatment of her initials. Furthermore, I wanted each page to have its own color scheme to showcase the distinctiveness in her area of expertise.

Behind the scene, the site is written in HTML5 and CSS3 with the help of the awesome HTML5 Boilerplate. Of course, the layout is responsive to be viewed on various tablets and mobile devices.

This project makes a perfect beginning for 2012. Let’s hope the new year will bring more fun and excited opportunities like this.