Last Friday, we decided to take Duke and grandma to Blue Pearl Buffet because we haven’t been to a Chinese buffet for a year. It turned out to be the first buffet I ended up eating instant noodle later on that night. The food was not so bad. I just didn’t get a chance to eat.

We put Duke in a high chair and fed him his food. Two spoons later he was no longer interested in eating. He was just screaming out of excitement and everyone in the restaurant could hear him. To calm him down, we gave him a some jello to play with. It was a bad idea even though he stayed quiet for about five minutes. He smashed the jello and smacked them all over the place including his face and head. Dana cleaned him up and held him for a bit while I was trying to gorge down some dishes.

There was a Vietnamese couple next to our table with a two-year-old boy. He was a very nice kid. He came over touched Cu Dao’s hand and feet. He liked it by smiling back, but as soon as the boy went back to his table, Cu Dao would scream again. He wanted to play with the big boy.

I didn’t want to disturb another patrons who went out and paid for a nice and calm meal at the restaurant with Duke’s yelling. He was not fussing or crying, just screaming out of excitement. Silly little boy. We probably won’t take him to a another buffet until he’s a bit older.

Two years ago, I left Vassar behind to join The George Washington University School of Business for personal reason. I couldn’t let go of someone who I knew I would spend the rest of my life with, even though we weren’t even engaged. It was a bold move for me because Vassar was the place I wanted to be professionally. I loved the folks I worked with and I got to design.

GWSB was quite a transition for me. I had to switch from being a web designer to a webmaster. I moved from designing original web sites to following a designed template and I hardly get to work on something from scratch. Furthermore, I am just a one-man shop since I don’t have a group of designers and developers to bounce ideas off with.

The different environment forces me to adapt to the new changes. Most of the time I have to come up with the solutions myself. Sometimes I have to take on more roles than just the web like print, marketing, coordinate, as well as research. In a way, it’s rewarding to learn different aspects of communication.

Although I don’t get to collaborate with my peer designers, I get to work with folks in different field like writer, videographer and advertiser. The trade off of not designing much allows me to focus on the contents and conserves my creative fuel to take on freelance projects. The new adjustments actually work out well for me. Adaptability challenges to grow and I am grateful for that.

Nguyen Khang launched a new site and he has been very enthusiastic about it. He posted on his Facebook page and sent out a blast email asking for feedback of his site. One of the site’s admins also asked me to weigh in on the new site. Since they sound so sincere about it, I’ll give them an honest critique in hoping that him and his team could improve the web experience.

The site opens with a flashy “Happy New Year” animation. It looks cute, but New Year is over. It’s time to take it down. The main page is simple, stark and dramatic, which is very fitting to Nguyen Khang’s dark, compelling style. The design is straightforward and beautiful until you look under the hood. Whoever put the site together is obviously not a web designer. While the visual is hip and cool, the code is at least 10 years old. The extremely unaccessible markups seemed as if they were exported straight from Photoshop with the images sliced up. If you were to turn off image in your browser, all you see is a blank black page with just the footer.

The site designed with tables instead of CSS for layout. The pictures take at least a minute to load. The blog is obviously coming from a free WordPress theme; therefore, you can see the drastic different from the rest of the pages. So there you have it my friend. You know I don’t bullshit. It’s now up to you to make the site function better.

I miss taking and posting photos of Cu Dao. I left the camera at my sister’s house and I am not sure when I will get it back. I blame the car for it. It was packed before I could remember I didn’t put the camera in.

Duke not only takes up so much room in the house, he also takes up so much space in the car. My TL and my wife’s Camry aren’t big enough for all of his stuff. His new convertible car seat takes up two spaces in the back. His stroller, clothes and diapers fill up the entire trunk.

We thought of selling my wife’s Camry and get a Sienna, but our budget is kind of tight right now. We can’t afford another 30 grants in debt. Furthermore, we’re trying to send Cu Dao off to daycare, and that’s another $1,500 a month. We have decided to go with the Jewish Community Center even though the price is a bit high. Cu Dao is now on the waiting list for the next available spot.

As for Duke’s development, he has been doing great. He is very active in crawling around the house and he also has a very good appetite. He takes solid food well and he still drinks his mommy’s milk from the bottle during the day.

Night time is a whole different story. We moved him into his own room, but his mom couldn’t let him sleep by himself so she joined him. It feels cold and lonely in the master bedroom, so I joined them as well. All three of us sleep on a little-ass mattress with my legs touching the floor.

Truth be told, I joined them because my conscience eats at me for letting Dana taking care of Duke during the night all by herself. I could get an interrupted sleep all by myself, but the guilt wouldn’t let me. These days, Cu Dao doesn’t just wake up and cry. He sits right up, screams and crashes his head into my chest and sometimes my face.

I have to pick him up, hold him in my arms, and bend my knees repeatedly—my man Tim gave me the bending knees advice and it works every time—or cuddle him tight and tap his butt continuously until he goes back to sleep. Since he gets up like every hour, I get too tired to do either one, so the last resort is breast-feeding, and of course, that is when Dana takes over. I can’t hardly wait until the night that he would pull straight through.

We just launched nine video capturing what our faculty has to say about The George Washington University School of Business. The clips are also featured on the faculty’s directory.

Maybe I have been living under a rock, but I am surprised that the oversea Vietnamese community hasn’t bottle-bleached Dam Vinh Hung yet for his performance of “Bai Ca Nho Bac.”

To fully express Vietnamese sentimental ballads, a vocalist has to reach the ripeness of the lyrics. She has to sing like she lives it. Tam Doan has been covering lyrical standards throughout her career, yet her latest release, Sau Le Bong, is as plain as yesterday’s cold white congee. Her version of Lam Phuong’s “Giot Le Sau” lacks the despondency and Song Ngoc’s “Xin Goi Nhau La Co Nhan” lacks the soul-stirring despair from the older generation. Maybe she was trying to refrain herself by staying in the low register, but you can never go over sentimental on over-sentimental music.

I was assigned to sell the office’s Panasonic Camcorder on Craiglist. I listed the item on Monday and received two interested buyers with very similar purpose:

Rebecca Law:

Thanks for your mail,i am buying the item for my son who school in oversea.i will add $60 for shipping,i will have do it local transaction but i am out of town presently…so you can get me back with your paypal email account so i can pay now.hope to hear from you soon.
best regard

I wasted my time responded to her back and forth about how I can’t use my personal PayPal account for the school and dismantled the deal. Today I received another inquiry from Mon Wall:

Thanks for your reply… I’ll like to buy your item and pay you with cash through my PayPal account.. Currently I’m out of the State and won’t be available for pick up. moreover, I’m buying this item for my company agent located oversea as a gift, i’ll add the sum of $100.00 to the amount to cover the shipping expenses to him through (USPS) Global Express mail International 8-10 days business. i want you to send to me your PayPal account id, so that immediate payment can be done, and if you are new to PayPal, you can easily log on to http://www.paypal.com/us and set up an account with them with either your Bank account Information or your Credit/Debit Card details and its simple and easier, just in few secs; you get your account activated. PayPal is very secure and reliable.. anticipate a favorable response from you.

Thanks.
Get back to me immediately.

Thanks, but no thanks. Anyway, if you’re around Metro area and interested in the Camcorder, come by and see me.

Sure Susan Boyle stunned the audiences and the judges on Britain’s Got Talent with her gorgeous soprano and palpable phrasing. She can take a song and sing her heart out, but Ms Boyle is no interpreter. The twelve tracks on her her debut, I Dreamed a Dream, are the proof. From “Cry Me a River” to “Silent Night,” she never escapes the melodies. She is predictable on most string-orchestrated standards and gospel songs with the exception of “The End of the World.” Although her delivery is faithful, the simple strumming guitar allows her voice to carry the sentiment of the tune.

Last November, Dana’s brother gave her a copy of Ruth Yaron’s Super Baby Food for her birthday. Dana and I looked at the book and frowned: a baby food book with almost 600-page long and no photos to inspire us to cook. I was not impressed with the cover design and the book layout either so SBF ended up on our bookshelf.

During the holiday break, I took off work to spend time with Duke. While he was sleeping, I cracked the book open and started to read. To my surprise, I kept turning page after page. The first part of the book is packed with so much useful information that I had to start all over, even though I already reached 100 pages, to take notes. From the safety guides on how to buy a high chair to the best time to feed your baby to four-day waiting period to introduce new food, SBF is more than just a book on recipes. I picked up tips that I have not thought of before, like something as simple as cleaning baby teeth with Q-Tips after meals, not to make a disgusted face when changing his diaper, “which may teach him that his private parts are repulsive and lead him to believe that sex is ‘dirty’ when he gets older,” and, most important of all, never force him to eat.

SBF breaks down the advantages of home-cook from the quality of the food to the cost savings. For instance, she compares whole grains versus processed grains to contrast the lost of nutrients during the refinement. This is the book that I should have read before Duke turned 6-month, even though Dana has been doing a fabulous job of preparing healthy solid meals for our boy. I highly recommend SBF to new parents; however, consulting with a pediatrician is necessary when in doubts, like introducing yogurt after 6 months instead of 12 or introducing nuts at the early age.