Two of my favorite jazz legends died a week apart. Jazz singer Lena Horne left us Sunday a week ago at 92. Jazz pianist Hank Jones left us yesterday at 91. RIP Ms. Horne and Mr. Jones.

Let’s listen to Lena Horne’s “Stormy Weather” and Hank Jones’ “In a Sentimental Mood.”

Another weekend came and gone. I hadn’t done much except working around the house and spending time with Cu Dao and Dana. Thanks to Popeyes’ chicken and Corona on Saturday, I mowed the lawn so my house doesn’t look like a forest next to my neighbor. She has people cut her grass twice a week. I do mine once every two weeks.

Thanks to Popeyes’ chicken and Corona again today, I cleaned and organized my house. Being a freak of a minimalist, organizing the house is a bit of a challenge for me. I always have a hard time figuring out where I should store things. It’s a choice between throwing things out or put them somewhere and I would never find them again. Sometimes I just stood there stare at a particular thing for like fifteen minutes and still didn’t know what to do. At times I just wondered around the house like an idiot and not knowing what the heck I should do. That was when I needed Corona. It really helped clear my mind.

Spending time with Cu Dao was the most joyful part of the weekend. I enjoyed dancing with him to Hoang Thuy Linh’s album. That album is now stuck with us. No matter what mood he was in. He would move his body as soon as he heard the beat. We hung out at the bookstore while Dana went grocery shopping. I picked up some graphic design books to flip through while Cu Dao played around in the children section.

That’s pretty much how I spent my weekend. The other day, someone asked me what do I usually do for fun. Beside spending time with Cu Dao and Dana, I couldn’t think of anything else. I guess it doesn’t take much for a boring guy to have fun.

Last night, everyone slept well including Duke. He pulled through the night for the second time since the day he was born. Yesterday I packed quite a bit of fat food inside my body. In the morning, I had a coffee and a coffee cake at Starbucks. At noon, I had a hamburger and fries at the Foggy Bottom Pub. Around 4PM, I had a big piece of cake at our student worker’s farewell party. At dinner, my sister-in-law’s husband brought over a box of Popeye’s chicken. I had a Corona to wash down the fried chicken. After dinner, I felt mad sleepy. After giving Cu Dao a bath around 8:30pm, we went straight to bed. I woke up around 1:00am to cleaned the dining table and do the dishes. After that, I went back to bed again. Duke and Dana were still sleeping. I was surprise that Duke didn’t make any sound at all the whole night even though he moved around like the hand of the clock.

To cope with the previous night, I had three cups of coffee yesterday. One in the morning, one at noon and one at night to complement the last piece of chocolate cheesecake that had been sitting in our freezer forever while watching Glee, which has becoming my favorite show. Still, I was ready to catch some sleep by midnight.

At two in the morning, Duke started to fuss. His infection bothered him and he couldn’t sleep. I woke up and felt like I had a hangover. My head was pounding. I tried to calm him down, but didn’t work. I picked him up and wrapped my arms around him. He slept on my shoulder once again. Unlike the previous night, I could barely walked. I tried my best to keep him sleep in my arms for half an hour. I thought that he was already deep asleep so I put in down. The little guy woke right up.

I gave up and handed over to mommy. Duke continued to cry and woke up grandma as well. Grandma took him over to her bed, his mom followed, and I just got knocked out. This morning, Duke looked so scrawny that his eyes appeared to be big.

I got a call from Duke’s teacher checking on him. It turned out that the daycare closes next week, not this week. Dana had looked at the wrong calendar. I might have to take off a couple of vacation days look after Duke since grandma will be gone this week.

Last Friday evening, I had an opportunity to meet up with one of Ngoc Lan’s devoted fans and she introduced me to Thai In Shirlington. She recommended the drunken noodles and it was delicious. The taste was well balanced, not too sweet and not too salty. I tried some of her beef salad. Although the grilled beef was marinated to perfection, the meat was a bit chewy. It would had been great if the beef was not too cooked. I had fresh mango and sticky rice for dessert, which wasn’t so bad. I also tried some of her fried roti dough, which was similar to the Vietnamese version of xoi vi (fried sticky rice), and it wasn’t bad at all.

I was glad to get to know a Ngoc Lan’s fan in DC and I am still amazed how that angelic voice had reached so many people in many different ways. The fan I talked to spoke little Vietnamese, yet she knew by heart the songs Ngoc Lan had covered. Although we only met for the first time, we could talk to each other so easily. Our passion for Ngoc Lan made that possible. We both thought that it would be cool if we could get a bunch of Ngoc Lan’s fans together, try out different restaurants and talk about Ngoc Lan, politics or whatever. Any Ngoc Lan’s freak in is DC up for this? There are two of us now, but the more the merrier.

Last night, Duke had rashes on his behind, which caused him to be feisty all night. Poor little guy tried to sleep, but he was so itchy that he rubbed his butt against the sheet and cried with his eyes shut. Nothing we could do to calm him down. We gave him some Tylenol and took off his diaper, but nothing helped.

The only way for him to sleep was to hold him in our arms. Dana and I took turn carrying him around. He slept like a little puppy on my shoulder for a couple of hours. I tried to catch some sleep on the couch with him on my lap, but it was too uncomfortable. My head was pounding and I needed to take a leak, but I had to hold off because I didn’t want to wake him up, so I did some reading on my iPod Touch to kill time.

The next morning I called the pediatrician immediately, but the earliest appointment was 2 o’clock. It turned out that Duke has caught up with some bacteria, which he might had picked up from his toe.

Cu Dao stays home with grandma for the week since daycare will only open for today and half a day tomorrow. Besides, grandma will return to New Jersey the end of this week so we thought they could spend some times together. I am sure Cu Dao will miss his grandma. She is now the closest one to him. He clings on to her every chance he gets. He laughs whenever she laughs. He eats the most when she feeds him. Grandma always takes her time with him. Will see how Cu Dao do without grandma starting next week.

Jeremy Keith’s “A Brief History of Markup“:

There won’t be a single point in time at which we can declare that the language is ready to use. Instead, we can start using parts of the specification as web browsers support those features.

This is the reason I pre-ordered his new book HTML5 For Web Designers.

With my mother-in-law staying with us, I have been watching more TV than in the past. We watch Dancing With the Stars on Mondays and American Idols on Tuesdays. Tuesday nights are still my favorite even though I am no longer interested AI. Clearly Crystal Bowersox is the most inventive and has the most potentials even though the judges haven’t complimented her two weeks in a row. If she loses, AI will become a joke.

What comes after AI is getting me excited. The first time, Glee caught my attention was its rendition of Young MC’s “Bust a Move.” I thought it was cheesy, but funny as hell. Tonight, Glee brought me back to Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” and MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This.” Rachel’s version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was a perfect show-closer. Lea Michele’s pitch-perfect tone made the campy tune sounded fresh.

Ben Michael Ward:

Want to know if your ‘HTML application’ is part of the web? Link me into it. Not just link me to it; link me into it. Not just to the black-box frontpage. Link me to a piece of content. Show me that it can be crawled, show me that we can draw strands of silk between the resources presented in your app. That is the web: The beautiful interconnection of navigable content. If your website locks content away in a container, outside the reach of hyperlinks, you’re not building any kind of ‘web’ app. You’re doing something else.

Word.