ACT is just the beginning. ...ION would make it completed

Sure, you get credit for doing the first part, the ACT part



http://www.tuoitre.com.vn/Tianyon/Index.aspx?ArticleID=355369&ChannelID=194


http://vnexpress.net/GL/Xa-hoi/Nhip-dieu-tre/2009/12/3BA172CA/



Are you going to finish the rest, the ...ION part to turn it to ACTION


http://www.vnexpress.net/GL/Doi-song/2009/12/3BA17440/

2009 Vietnam trip: Class reunion ... but it is not my class

Yeah, it is a pretty picture but it is NOT MINE !!!

:D

It was Sunday morning after a great Saturday, I was laying on the floor to watch TV and waiting for having lunch with my family.

My younger brother was on his computer and in a sudden he turned around and asked me "Are you going to the class re-union ?"
"What the heck are you talking about !" I replied.
He continued "You promised your teacher friend that you would go with her ... and it is today at 12:00PM".
"Damn, i forgot about that, i be damned".

So i grabbed my phone and tried to call "my teacher". She did not answer the phone. Who would after i stood her up twice. I sent her 2 messages to ask her if she would call me back because i even forgot the location too.

She called me back after 30 minutes, she told me that i would not need to come. She was angry and really sad. I apologized to her then told her that i would be there in 45 minutes.

I took off in 3 minutes after telling my parents that i could not have lunch with them that they. They were not that happy but i did not have time for that. I turned on my "rice based GPS" in my mind, switched it to "shortest path mode" and cranked the gas of my bike. In the next 10 minutes, i got stuck in a traffic jam. I had plenty of experience with this kind of situations so i quickly turned around and picked another route. Damn, it would cost me an extra 20 minutes. So i called my teacher again and told her that i would be a little extra late.

I got to "Binh Quoi" then called my teacher, she went out gave me the ticket to get in. I did not recognize my teacher was a bit not happy. I was acting cool (lucky me). She took me to the table and introduced me to a bunch of her friends. I knew several of them and many others looked familiar. It might be i hung out at her school so much when i was in college so i met all of them before.

I really enjoyed the food and talking to new friends. I could feel my teacher's voice was a bit different but i was thinking she did that because of her friends. She was still very mad.

We finished eating and started some group games. I got a ticket that required me to bite an opposite sex partner. Hahahahahaha, i loved this kind of game. So i turned to my teacher and armed for her ear. Wow yummy. No, i would not bite it, but just wanted to scare her a bit.

I got a phone call from another friend of mine, she was asking me if i could stop by her place because they had some business ideas that i could join and work with them. I asked my teacher to come with me, and she agreed to come. We took off after the whole group took several pictures (Hey, i am still waiting on seeing those pictures ...). After 5 minutes driving on the road, i realized that my teacher was tired, so i told her to go home, i would race to my friend's place myself. I told my teacher to drive home careful after i told her that she looked lovely. Yes, i started to feel more attracted to her since the moment that i armed for her ear. She did look very lovely.

Well, i was a bit late and every people left. I took off after a few minutes chatting with my friend.

I started to think more about my teacher. I think i like her more now. Damn, was it my destiny ?

2009 Vietnam trip: a great day and a great play

I promised "Ly" long time ago that:
1. i would spend a weekend day with her, at her house to enjoy some great DVDs
2. she would cook one of my favorite disk
3. we would go to a play together
4. we would go to a movie together
5. we would go to coffee shop together

So here was the summary
5. Checked (several time, over quota)
4. I was on the trip with my family so we could not catch "Ice Age" together but we did went to another play together. I would consider this one checked.
3, 2, 1. I was going to do it that Saturday.

So i arrived at her house around 8:15AM, we when to a coffee shop for morning coffee and breakfast. The place was nice, i went there years ago with my ex-girlfriend from college. The music sucked, not much to enjoy.

We went back to her house around 10:00AM. We watch "PS: I love you" together. Damn, i hated it when people would not concentrate on watching movie, and "Ly" did the same thing. I told "Ly" that.

"Ly" could not stay up at noon time so she told me that she would take a nap. Hahahahaha, i remembered that was one of my problem when i first came to America. I always wanted a nap after lunch. So she turned to the wall and enjoyed her nap, i grabbed a comic book and read it, then i grabbed another one and finished it too.

I could not remember what we did when "Ly" got up. Hahahaha, keep your imagination working harder ;)

"Ly" was working on the sour soup that i like a lot. We had early dinner then we headed out for the play. Oh, i met my younger brother and his girlfriend at the theater too.

The play was good, really good. We left the theater when it started to rain hard. It was a bit cold, we had no rain coat and i did not want to get one. I wanted to drive in the rain. Poor "Ly", she did not do well, i could feel she was sharking on the back seat. I was just enjoy the feeling of rain water on my face. It was some good feeling, "Saigon, i am back"

It took us 10 minutes to get back to her house. She was freezing but she wanted me to enjoy my hobby so she did not say anything (or it might be so cold that she could not say anything :D)

I told her to go change, and got herself some warm clothes. I headed back out to go home, another 20-25 minutes in the rain. Damn, i loved it, but my Mom did not. And sure enough, she was at the door with the same question "Where was your rain coat? Didn't you feel cold at all ?" I learned my lesson so i kept my lips tight.

So ... 3, 2, 1 CHECKED

thank you "Ly" for some great time, and sorry for the cold and rainy drive :D

2009 Vietnam trip: Was it destiny ... ?

So, we arrived at TanSonNhat airport after 3-4 hours delayed. I got several messages from my friends. One guy just got married. I knew his wife for awhile but did not have any chance to meet her in real person. They would leave Vietnam in 2 days so we wanted to meet. "Ly" is her friend too, so they messaged me to come to "Mien Dong Thao" again.

I picked up a motorist guy on the side of the road and asked him to take me to the place. In about 10 minutes, i was there.

I and Phuc hanged out for awhile when we were in college but we did not talk much after we graduated. I went to work and he came to America to work on his PhD degree.

So, the guy changed, he talked way more than he used to be. I had no idea what happened to him, may be he learned that very soon his talking quota would be transferred to his wife. We talked for about an hour and a half then the couple left. They needed to prepare their stuff for the trip back to America.

I and "Ly" spent sometime talking about my trip and what she did while i was away. I took her home and we just had one helmet. She was small so she convinced ourselves that the cops could not see her behind me. We got lucky, we passed 1 cop on the road but he did not see us.

I dropped her at her house then took her bike home. It was nice.

You sure don't know what "nice" i mean right ?
- Meeting my old time friend
- "Ly"
- The bike

I called "my teacher" the next day and told her that i would try to stop by to visit her in the afternoon. In the early afternoon I went to where "Ly" work to return her bike. We went to a coffee shop to wait for my younger brother to pick me up. "Ly" would go home then we would go to visit "my teacher". Well, all plans would go wrong. We spent a little bit much time at the coffee shop more than I expected.

"My teacher" did not feel that good. She waited then felt hurt so she drove her bike around. I did not know that so I, my brother and his girl friend went to have dinner.

I called "my teacher" to tell her that if she wanted to get to a coffee shop with us. She did not want to, she was mad, and i had no idea :D

She promised herself to not to talk to me again ....

Was it destiny ?

Being jerks ... with unlimited supporting from my buddy "TaoLao"

The jerks now



So here is the recap:

I and my buddy TaoLao usually buy stuff from retail stores when those items are on sale. We try to use coupons when we buy so the price of these items are quite low.

We will resale those items on Ebay, Craiglist to make some profit. It is fun but sometime it is a lot of fun even though we could not sell a thing.

I have a color laser printer that I bought long time ago 6-7 months but it is still in sealed box, brand new.

I posted it for sale at $100.00 but I am willing to go down may be $90.00. Yeah, To be honest I am going to make $50.00+ off this one.

I got an email from a buyer "Stoichita Razvan"

Stoichita Razvan:I could offer you 50$ cash on it since Staples had the same printer in sale for 50$ after instant rebate and I guess yours does not come with warranty anymore or it is less then 1year which is the original man. warranty.

Let me know,
Raz.

He pissed me off with his smart ass attitude so I replied.

Nguyen Mai:
I just sold it 5 minutes ago. tks

Then I thought more about it, it would be fun to mess with this guy a bit more.

Nguyen Mai:
Could you tell me which Staples store is selling it ? I would love to buy me one too

thank you

Stoichita Razvan:
it was on offer. the offer ended now. but i think you can find it at any staples store.

At this time my buddy, TaoLao, got pissed off with the story about the guy too so he asked me to reply the guy

Nguyen Mai - TaoLao:
So they are selling it at Staples at $140 + tax now ? I still have one on hand, do you want to buy it for $100 cash now, NO TAX

Stoichita Razvan:
50$ cash since I won't get the warranty for it.

Nguyen Mai - TaoLao:
Yes, you get warranty. I just bought this one at Staples for $50 after $50 off. Try just to make a quick $50

Stoichita Razvan:
than it means the printer is used for a couple months now and it has just a couple months warranty left.
be honest.. when did you buy it? how long has it been used?

TaoLao got mad because the guy did not read the ads clearly. We stated that the printer is brand new in a sealed box.

Nguyen Mai - TaoLao:
I bought it when Staples had it on sale but i did not use it. It is BRAND NEW IN SEALED BOX

Stoichita Razvan:
ok. so .. still the warranty will be like 3 months left since the offer ended back in February as I remember.
so take 50$ and I come get it.

TaoLao wanted me to reply the guy "take your $50.00 and stick it up you A$$ !" but i do not want to end the fun too early

Nguyen Mai - TaoLao:
warranty only effect when you register on Samsung.com
so you bought it today go home and register and you get 12 month warranty
but I just get another offer for $51, i have to consider a bit

TaoLao-BigBelly (Kha Vo) :
ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND
Are you going to $52 if the guy accept $51 ?
keep the game a little bit longer

Yeah, now we are talking about negotiation, you can see clearly, when i mentioned that i could sell the printer for ONE WHOLE DOLLAR more, the guy raised his price

Stoichita Razvan:
55 but that's my best offer.

TaoLao-BigBelly (Kha Vo) :
what the fuck

Nguyen Mai:
hahahaha
should i go for $56

TaoLao-BigBelly (Kha Vo) :
wait a little bit. May be tonight bro

I and TaoLao did have some good time, then I came up with the idea of sharing this with every people

Nguyen Mai:
hey bro, i think we should post this one on my blog

TaoLao-BigBelly (Kha Vo) :
yup
give me some credit ass hole

Nguyen Mai:
Damn, we are jack asses

TaoLao-BigBelly (Kha Vo) :
You are not even close. I got this email today that was way cooler than your buyer. Check this out

"Dear Cheap Bastard,
We are pleased to inform you that your rebate, with the Basic service level you selected has been processed and approved on Oct 6 2009 8:40PM. Your Visa® Card will be mailed within 2-4 weeks.
Please contact us if you have any additional questions.
Below is the summary of your rebate registration information:
Tracking Number: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Rebate Offer: (CMI-9-0013) Receive up to $30
Rebate Item : ASUS EAH4650/DI/1G(LP) Video Card
Rebate Item UPC number(s) : 610839055623
Rebate Award: $20.00
Service level Basic: $0.00
Final Award: $20.00"

The jerks then


Updated on Thursday Nov-12-2009 11:03AM

Stoichita Razvan:
so.. do you accept my offer or should i start looking for another printer?

Nguyen Mai:
If you really need a printer that bad and that cheap, I have a used black-white Plug and Play HP LaserJet 1100 in good shape to sale you for $30.
- Print toner was just refilled and is still almost full
- Power cord
- 2 cables (Parallel to USB + Parellel DB-25 36p Micro Centronics Cord) value of ~$10.00, you get it free

Stoichita Razvan:

I already have an HP 1100. I was asking you about the clp-315.

I could give you 60$ but i'm not willing to go above that anymore.

let me know if you accept my offer or not.

thanks.

Nguyen Mai:
$100

Stoichita Razvan:
ok. thanks. good luck.

2009 Vietnam trip: Phu Bai airport it was all disappointed

I hate Hue's airport. Phu Bai airport, i believe. The most sucky airport that I've even been to.

Yeah, We would take off from Hue to get back to Saigon. The airplane was scheduled to take off around 3PM and we would be home around 5PM. We arrived at the airport around 2:30PM and my first comment was "This damn international airport's toilet is worse than any coffee shop's toilet that I've ever been to."

1. There was not enough bench at the airport for people to sit down
2. You could not check in your luggage until 30 minutes before the plane take off
3. You could NOT sit at the cafeteria unless you bought drink from them and this f..king cafeteria had no food
4. The airplane was delayed 3 times and did not take off until 6:30PM
5. You would need to get a taxi to go back to Hue city to get some food

We finally went up stair to wait for boarding, we did have to wait another hour before the airplane was arrive.The waiting room was a joke, you don't even want to hear about it and i don't even want to talk about it.

So what the hell this city was doing ? Oh yeah, they were having their own stimulus plan to rescue their economy. But they f..ked up their reputation. They should take the "international" word down. It was all ashamed.

I would try my best to avoid this airport and you should too.

2009 Vietnam trip: The trip that we were all expected ...

Yah !!! This is the trip between the trip :D

Click on each picture to go to the album for that day ...!

The first day: "Hello! Ha Noi"


The second day: "Hello! Ha Long Bay"


The third day: "Good bye! Ha Long"


The fourth day: "Wow! It is Sapa"


The fifth day: "See you again, Sapa"


The sixth day: "Visiting Uncle Ho's tomb"


The seventh day: "Visiting Ba Na, Da Nang"


The seventh day: "Da Nang by night"


The eighth day: "Visiting Son Tra, Da Nang"


The eighth day: "My Khe Beach, Da Nang"


The eighth day: "Hai Van, Da Nang"


The ninth day: "Ngu Hanh Son, Da Nang"


The ninth day: "Hoi An"


The tenth day: "Oh! my Hue"


The eleventh day: "Visiting La Vang, Quang Tri"


The eleventh day: "Visiting Phong Nha, Quang Binh"


The twelve day: "Hue! I am going home !!!"

2009 Vietnam trip: ... "Miền đồng thảo" and "Đùa với bóng"

I and my family were working on the plan for a trip through the North and Central of Vietnam for a while.

We wanted to take Mom and Dad on this trip. They should enjoy life a bit while they could still do it. I and my brothers spent the next several days to do the reservation for the trip. We finally had my brother's girl agreed to go with us on the trip. I went by the tour office to update the contract on Friday, July-31.

We would start the trip on Saturday, August-01. "Ly" wanted to go out for a movie with me and some of her cousins. I could not make it that weekend so "Ly" decided that we should watch a play instead. I was fine with that.

She picked me up at the park near the Notre-Dame Saigon.It was raining on and off that afternoon. According to the plan, she would pick me up around 2PM, we would spend some time at "Miền đồng thảo" cafe before we would head out for the play. We were 7-8 minutes from the place when it started to rain, I did not want to wear a rain coat so we tried to go faster but i had to stop after 2-3 minutes for us to put rain coat on. It was a small rain coat so we both got wet pretty bad.

The place was OK, I expected more from what i heard from friends but it was quiet that afternoon and we had some good time to talk about many more topics. "Ly" was really a nice girl and you could feel easily the sincere from her actions was real.

We had dinner there before we headed out for the play. The food was alright.

We stopped at Idecaf a bit early and to be honest, i was a bit sleepy and I was hoping that the play would not be so boring that i would fall asleep.

The play was "Đùa với bóng", it was trying to express a very classical topic "love and how we should treat people". It was alright.

We went to the hotel where my older brother worked to pick up his motor-bike. We drove side-by-side to her house's drive-way then I was continue on my way back to our house.

It was drizzling again so ... no rain coat.

I was planning on sending her a message whenever i got home but i forgot. She called me to ensure that i got home safely.

You just can not deny it. "Ly" is a really nice person, nice friend.

2009 Vietnam trip: My third coffee date ...

- "Alright, I will be there at 9 AM !"
OK, the date was at "Them Xua cafe", it is near my former university. It was a good chance for me to revisit my school.

We had been talking, chatting for awhile and i liked her a bit. We were good friend. We know a bit about the situation of the other. But there was nothing special and still there is always a big gap between the virtual world and the real world.

My younger brother dropped me in front of the coffee shop. It looked nice. I walked in and looked around. I did not see her so I walked back out and took out my phone to call her.

In a sudden, i felt there was some one stopped by next to me, at the same time, I heard the sound "Hi ! Nguyen". I turned around ............

Well, what could i say here!

OK, she looked a lot younger than in the pictures and on webcam, and she looked little too.
We walked in the coffee shop and picked a table up stair. We started our formal conversation. She was very careful with her words.

Oh, yeah ! She recognized me standing in front of the coffee shop by the green wrist band that i had been wearing for about 6 months.

The weather got hotter and the conversation got a bit better. We made some jokes and told some naughty things that we did when we were still in school.

Around 11AM, my brother called. He might want to rescue me (just in case, hahahaha, nice brother). By this time, i felt that i like my company a bit more so i told me brother to stop by and have lunch with us.

Oh man, my younger brother definitely was a "girls killer". He cracked her up with his jokes. Between I and my brother, she had to ask us to stop telling jokes for awhile. Her stomach muscles were hurting bad from laughting so much.

It was around 2PM and we decided to go and visit my brother's girl friend. I could see that my friend was a bit tired but she claimed that she was OK to go with us. I was driving on my old time trophy motor-bike with her and my brother was driving her motor-bike.

We stayed and visited my brother's girl friend's family until around 4PM, then we decide to hang out some more. She looked more tired but was hard head enough to continue with us.

The youths took us the a pretty nice coffee shop some where near the back gate of the Polytechnic University. I could not recall the name of it. We got some drink there and chatted a bit more. We were mainly trying to convinced my brother's girl friend to go on the trip with my family. She was a crazy girl, she could not decide, she had a bunch of reasons that i could not digest any of it.

I turned around to my friend. She was so tired but she told us that it would be OK to continue. Well, I got tired too from jet-lag. So i told every people that we should go home.

My friend did not want us to go with her back to her house. My brother and his girl friend wanted to go shopping so i turned around and went home. My friend drove home the other direction.

It rained a bit on the way i drove home.

Damn, i love the feeling of driving in the rain.

So i did not wear my rain coat at all. It was just a typical rain in Saigon. It stopped after it wet my head and my clothes.

That was it. Another day, another date. It wasn't bad, it was OK.
But i sure did have a great night. I slept so good. It must be a good way to fight jet-lag.
..........................

What did my friend think ? I had no idea but it might be something like "I was so tired !!! I need some good rest, these guys were crazy ...." or might not ....

2009 Vietnam trip: My second coffee date ... (let just call it like that from now on)

My second coffee date ... uhm ...

anyway, i just remember that i promised to myself that i would not talk about it.

So I am sorry ...

You have to wait for the next entry

2009 Vietnam trip: My first coffee date ... (if you want to call it so)

I got this basket of flower the first morning that i arrived in saigon.
It was from a very close friend. It was a bit funny when i got and signed off the form for the delivery guy.

So my Mom got a phone call to confirm our home address so the flower could be delivered in the early morning. My Mom was about to sign off the form when i asked them the name of the sender.
- "Ly was her name", the delivery guy said.
- "I don't know any one with that name, you should double check with her first." I told the guy.

He got on the phone just to confirm with "Ly" that the flower would be delivered to Nguyen. Everything was correct except the part that I wanted to find out who "Ly" was. So I asked the guy to call "Ly" again. "Ly" did not know that i was calling from the delivery guy's phone. I heared a voice and I could not recognize it, she could not recognize my voice either.
We did exchange a few short questions and it was her, i did guess so but only then i could confirm that was her, my very close friend that I was going to have coffee with that afternoon.

"The coffee date" was around 2:00PM July-26. I did have a lot of coffee to keep me awake all day. I was thinking that Le Van Sy street would be the best way to avoid the traffic boongkes system. I was dead wrong. I was up and down the sidewalk for every 10-15 meters (30-40 fts). I realized that my driving skill was still pretty good.

It took me forever to get to cafe "Soi Da" where my friend was waiting. I got there, called her to find our where our table was. We did have a great time. We talked and talked and joked. Anyway, that was the first time that we meet in real person. The "date" went smoothly with helping of some extra coffee to fight the jet-lag.
I could not remember clearly what topics that we talked about but we spent easily 3 hours together before my friend released me so i could go home and had dinner with my family.

It might just be a "polite excuse" because my friend would not trust me with a motor-bike and jet-lag.

My friend must did a great job of re-opening "my coffee date season", I went out almost everyday to meet friends. Sometimes, 1 in the morning and another one in the afternoon.


Oh, you have to read this section:
I order coffee as the drink on my date, right ? It came with with a pack of sugar. I opened it. It was in some form of liquid. It must be melted and unusable. I rose my voice and asked for a different pack of sugar.

"What a jack ass !".

I must look pretty stupid then, right? Sorry, long long time since my last sync with "coffee culture" in Vietnam so i did not know that liquid-sugar would go better with my ice coffee.


Stay alert, more entries are coming ...

July-25-2009: Hello Vietnam and all of its ... legacies

It took me many hours on the air before we landed in Japan. I checked the time. It was just around 11 AM in Vietnam, I still had a long wait ahead. I was so sleepy but i did not dare to sleep. I did not want to delay fighting with the jet lag until i arrived in Vietnam so i started the fight immediately. I had 5 hours waiting in Japan. I wanted to be home as fast as i could "my family is waiting and i want to meet so many of my friends new and old".

We took off around 4 PM Vietnam's time and the trip would take several hours. Everything was perfect so far except the sleepy part but i could handle it.

I thought that i planned everything for this trip perfectly:
- I would stay up so i could sleep easily the first night in Vietnam.
- I had all the paper work correctly this time.
- I had some extra "green paper" so it could help me find a short cut through the custom.

But just as things always happened to me. Yes, here is the story:
- I was stopped at the custom gate because my visa exemption was not valid. What the heck ! Yeah, the small book was real, everything was correct except the part that I applied this exemption while i was still carrying my US green-card. I got US-passport now but i did not re-apply for the new visa exemption. So i got pointed to a small office to fix the problem. I walked there and "holly cow !" a not small group of people were standing there waiting for somethings. Just to cut my story short, I took me around 1 hour with some nice talking to get a new and FREE 1 time visa this time. I was LUCKY at the last minute, just as it has always been like that.
- There was a guy who had been waiting for 3-4 hours. I could not recall what the problem with his visa application was but i remembered what he said "This is bull shit, I was in like 20-30 countries and this is the first time i got this kind of shit".
- There was an unlucky American girl too. "Hahahahaha, welcome to the world and remember America is not the world". So, the girl came to Vietnam through a Japanese travel agent. They did not get her a Vietnamese visa. It was OK, she was willing to apply and pay for the application fee. But the unlucky girl did not carry US dollar, she had Japanese YEN and Vietnamese custom just takes US dollar. The girl then tried to ask for an ATM to get some USD. She soon found out she was in a deadlock situation "She needs US money to pay for the visa fee, and the ATM to withdraw money is on the other side of the custom gate which she needs a visa to pass through". So i offered to help the girl with some US dollars, she gave me back the same amount in Japanese YEN. Minutes later, a guy came up to her and asked her to pay for the picture fee and he did not want to take US coins. I and she exchanged coins and US dollar again. By the time i got me visa and passed the custom, she was still waiting for her visa but at that moment she got one of her friend with her.
- "So what do you want to do ? You did not declare all these laptops, cameras, cellphones in the form. You will have to declare them and pay tax for all of them !". I replied "Is there anyway else and I gave a $20 bill to your friend over there already?". "Umh, alright, let just make it easy and straight forward. Give me another $20 bill then you can go". Yeah, i took the easy way, no fighting at all, just paid my way for the short cut through troubles.

I walked out the door. My family was waiting there. Mom said "I thought that they took you to hospital because of H1N1, but ,hell, they must let you make a phone call, right ?". "Yeah Mom, I did try to call you, a guy was nice enough to let me use his phone but i do not remember any of yours cellphone's number". We got back the house around 1 AM of July-26-2009.

I opened my luggage and every people got somethings. My Dad was waiting for his laptop but he was not very happy when he found out that he could not get it until my buddy get to Saigon 2-3 days later.

I ran up and down the stair several rounds, did some push ups. All those efforts so that i could sleep for several hours before going to my first date on that Sunday afternoon.

Not much to complain this time, we already know the legacies. You have your choices (or maybe not) to pick a way to deal with it. For now i just go "green". Hahahahahahaha

Photography ...

Found this site with many good tips and advices relates to photography

http://nhipsongso.tuoitre.com.vn/Index.aspx?ChannelID=555

Home alone ... again !!!

Hey guys,

I am back in the US around 4:45PM Sat, Sep-05-2009. It was the end of a long long trip to visit Vietnam with so many memories and events to tell you guys.

Alright, take it easy. I will slowly report my trip from the beginning to the end.

It is late now, i need to get to bed and hope that i could sleep a little bit.


This picture came from my "sister", she spent tons of time using photoshop to upgrade my face so it could reach the "avatar standard".

"Sis, thank you so much for your hard working !!!"

My trip to vietnam 08-242009 to ...

Hi all,

My Picasa album can not hold all the pictures that we took (are taking) during this trip so I created a new account to hold them.

Please follow the below link to go there ...

http://picasaweb.google.com/themais.albums

thank you

The Mais

Do you need something to cheer you up ? ....

Hey, those pictures are linked from http://www.snorgtees.com

Hot topic "What a friend is for ?"

This is a very hot topic. Actually, I and my friend just finished the conversation 10 minutes ago.

The context, my buddy just got married a couple weeks ago ;)

Le Hung Phong: man
Nguyen Mai: what's up
Le Hung Phong: may biet cai USB sound adaptor ko?
Nguyen Mai: co thay quang cao
Nguyen Mai: chua xai bao gio
Le Hung Phong: dinh nho may mua, dem ve dua DongLe, no dem qua nha tao ,
Le Hung Phong: cai jack micro o nha bi hu roi
Nguyen Mai: damn, sao kip
Le Hung Phong: nen hom ray ko voice dc
Nguyen Mai: may voice voi ben nha = skype ha
Le Hung Phong: uh
Nguyen Mai: thoi de tao len nha may
Le Hung Phong: chuan bi ba tron
Nguyen Mai: vo may noi cho tao nghe
Nguyen Mai: roi tao noi lai cho may
Le Hung Phong: co gi thi gui phai ko
Le Hung Phong: giong Lucky Luke chuyen thu ha
Le Hung Phong: khakha
Le Hung Phong: DongLe hom ray ri mo ma ko fix dc
Le Hung Phong: nen tinh mua cai do, chuyen qua xai bang USB cho tien
Le Hung Phong: no work dc 2 thang la dat yeu cau
Nguyen Mai: tao khong nghi jack phone hu
Le Hung Phong: ko biet thang DongLee no fix sao ko dc
Nguyen Mai: chac la cai micro hu
Le Hung Phong: no dem ve nha no, talk voi tao dc ma
Nguyen Mai: sao, co muon tao ghe len kiem tra kohng
Nguyen Mai: dang nao tao cung muon tham Bac
Le Hung Phong: ranh thi ghe choi, chi so may di nhieu
Nguyen Mai: hahahaha
Nguyen Mai: khong
Le Hung Phong: ma doi may ghe chac lau ah
Nguyen Mai: tao len nha may tao o im trong nha thoi
Nguyen Mai: hahahahaha
Le Hung Phong: khakha
Le Hung Phong: cung ko sao, de dan bua nao ca nha di choi het, cho may vo do fix
Nguyen Mai: hay la vo may mute cai phone
Le Hung Phong: ac ac
Nguyen Mai: hahahaha
Le Hung Phong: thang Lee la no thu het roi
Nguyen Mai: noi chuyen voi tao 1 hoi
Nguyen Mai: chac may dau tim chet
Nguyen Mai: o nha xai laptop hay desktop
Le Hung Phong: dau phai moi biet may dau
Le Hung Phong: khakha
Nguyen Mai: chac donglee thuoc dang "em ut trong nha" nen cai micro no hu hoai
Nguyen Mai: phai co wolf ban be voi may ve micro no moi work lai
Le Hung Phong: khakha
Nguyen Mai: hay de thang Nam no qua setup
Nguyen Mai: thang do coi vay ma an tam hon american wolf ah
Le Hung Phong: tao co cach roi
Le Hung Phong: cai pc cua tao hinh nhu con card sound
Le Hung Phong: thao qua gan, ko biet no work ko
Nguyen Mai: o nha tao cung con 1 cai sound card thi phai
Nguyen Mai: khong biet thang Duy fry no chua nua
Le Hung Phong: khakha
Nguyen Mai: gio may co 3 options
Nguyen Mai: DongLee, NamHeo va tao
Le Hung Phong: khakha
Nguyen Mai: vi tuong lai con em chung ta
Nguyen Mai: may nen chon 2 thang kia
.....................................

SO, you already have your own conclusion, right !!!!! Damn, that is why i love having lots of friends, hahahahhahaha

Some nice articles / blog entries

http://www.vnexpress.net/GL/Doi-song/Blog/2009/07/3BA115D4/

http://www.vnexpress.net/GL/Doi-song/2009/07/3BA1163D/

http://www.vnexpress.net/GL/Doi-song/2009/07/3BA11272/

http://www.vnexpress.net/GL/Doi-song/Blog/2009/07/3BA1165D/

http://www.vnexpress.net/GL/Doi-song/2008/10/3BA076F1/

http://www.vnexpress.net/GL/Kinh-doanh/Quoc-te/2009/07/3BA112E3/

http://www.phunuonline.com.vn/honnhan-giadinh/2009/Pages/Vo-minh-vo-nguoi.aspx

http://www.vnexpress.net/GL/Doi-song/2009/07/3BA1172D/

from my buddy "TaoLao-BigBelly"

THE MOST IMPORTANT POINTS TO PONDER
The most essential ten-letter word
CONFIDENCE – TRUST it.

The most powerful nine-letter word
KNOWLEDGE – ACQUIRE it.

The most envious eight-letter word
JEALOUSY – DISTANCE it

The most hard-working seven-letter word
SUCCESS – ACHIEVE it.

The most dangerous six-letter word
RUMOUR – IGNORE it.

The most pleasing five-letter word
SMILE – KEEP it.

The most used four-leter Word
LOVE – VALUE it.

The most poisonous three-letter word
EGO – KILL it.

The most satisfying two-letter word
WE – USE it.

The most selfish one-letter word
I – AVOID it.

H.O.L.A.N.D
Hope Our Love Lasts And Never Dies

I.T.A.L.Y
I Love And Trust You

L.I.B.Y.A
Love Is Beautiful ; You Also

F.R.A.N.C.E
Friendships Remain And Never Come End

C.H.I.N.A
Come Here. I Need Affection

V.I.E.T.N.A.M
Viagra In Every Time ,Night And Morning

From "Lady and the tram" to "Doc huyen cam - Tran Tien"

You guys must remember this cartoon, right. It is a famous one from Walt Disney company. The movie is about a high class female dog "Lady" met a street dog.

I was in the back seat of car, we drove around the city in the afternoon. We had the windows down. I looked out the window and i saw her hair was flying in the air under the sunset's light. I turned to the other side and sure enough "your shoulder is so thin, so small" just like in a Trinh Cong Son's song.

My heart sank.

Men keep trying so many things, join so many games to keep their life exciting but what they actually want and need is the peaceful of life that only a female can offer.

I am not an exception.

Độc huyền cầm - Trần Tiến

Độc huyền cầm buồn lắm
Mấy ai người tri âm
Độc huyền cầm lẻ loi
Bay ngang cánh chim hồng

Bắc phong kỳ tả tơi
Lĩnh nam cầm lả lơi
Khách anh hùng còn ai
Tri âm độc huyền cầm

Gió mây ngàn bể dông
Cũng thu về một bóng
Tráng sỹ ngồi lặng câm
Độc hành - độc huyền cầm

Độc hành tìm lặng lẽ
Xót xa đời tha phương
Độc hành tìm dòng sông
Phôi pha chí tang bồng

I drove to work, and listened to this song. All kind of emotions went through my mind.
What a wonderful song.

Want to know the real feeling ? Drive through the woods, between the mountains and listen to this song and ALONE.

Now you got the point, right ?

The good, the bad and the ugly (cont...)

OK, I lie again. It is all good stuff in this entry, no more bad and ugly.

First of all I want to introduce you to "the gangs of Vietnam"

- Thảo, Hà, Tường, Trung, Thành and Kiên are from around Washington DC area.
- I (Nguyên), Tín and Hoàng (Ut or BeUt) are from North Carolina.
- Hà and Thành are brother and sister.
- Kiên and I are long time friends.
- Tín is my cousin.
- Hoàng is Tín's cousin.
- The others, i do not sure about the relationship but i know they are friends of the other and my friend too. ( I took advices of my dentist to keep my teeth intact 1. Brush my teeth twice a day 2. Have my teeth checked every 6 months 3. Do not get into people's business)




Above are pictures of new river gorge bridge. We will have our raft passed under this bridge.

Breakfast:

We knew that the trip on the river would be long and require some physical activities, so we tried to start our day with an enormous breakfast. We got Vietnamese food, every people gathered around the table, we ate, told jokes and mainly made fun at the others. The foods were delicious. Big "thank you" to Ha, I believed she did all the cooking.
Damn, for a guy who loves eating like me, just keep my fingers crossed "hope that my wife will love cooking just like Ha".

Dance with the wolf wannabe:

So my long time buddy wanted to get my food off my chopsticks. So i turned my back around and tried to block him off. He reached for the food again. I blocked him again and Ut got the "food dance" with her camera. So nice, "the wolf wannabe" wanted to get the food from "the real wolf ;)".

"Good luck buddy, maybe you will do better when the 'wannabe' is not there any more. hahahahaha"

Playing rescuers:

OK, breakfast was over. We were standing outside the cabin and enjoying the fresh air of a typical mountain morning. We suddenly heard some car's engineer from a near by cabin. It turned out that some Indian guys got their car stuck and they were trying so hard to pull it back out.

We screamed cross the woods to check if they wanted any help.
"No, we are OK !" The Asian Indians answered.
"Damn, you not only need muscle but also brain" Thanh, a guy in my group whisper in Vietnamese :D.

It took those Indian guys another 10 minutes before they turned to us for help. We did an amazing team work, pushing, pulling, speaking in all kind of languages but English (except the cursing part. Hahahaha).

We finally pulled the car off the hole and we were so proud of ourselves.
We were ready for the whitewater rafting.

Sorry, no picture to prove that we were heroes. You should blame Ut on this.

She was shocked when she found out "how much muscle her rafter-mates had" that she could not take any picture.

The best:

Justin was our rafter guide. He was the best. He was on the back of the raft with tattoos all over his body. He did help us to get most of the exciting passes or surfs from the river.

We could not control taking pictures so we just got a few of them from one of our surfs. We took turn to move to the head position, where we could got the most of the water into our face.

We did work very hard as a team to move the raft around. Trung did say "We are working as hard as slaves, and the best part is that we did pay to be like this ..."

I will try to upload the video to youtube so you guys can see how wonderful the trip was. But this is the summary:

- We did sail the raft over some rapids with high waves

- We did sail the raft and had it dropped down from a 5 ft high

- We did jump off the raft to swim and float cross some safe rapids (We might add some extra water to the river too, but i would never tell who did it ...)

- We did jump off the a big rock around 20 ft above the water level. Two thumbs up for Trung, he is afraid of the height but he did it.

- We did help the others, pulled them into the raft (just like pulling a sack of potato)

- We did get a lot of kick backs from the river. Kien actually got the last gift from Justin. Justin directed the raft over a rock and the bound back force kicked Kien off his position (I were the only one saw it, so do not pass this around, please !!!).

- We saw another raft got flipped over when they passed a rapid. (Wow, i wish it happened to us).

- Some of us got bruised (Ut) or beaten up by the paddle of our beloved team mates. I was not a victim but ... hahahaha ;) You know what i mean, right ! I swear, i did not mean it :P

Youtube: "Clip 1"
Youtube: "Clip 2 Youtube disabled the music"
Youtube: "Clip 3 Youtube disabled the music"
Youtube: "Clip 4"

We got off shore in the afternoon and we asked the video man to take a picture of us with Justin.

He did a perfect job "I messed up only one picture, the last one, of you guys, Justin and the beautiful view of the bridge".

The better:

We came back to the cabin all wet, hungry but very very happy. We did have a wonderful day on the river. We went to take shower (i don't have any pictures of that, so stop wishing, hahahahaha).

We came back to the cabin when Ha, Thao and Ut already had some food cooking on the pan. The food smelled so good, so we took out a case of beer and rewarded ourselves for a perfect day.

Wow that was just the appetite, we had the grilled fish for the main meal, we rolled the fish with some rice noodle, pine apple and rice sheet. The beer helped the food disappear pretty fast. And you could see all the happy faces in the pictures.

The drunker(s) and the singers:

We all got a bit tipsy and we decided to went down to the bar for some live music and maybe some dancing to celebrate the 4th-July.

Ooop, looked like I was the only one got drunk after 1 beer.

It started to rain. They had some good live music but it was not our taste so I, Kien, Tin and Ut decided to go home and had our own live music.

Ha called me several times to tell me that the music at the bar got better and people were dancing down there. We got lazy to walk in the rain so we said that we were happy with our home band.

Ha decided to bring the whole team back to the cabin (what a powerful girl, i like it). Kien was playing guitar and he was the star of the show. We sang a few more songs before we realized that Kien was kind of a bit drunk to play more guitar.

We turned to a karaoke program on Thanh's laptop. It was fun, the South ascent fought against the North and the central ascent, but people could still recognize we were singing Vietnamese.

Oh, no, i was wrong again. They started to sing English songs now. I had no idea why Trung covered his face !!!

Kind of amazing, huh ? Seriously, no sarcastic here.
Alright, you don't trust me, right ? I know it. So :P

Big sister and Morning coffee:

It had been raining since we went to "sleeping bags" the previous night and it was still raining in the morning of July-05. I waked up but still staying on my bed and watched Ha. She was doing a great job of being a big sister, a house hold care giver. She was preparing another amazing breakfast for the rest. They were still sleeping in their sleeping bags. Girl, you earned all the honor medals. Thank you so much, Ha. I would definitely go on any trip with you ( really, i do care for my stomach).

I did not see Kien around so i called him on his cellphone. He was driving back from a country coffee shop and he asked me if i wanted to get some coffee too. I did not want to make Ha feel uncomfortable so i got into the car. Kien took me to the restaurant and told me about the nice cashier over there. He was right, the cashier was pretty but she also had a wedding ring on her finger.

We got some coffee, talked a bit then got several phone calls from Ha and Ut so we drove back to the cabin and had breakfast with others. Ha cooked some very tasty food.

So every time you see this pretty lady, give her a pat on her back. She earned it.

No paintball game but wait..."Bang bang, my baby shot me down ...":

Ha told us that because of the rain, we canceled the paintball game. We felt a bit sad. We did have a great previous day so we all expected to have another fun day. Well, could not ask for too much, should be happy with what we had.

So we started to pack our stuff, clean the cabin to checkout. We went out and tried to back the camaro to the drive way but got a bit trouble there.

I did drive it a little off the gravel drive way + the rain from the previous night => the camaro sank into mud.

We asked other guys to move their cars away from the camaro so we could have extra space to pull it off the mud, beside that we did not want the gravel from the camaro damage other cars.

My long time buddy Kien was in his car, we were standing in front of his car and the camaro. We tried to estimate a good way to pull the camaro off.

Kien did push hard on the gas pedal. Tuong got some mud on his jacket. Tin jumped off and did not get any. I was like a sitting duck and got all the mud from head to toes. My damned friend did not know that he was doing a great job of shooting mud-balls. He kept trying harder on the gas pedal to pull his car to the drive way.

And that was my mud-balls game. I lost the battle and Ut had the battle result with her camera.

Yeah, you saw some beer bottles in the picture, but they were not the root problem. Kien was not SUI (Shooting Under the Influence) when he mowed me down with his car + mud machine gun (just like 007's car).

Tin was trying to say "Hey, i did not do this but i like it :D"

And i was like "i was so glad those were not rocks"

"Winner takes it all". So, i took my stuff for the depart ... to the bath room

I was promising a "I will be back ... for more ... mud"

And walked to the bath-room for another show-down 10 minutes later...

The wolf-wannabe WON this battle :D

He was in the red sweater walked in front of me.

The "real wolf" was mowed down with "mud-ball machine gun".

Way to go Kien !!! ;)

and finally THE END:

A picture is worth a thousand words. So i put 2 of them here. Yeah, i don't want to type any more ....

Bye and see you guys later.

If you found anything here that is not 100% correct, please DO NOT contact me.