In her latest post, “Kids Want to be Heard!,” Jen Karin writes:

And so, I learned valuable parenting lesson #2,362,580: kids just want to be heard. In fact, they are dying to be heard. In fact, shut up and let them talk, already!

Reading her blog reminds me of my own almost-two-year-old boy who wants to be heard. At night he would choose the same book, Hooper Humperdink…? Not Him, but he wants to read to me instead. The first time I tried to read to him, he cut me off. Dao is not yet interested in the text. He’s more into the illustrations, but with his own interpretation. For instance, when he points to the house, he would say, “Nha Bac Tram” (Aunty Tram’s house). When he points to the bridge, he would say, “cau… i” (bridge… taking a dump). You have to be Vietnamese to get that joke. He learned that from me. What they say is true. You tell the kids once, they remember forever. When he points to the airplane with people inside at the dinning table, he would say, “bay bay (airplane)… eat your food.”

I can’t hardly wait until he becomes an independent reader to find out what stories he would tell me. That day will come pretty soon. He’s turning two in just three days. I can’t believe it’s two years already. If time goes by this fast, being parent isn’t so bad at all. In another sixteen years, I could probably head back to the club and get my groove on again.

I am pleased to announce the new launch of Jen Karin Writes, a blog for an award-winning writer and imagination advocate. Ms. Karin approached me right after Writerhead went live. Big props to Ms. Bair O’keeffe for the referral.

With Jen Karin Writes, I was presented with a challenge: a very close-crop portrait of the writer. Meg Silliker of Bluelime Photography has done a great job of capturing a natural smile from the writer, but the vertical portrait is difficult to work with for the web.

To make the layout work, I anchored the photo to the left in a fixed position (no scroll) and let the contents flow next to it. The photo is served as a starting point for building small layout first. I used 320 and Up along with HTML5 Boilerplate and WordPress’s Toolbox as a framework. I also referred to Tim Brown‘s Modular Scale for headings.

Many thanks to Jen Karin who is such a fantastic client for giving me the full creative freedom to put the site together. I am very proud of Jen Karin Writes and hope that she’ll enjoy using it as much as I had enjoyed crafting it.

Raymond’s Toys & Music, which locates inside Hoa Binh Plaza in Philadelphia, is one of my favorite shops for Vietnamese music. I used to kill time in the store while waiting for my mom doing her grocery in the nearby supermarket. Yesterday I went back for the first time in many years and the place hasn’t changed much. Outside the door, I was greeted with two tables of CDs ranging from trendy pop to Vietnamese opera for as low as $2.50 a pop and a small-screen TV playing Cambodian music video. Paris By Night 102 was blasting inside on a huge flat-screen TV.

What I love about the place is that I could find some original classics for a cheap price. I discovered Peter Zak’s Purple Refrain in the bargain pile for $3 or something. I didn’t know who Peter Zak was, but Purple Refrain was an instant love and has been my favorite Vietnamese jazz album of all time. I could have paid $20 for this album and it is still worth the price. I also found out about Thien Phuong through Tro Ve Mai Nha Xua in this store (though not at a bargain table).

Yesterday I dug through its jungle of CDs and came across Thanh Ha’s Ru Em Tung Ngon Xuan Nong. The back cover doesn’t give any credit to the musicians so I didn’t know what to expect, but Thanh Ha sings Trinh’s music for $5 is definitely a bargain. The three-hour drive from Philly to Fairfax was just awesome thanks to the incredible arrangements and Thanh Ha’s sensational delivery. As soon as I got home, I opened up the album sleeve and bam, Duc Tri was the man behind the project. Ru Em Tung Ngon Xuan Nong released in 2004 and yet I haven’t heard of it until now. I should have kicked my own ass for this, but it’s better late than never.

Ru Em Tung Ngon Xuan Nong puts her recent albums, Chia Khoa Tinh Yeu and The Evolution of Thanh Ha, to shame. The title track is marvelous thanks to Luan Vu’s lush violin and Duc Tri’s luscious keyboard accompanying Thanh Ha’s sexy voice. “Roi Nhu Da Ngay Ngo” kicks off with Nguyen Khang’s smoky intro and Thanh Ha rides the bossa-nova flavor as smooth as CSL-class Benz. Likewise, her bluesy version of “Rung Xua Da Khep” is intoxicating. Love the way she maneuvers her way around the walking bass.

The whole joint is a tight set track for track with no wasted space and no filler. The atmospheric vibe on the exceptional album-closer “Tien Thoai Luong Nan” makes you wish that Thanh Ha would bring back the classic good taste and fuck Evolution.

Despite the pouring rain, our little family hit Pho 95, our only current favorite spot for hot Vietnamese noodle soup, as part of our Saturday morning ritual. What makes Pho 95 stands out is the wonderful fragrance of pho as soon as you open the door. Pho 95 is generous with meat and its noodle is just right (not too soft or overcooked), but the best part is that even after you finished your pho, the broth is still hot.

What makes pho unique is the customization. You can order pho according to your preference, but for an adventurous enjoyment, check out the following tips.

First you have to order a large size because that is the Vietnamese style. Only a buck more to upgrade to a large bowl. We love more for less. You can order the special with everything in it, but I prefer tendon, meatball with raw beef on the side. Add a side dish of fresh onion soaked in vinegar and a bowl of fat with scallion root.

When the soup comes out, add chilly sauce to the onion bowl depending how much you can tolerate the spiciness. Add chilly, hoisin sauce with pieces of basil into your raw dish. Squeeze lime into the raw beef as well to let it cook. With the bowl of fat, dump the whole thing into your pho if you don’t care about cholesterol. If you do, just two or three tablespoon is sufficient. Taste the broth and you can tell the tremendous different.

With your hot pho, put in bean sprouts and basil, but do not stir. The trick to keep the pho hot is not to disturb the noodle. Just take what you can eat at a time. Work gently into the noodle to prevent it from expanding. With raw beef, hot and sour rings of onion and fat-soaked scallion, that’s how you enjoy your pho.

Even with the pouring rain outside, people where standing in line to get into Pho 95. People must like to eat pho when it rains as if the wetness and the cold temperature make pho even more delicious. Another great part about Pho 95 is that it located right next to Banh Mi DC, my favorite spot for iced coffee. I happened to pick up a banh tieu (hollow bread) that was fresh off the stove. I let Dao tried a small piece and he wanted the whole thing. In the car, two little kids (Dao and Donny) were fighting over banh tieu. It was just awesome.

So he’s back. The clown that brought to you the hilarious cai luong-rap “Lay Tien Cho Gai.” With his new release Ghe Khung, Phong Le has yet to step out of his comical role as a Viet MC (his collaboration with Bao Liem on “Giang Ho” is the proof), but he has definitely stepped up his game in term of flow and beat choices.

The title track is one of his story-telling sillinesses that allows him to break into the Vietnamese audience. Like most rappers, Phong Le’s subject matters wrap around girl, sex and fame. In “Den Voi Anh” (featuring Huy Vu on Auto-Tune), Phong rhymes in a horny-little-boy voice: “Ba ma anh khong co o nha thi minh tha ho ma huong / Neu em khong muon thi minh nam coi phim chuong / Roi sao do anh se lam cho em suong.”

The smartest moment in the album is actually when he’s not rapping. How ironic? “Ho Phu Sinh Ho Tu” is a skit between Phong and his dad. While the old man tried to teach his son not to smoke, he lighted up a cigarette. His reason for smoking was the depression from the war. Phong responded, “The war had ended 30 years ago.”

The hardest track on the album is “Tro Lai.” The dual language works rather well with Chosen holding down the English part. In his raspy voice, Chosen raps, “I am on a higher level while you sing your falsetto.” It almost sounds like a diss to his own partner on the same track, but that’s just me. Then again, I find Ghe Khung to be quite entertaining for a spin or two.

As previously mentioned, our 2011 Toyota Sienna stalled when I stopped at the ATM to get cash last Thursday. The van stalled again several times when I was stuck in traffic. I drove the van straight to the dealer where we bought it. The dealer couldn’t figure out the problem so it contacted Toyota. Toyota suggested to replace the fuel pump. Today the technician called and notified that the fuel pump was replaced, but the problem remains unsolved. So now the dealer has to work with Toyota again to see how to get it fix. Any Sienna owner ran into this problem?

I was up to one in the morning checking out 320 and Up and HTML5 Reset WordPress Theme. Building from tiny screen first then moving up seems like a smart approach. Andy Clarke incorporated a bunch of neat functions like respond.js and imgsizer.js in addition to HTML5 Boilerplate.

Version 2 of HTML5 Reset also comes with a Blank WordPress Theme, “a style-free theme designed to help get your custom WordPress project off the ground.” The theme contains a very minimal set of files so it would be great for a small, simple site. I am not sure how it will scale up for more complex projects.

I was thinking of combining 320 and Up and Blank WordPress Theme, but there are things that seem to overlapping. So I probably will combine 320 with Toolbox. I just started a new project so it’ll be a perfect opportunity to put these two to work. Will see how it’ll turn out.

Last Thursday we took our boy to ER when his temperature skyrocketed to 105.6F. After about half an hour waiting (pretty short for an ER patient), a strong, African-American nurse took us in. The first she did was giving him acetaminophen and ibuprofen.

As we tried to get him to cooperate, she knew that we were new parents. She showed Dana how to hold him down by placing one of his arm under hers so she can squeeze the medication into his mouth. Dao knows how to make himself throw up when he doesn’t want to take something, so the trick was to point the syringe to one side of his mouth near his cheek.

After the nurse gave him the medication, she told us that she has two boys and it is perfectly ok to force him to take the medication. Babies are stronger than we think so using a bit of strength is ok. She stressed the important of giving him medication in order to prevent him from getting seizure.

At times I felt horrible for holding him down, locking his feet with my leg and stick a toothbrush into his mouth to brush his teeth, something he really hates. Even though he likes to do it himself, he doesn’t know how to do it correctly yet, but he wouldn’t let us help him. So every time I brushed his teeth, it looked as if we were wrestling. He would scream his lung out, but when I finished and let him go, he would get up and complimented himself, “Dao gioi” (Dao’s good). I don’t know about that, but it’s kind of hilarious.

So now I don’t feel so bad anymore after what the nurse has told me. As long as I am doing good things for him, a little force is perfectly fine. The funny thing was yesterday he figured out how to get his arm around Dana’s arm and tried to yank the syringe away as I pumped medication into his mouth.

One of the good things about Dao is that he thinks before he speaks. I have to learn that from him as well. For instance when he hit his head against the door, he paused a little, said “dau dau” (head hurts), and then let out a big scream. So when he pointed at something, he would pause for a second to find the word before he would say it. So what I have been doing is that if I could sense that he was about to say something in English, I would cut him off first in Vietnamese. So let say that he was pointing to the keys and before he could say the word, I would cut in and say “chia khoa.” So he would begins with “k…” for keys, but quickly switch to “chia khoa.”

I do that with the words that he already knew in English. The drawback is that he might think it’s ok to cut someone off simply because daddy does it. I remember my grandma used to tell me, “khong co duoc an com hot,” which means “do not scoop the top layer of the rice” or cutting somebody off. Hopefully, I could straighten up his manner later on. I have to say, I really enjoy hearing him speaks Vietnamese. For instance, when he farted, he would say “Dao dich” with the “ch” pronounced at the end.

The heat is rising; therefore, it is time to switch to iced coffee. Although, I am not an expert on coffee, I like to rank on the ones I have access to on a regular basis. So here is my list:

1. Banh Mi D.C. Iced Coffee is number one on my list because I love the French-style brew. While there are tons of them around Eden Center, Banh Mi D.C.’s stands out for me for its strong, dark roast. I have to have a cup when I am on the road. It does a great job of keeping me up. If I have it my way, a bit less condense milk would be perfect.
2. Iced Seattle’s Best Coffee from BK is my second choice. I prefer the plain one for less sweet. I can drink this at one in the morning and still be able to go to sleep because the coffee is light.
3. Saxbys Iced Coffee would be my third for its dark and strong taste. I like its hazelnut-flavored brew. It has a nice, lasting after taste.
4. Starbucks Iced Coffee isn’t so high on my list simply because I drink it almost every day. The flavor has become plain and ordinary. I just need it to get my caffeine fix.
5. Dunkin’ Donuts Iced Coffee used to be my favorite, but it is feeling light for me as well. Still a nice summer drink once in a while
6. McDonald’s Iced Coffee would be my last resort if nothing’s around. It tastes more like cream and sugar with coffee flavor than the other way around.