Looking back this past year, I thank God for He's been too good to me:

1. My faith, growing deeper, more committed than ever before. I've read through the Bible about two or three times already since I became a Christian in 1993. For sure, I've been through the Vietnamese translation once, and English translation once, and the NIV Audio Bible once. In 2006, I tried to read the assigned portion of each day in The One Year Bible. I have a checkered record in 2006 but hope those holes will be filled in 2007. For each day that I read the portion, I wrote 2006 for that day. I am going to go back and hopefully filled the days that did not have 2006 written on that page with 2007. I've decided to go back and start memorizing Scriptures again, reminded by Bill Gothard, and determined to make use of more of my God given brain than the 2% utilization most of us ever use of our memory.

2. My family: mom, dad and my younger brother, for their health and for their unconditional love and support for me.

3. Glad to be now in my 7th year with Nortel. We had a 10-to-1 reverse stock split. Won a two billion dollars contract with Verizon. Stock is now just above $26 compare to $2.15 a month ago.

4. My carelessness finally caught up with me, I backed out of the driveway and had a collision. Well, thank God no one was seriously injured and everything was ok.

5. Been president of VPS Dallas for a year now, half way through my 2-year term.

6. It feels good to live a totally debt free life this past year. Start to save up some cash. Half way there with my goal of saving up 20% for my first house. But with my good credit, I'll don't even need to put anything down. Have been hunting with my agent but really haven't found a house I really like and can easily afford.

7. Get to know so many new people and make many new friends. Will be the vice president for political activities for the Dallas County Young Republicans this coming year as well as treasurer for Dallas County North Republican club. Rolling off the deacon board at church as I am term limited out.

My new year resolution is still somewhat the same:

1. Move up my time of coming to work earlier, like 08:00 or maybe even 07:30. That way, I can have time to work out everyday and then go to a lot of functions in the evening.

2. Maybe I could use the cash save up to invest wisely and pay cash for the next car I buy.

3. Play a few songs with my guitar, maybe even some classical pieces.

Long term things I want to do here before going home to my Lord, Savior and Creator:

1. Speak Spanish fluently.

2. Get my private pilot license, first single engine VFR, and eventually multi-engine IFR.

3. Learn how to play the piano.

4. Read and write at least another language: German, Chinese or Russian.

Installed PostCast server to have my own free SMTP server and I am happy with it.

Mrs. Betty Ford and president Gerald R. Ford married for 58 years. Now that's the kind of woman every man would pray to God for, who stood with her man through thick and thin, where you can really be the most powerful man on top of the world one moment and all alone with no ally and no friend the next moment.

Psiphon is a great tool to help folks from countries like China, Vietnam, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, ... to poke holes through their government's firewall to access information uncensored.

A reminder that not everyone enjoys the right to speak one's mind and gets to choose one's government. So, everyone should get out and vote in every election where you can.

Early voting for the January 9th, 2007 runoff election started yesterday and will continue until January 5th, 2007 at two locations:

1. Josey Ranch Lake Library at 1700 Keller Springs Road
2. Sandy Jacobs Government Center (formerly Denton County Government Center) at 1029 W. Rosemeade.

Schedule are as follow:

8 a.m.-5 p.m. on December 27-29 (Wednesday-Friday)
8 a.m.-5 p.m. on December 30 (Saturday)
1 p.m.-6 p.m. on December 31 (Sunday)
8 a.m.-5 p.m. on January 2 - 3 (Tuesday-Wednesday)
7 a.m.-7 p.m. on January 4 - 5 (Thursday-Friday)

It's down to two candidates, Terry Simons and Jack Stotz. I am definitely voting for Terry as many others, because I know for sure he's a Republican and has no undue influence from the likes of Bob McCranie, who has strongly opposed Congressman Kenny Marchant. If you ask me, I think Kenny is doing a great job representing the 24th congressional district of Texas.

Had lunch with my friend Sang at Korean House before heading downtown to run some errand. Then dropped by the DFW Gun Range and put 200 rounds through my Sigarms P229. I am satisfied with being able to hit my target right on at 10 yards distance pretty accurate most of the time.

It is said two 15-minute sessions of cardio are better to train your endurance than one 30-minute session so that's what I've been meaning to do. Today, I put in 20 minutes on the treadmill at Bally and I am ready to get out the door and go for an hour of Krav Maga. Will try to do this as often as I could. That reminds me I need to call and get the folks to come by to fix my Nordic Track treadmill this week since I am off.

I am happy with avast! 4.7 FREE Antivirus 64 bit Home Edition and would recommend it.

A bunch of us from church went to the Dallas Cowboys against Philadelphia Eagles game today at Texas Stadium.

Here is yours truly:


the players stretching before the game:


and the cheerleaders:




We lost slow, boring, dragged out game so there was practically nothing to cheer for, and nothing worth taking a picture of. First we had no offense, so we cheer for the defense but then no defense either.

We had a full day today, with regular Sunday service in the morning and then an outreach service tonight at church. The outreach service went really well, with a lot of original ideas, home made drums for the kids, their synchronized dance, and a short invitation by our senior pastor, no sermon. Big thanks to our coordinators Paul & Tony. In between the services, working on the sound systems, and choir rehearsal, both for the evening service and a wedding this coming Saturday, I caught snippets of the Denver Broncos against Cincinnati Bengals game. My favorite three teams, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, and New England Patriots, are all doing relatively well.

I am not a movie kind of guy but once in a while, I do like to watch one. I really enjoyed watching Ikiru, meaning "to live" in Japanese, an interesting movie by Akira Kurosawa.

Christmas greetings from Carrollton City Councilman Matthew Marchant and Addison Mayor Joe Chow came in the mail this week. Matthew has a beautiful picture of his family by Michelle Stiglets Photography. Joe included a collage of pictures of him with his wife Chi Chi, the troops, the governor, ....

We had a full rehearsal of our Christmas service tonight. A lot of retakes!

Finally Christmas greetings from governor Rick Perry came in the mail yesterday, quoting 1 Thessalonians 3:12.


Congratulations, Karl!
Your IQ score is 136

Your Intellectual Type is Visionary Philosopher. This means you are highly intelligent and have a powerful mix of skills and insight that can be applied in a variety of different ways. Like Plato, your exceptional math and verbal skills make you very adept at explaining things to others — and at anticipating and predicting patterns. And that's just some of what we know about you from your IQ results.

Dear valued Bank of America Bank member:

Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of the Bank of America
account we issued this warning message.

It has come to our attention that your Bank of America Bank account information needs to be
Verified becauase incorrect login of your account details.Also,several login of your account details on different IP.so we have place your account on Hold.You can only recieve funds but any withdrawal will not be possible
is part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to
reduce the instance of fraud on our website. We advice you to please take 5-10 minutes
out of your online experience and Verify your personal records so that you account could be more secure and easy banking .

Once you have Verified your account records your Bank of America account
will be re-activated and you will be able to perform all transaction with your online account service with the best secure online banking .

To Re-activate your Bank of America Account Account click on the following link:
Re-activate
Security Advisor
James Clark,

Thank You.




I almost fell for the email above because it coincided with me forgetting my password and tried to login to my Bank of America checking account a few times. However, when I clicked on the link, it asked too many questions, such as social security number, account number, my ATM card number, .... I didn't remember some of the info so I left to come back another time. When I came back today, I filled in almost half way through, then got really suspicious. Look at the URL, http://prodev.bethelsd.org/Boa/index.htm, it's nowhere near resemblance of a Bank of America URL. Went back to the email, looked at the full header of the email, saw the "Return-path", in bold below, I immediately forwarded the email, with full-header, to abuse@bankofamerica.com. I do believe the Holy Spirit prompted me to be suspicious and not click that "Submit" button. Thank God! Also, retrospectively, look at the text of the email, there are so many syntax mistakes, like uppercase letters at the wrong places, misspelled words, no space after a period, ... and grammatical mistakes. It would have been shamefully ironic for a Computer Science major with a graduate degree focusing on Computer Network Security to fall for a rudimentary trick like this one. Be warned and stay safe.


From: - Thu Dec 21 11:36:08 2006
...
Return-path: «apache@hostc.hoster.gr»
...
...
Subject: Security Alert(Your Account Has Been Suspended)! ! !
From: Bank Of America «security@bofa.com»
Reply-To:
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.5/2318/Tue Dec 12 18:58:25 2006 on hostc.hoster.gr
X-Virus-Status: Clean

I didn't feel well, had to stay home and missed the Dallas County Young Republicans Christmas party last night.

Christmas greetings from Texas senator-elect Dan Patrick, cited John 3:16, came in the mail yesterday.

Today came Christmas greetings from senator Richard Burr of North Carolina. Also came in the mail today was the invitation for the inauguration of governor Rick Perry and lieutenant governor David Dewhurst on January 16th, 2007 in Austin.

Christmas greetings from senator John Thune and family came in the mail yesterday, quoting Colossians 1:16b, 17: "All things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

There are study that the majority of women will pick tall men who may not be as well off over short rich ones. Going further, in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman quoted studies that quantified on average, an inch in height translates to about between $700 to $800 higher earning per annum. So a 6'2" guy will make on average about $3,500 to $4,000 more per year than one who is 5'9", which is the average height of an American male.

I am listening to the audio of the 9/11 Commission Report, and hopefully will finish it before Jan. so that when the Dems claim to implement the recommendations in that report, I can tell how much lies there are.

The Dallas Cowboys is in the playoff, yeah!

After church service and lunch, the guys got out to dig hole to put down two steal poles and then poured concrete so we can put up a new sign. Then we had wedding shower for ThuyTrinh & Phong at Quynh's house. I took off and went to another party to send off a friend who has just accepted a new job in Raleigh, NC.

At the DFWAACC board meeting and holiday luncheon today, they had peach cobbler for deserts so I had some of it. When they brought out the ice cream later, I was tempted to make another trip for some ice cream but I am proud of myself for I was able to resist. I have been pretty good at watching what I eat and drink, especially how big of a portion. My brother kept warning me how much sugar there is in every can of Coke or Pepsi, 41 grams, which is too much. I have had only one can of Pepsi in the last six months. I used to not even think when I order Dr. Pepper in a restaurant. Nowaday, water or ice tea will do for me.

Did you know that the first SMS, which said simply "Merry Christmas" was sent on December 3rd, 1992 by a British engineer named Neil Papworth from his computer to his friend's mobile phone.

VPS Dallas had our annual Christmas party tonight. Great food, fun including white elephant gift exchange.

In the mail came today Christmas greetings from attorney general Greg Abbott, with a picture of him on election night with family and supporters, quoting scripture in Luke 2:14.

I am listening to an interesting audio book titled Blink: the power of thinking without thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. One rather significant conclusion in a study by John Gottman mentioned in the book is that in any marriage there are four negative emotions that hurt the marriage: critical, defensive, stonewalling, and contempt. Contempt, talking or looking down at the other person, is one deciding factor leading to the failure of a particular marriage. What is interesting is that in the Bible, Ephesians 5:22-26 to be exact, God commanded the wife to submit to the husband as the church submits to Christ and the husband is commanded to love his wife even to the point of giving his life for her as Christ did for the church. Now if a man loves his wife to the point of giving his life for her, he can't possibly have contempt for her. If a woman submits to her husband the way the church submits to Christ, she can't possibly have contempt for him. Maybe if Christians live more Christ-like, just as Bill Maher suggested in an interview, the world would doubt Him less and maybe the divorce rate among those who claim to be Christians would be way less than 51% rate in the secular world.

Check this out. Charles Lingerfelt is a good friend, committed fellow Dallas County Republican precinct chair, a great American.

It's just a matter of time and now it's my alma mater's turn. I was an undergrad from 1995 to 1999 and then grad from 1999 to 2002 so I guess I am part of the 6,000 students who might be affected according to this notice.

Christmas greetings from Congressman Pete Sessions came in the mail today. Beautiful picture of him and his family on the steps of the US Capitol.

Metasploit is a really interesting project. Check it out especially if you are into security.

It looks like 7-term congressman Henry Bonilla lost the runoff election today, with 45% of the vote. I and Rick were wondering about this race at the Christmas party tonight at the home of Randall and Krickett Goss. It's another nail in the coffin. The Gosses have a beautiful house that took them three years to remodel. Randall is chairman and CEO of U.S. Risk Insurance Group, Inc., the third largest managing general agency and surplus lines insurance wholesaler in the nation, headquartered right here in Dallas. The couple were most welcoming and gracious.

I stopped by Nordstrom to pick up a pair of dress shoes tonight since I already shopped Macy's, JCPenney, Dillard's, the Saturday after Thanksgiving and did not find anything I really like. Found a pair I like and asked for 8 1/2 size and the guy brought me size 41 and 42. Apparently the pair is Italian made, Calzoleria Toscana. Size 41 was perfect for me.

Christmas greetings from senator Mel Martinez came in the mail today, quoting Psalm 33:22 along with beautiful family picture.

Came in last week were greetings from Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, also with beautiful family picture and scriptures found in Proverbs 3:5-6, Congressman Kenny Marchant, which is adorned with a picturesque US Capitol snapshot, Agriculture Commissioner and Comptroller-elect Susan Combs, quoting Psalm 72:3 and a picture showing beautiful view of the Combs Maravillas Ranch, Texas 5th Court of Appeals Justice Amos Mazzant, decorated with the most exquisitely beautiful black and white photo of his family.

Installed my SATA 500Gb drive and had it up and running in no time at all last night.

Our church had its annual meeting today with election of new members to the board. I am term limited out after three consecutive 2-year terms. This allows me to take on being treasurer for Dallas County North Republican Club and I am looking forward to having fun filing reports with the Texas Ethics Commission this next year. Got my password in the mail yesterday so I am ready to file the first report due January 15th electronically.

We were celebrating Nathan's birthday with good food, great fun and fellowship so we were going into the Cowboys vs. Saints game in pretty high spirit. Got the first touchdown and we were all whooping and yelling. Then everything just went downhill from there. We got slaughtered so bad that everybody left by the end of third quarter. Don't know whatever Bill Parcells did to Sean Payton that he really rubbed it in tonight. The Cowboys really need to get their acts together before going to Atlanta next Saturday.

The rehearsal last night and the service tonight for the combined Christmas service for all 14 different Vietnamese protestant churches in the metroplex from different denominations: Southern Baptist, United Methodist, Christian and Missionary Alliance, went reasonably well. Reasonably well because I was the sound guy and I messed up a few times!

Called Dallas County Elections today because one of my clerks who worked the general election with me on November 7th didn't get her check. Found out that they had a little problem in accounting and thus the delay. I was assured that all the checks are mailed today.

Got a key to the library so I could get in early and got ready for the election on Tuesday. Returned it to the city secretary's office this morning. The run-off election between Terry Simons and Jack Stotz will be on January 9th. Early voting begins December 27th. Terry got 17.87% of the vote and Jack Stotz got 37.46% in the six-way special election to fill the unexpired term of council member Ron Branson, who had to step down because of health reason. Paul Kramer did not make the run off but had pretty good showing consider he's a first timer with 14.20% of the vote. Turnout was 2.63%, with 1694 votes cast among a total of 64,406 registered voters. The city has more than 116,000 residents.

The Dallas YRs had our board meeting tonight, planning for next year's activities.

Got my USB 2.0 hard drive enclosure, put in the old 40Gb IDE drive, and got an external drive up and running in a few minutes.

Did you know when you called Toshiba and they gave you a prepaid UPS label to send your laptop to them for repair, that your laptop actually got fixed up by UPS folks at their Louisville, Kentucky hub and sent back to you, through insourcing by UPS and Toshiba. And Toshiba is not the only company that is trusting UPS with part of their business. So are HP, and many other companies according to Thomas L. Friedman, the author of The World is Flat.

Check this out and have fun.

My results at about midnight Sunday:

Your Absolute Brain Power 61.33% represents your percentile ranking among all members on their third run of this test. The Relative Brain Power 55.76% represents your percentile ranking among all members in your age group on their third run of this test.

Your score: 96.34
Average score for all members on the third run: 93.40
Average score for all members in your age group on the third run: 95.08
Highest score for all members on the third run: 168.35
Highest score for all members in your age group on the third run: 163.54
Highest score for all members on any run: 204.44
Highest score for all members in your age group on any run: 204.44

Your Brain Age: 48 (21 is the ultimate Brain Age according to MyBrainTrainer data)

Dallas Cowboys squeaked through to victory against the New York Giants tonight for an 8-4 record. Toss up next week against the New Orleans Saints but we should win against the Atlanta Falcons the week after. A bunch of the guys will go see the Philadelphia Eagles on Christmas Day. I expect a win in this game as well as the game against the Detroit Lions after that. My prediction, and I hope it will come true, is an 11-5 record and the Cowboys should make it into the playoff.

Now I've got to go stamp the poll book with the people who have voted early in the special Carrollton city council election so that we won't inadvertly let people vote more than once comes Tuesday. I have been an election judge beginning with the 2002 general election, so I have six elections under my belt already: 2002 general, 2004 primary, 2004 general, 2005 city council, 2006 primary, 2006 general.

I had the best quiet time this morning, praying, reading and memorizing scriptures. I thank God that I am learning more and more to be content regardless of the external circumstances. My blackberry address book got wiped out when I tried to synch with Outlook on Friday. There's problem with my Outlook too, can't access it from the desktop either. I can't email out of the blackberry on Friday and it's does seem I am getting email on it today either. But the browser on it still works.

I installed the VMware Server, then loaded the preconfigured Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The fun only got better when I installed Sun Solaris 10 64bit OS. Imagined you can run Sun Solaris 10 64bit on top of Windows XP 64bit, switching between them seemlessly, never having to worry about messing up your hard drive boot sector, rebooting to switch OS, .... And why stop at running Windows XP 64bit and Sun Solaris 10 64bit, add any combination of operating systems you like, Novell, BSD, .... Well, I looked but Apple OS 10 is not yet supported, at least not in this free version. The other drawback is that physical resources like hard disk and memory has to be divided up and shared between the various physical and virtual machine. The best is still not having to worry about security, spyware, viruses, ... while you are in the virtual machine.

Yep, I need a new hard drive, with all the digital pictures and this new virtualization, I put in an order on Newegg for a 500Gb SATA 7200RPM drive and an external USB 2.0 enclosure so I can reused an old IDE drive. I have 1.5Gb of memory, next would be an order for another 1Gb stick or maybe even two, when the price drops below the current $105 each stick.

I downloaded the VMWare Player and the Browser Appliance. What a briliant idea to be able to surf the web without being affected by virus and spyware! Check out plenty more here. I have been awared of virtualization for a long while but significant progress has been made and I think the technology is mature enough. I can't wait to play more with it.

Just heard a cool acronym, STOP, from pastor Rick Warren, author of the Purpose Driven Life, in his interview with Sean Hannity about the heat he's taking for inviting senator Barack Obama to speak at the AIDS conference at his Saddleback Church: (S)ave yourself for marriage, (T)rain men to respect women as equal partner, not sex objects, (O)ffer help through church's, (P)ledge yourself to one partner.

Listening to The World is Flat audio book by Thomas L. Friedman, first heard about it from Texas senior senator Kay Bailey Hutchison when she spoke at the Texas Young Republican Federation annual convention this past August in Dallas. Picked up the other three books of his from the library yesterday and will be going through them as well: Lexus and the Olive Tree, Longitudes and Attitudes, From Beirut to Jerusalem.

Finished listening to the audio book Never Have Your Dog Stuffed by M*A*S*H actor Allen Alda. An interesting book. I didn't know that he was involved in lobbying for the Equal Rights Amendment. I am glad that issue is dead because I certainly would not want to expose women to the poison gas of World War I, let alone all the modern chemical and biological weapons. And certainly we don't want to be involved in guaranteeing men's right to pregnancy.

We heard from Japan ambassador to the US Ryozo Kato at lunch today. I didn't realize that Japan is the second largest foreign investor in the US, after the UK. I would have guessed that Japan would be the largest. Japan is also the third largest creator of jobs in the US behind the UK and Germany.

It's going to hurt tomorrow pretty bad because we were doing leg sweeps today in Krav Maga class. We took turn bringing each other to the ground by pulling our partner off balance, putting him on one leg and then took that leg out. We also practiced bear hug release by breaking off a finger or two from the assailant. In training, for partner preservation, we stopped well short from doing the damage.

The White House Christmas greetings came in the mail yesterday. Scripture verse is Psalm 119:105.

My hosting server had some kind of file corruption yesterday so I was unable to access the server most of yesterday.

On my way to go shopping, I stopped by the library and voted early in the Carrollton city council special election.

Among the myriads of things I am thankful for is the cash dividend that AmeriVest is paying its shareholders, $3.50 per share, as part of its liquidation and dissolution of the company. With the properties still left to be sold, I think I will come out not too far behind of the investment cost I put in, stark contrast to the total loss I took when Boston Market went belly up and got bought by McDonald's back in 1999. Plus, my Lockheed Martin and 3M holdings are doing quite well.

I am somewhat unhappy to see my net income this pay cycle is decreased because federal withholding on Social Security and Medicare increase. Medicare, I suspect the increase is to fund the Medicare part D entitlement program. Now what's up with Social Security? I am going to find out.

After taking more or less six weeks off for political campaign, I was back at Krav Maga training last night. I also picked up my Yellow Belt certificate.

"Given our monstrous, overgrown government structure, any three letters chosen at random would probably designate an agency or part of a department that could be profitably abolished." --- Milton Friedman

Our church had our Thanksgiving service and then luncheon today because many will be out of town to be with their families this week, including the weekend. I and Vivian were out shopping for a 12-ft Christmas tree. Decorator Warehouse had one for over $700. Garden Ridge had one for $489.99, we almost bought it. Because we were told Sam's Club had one for about $300, we decided to check it out. We got one for $296.99 plus tax. The tree came in two boxes. We got back to church, put the tree up, without any instruction because there was none included. We also missed one section, the very top of the tree. So we called, then went back and got the top, along with the missing instructions. The employees at the Sam's Club on I-20 between Great Southwest and Carrier Parkway are real nice folks. They took care of the members well. While we were out getting the Christmas tree, everyone else stayed at church and put up all the smaller trees, outside lights, other decorations, .... Great job everyone!

Milton Friedman is gone. I would have loved to meet the man. A great mind. He received the Nobel prize in Economics the year I was born.

We heard from Ellyn A. McColgan, president of Fidelity Brokerage Company at lunch today. She talked about confronting retirement challenge, and the message is to plan for 85% of your pre retire income, and save more, save a lot more, and save even more.

An update on the Carrollton city council special election. Election day is Tuesday, December 5th. Early voting begins on Monday, November 20th at

1. Josey Ranch Lake Library at 1700 Keller Springs Road
2. Sandy Jacobs Government Center (formerly Denton County Government Center) at 1029 W. Rosemeade.

Schedule are as follow:

8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 20-22, Nov. 24-25;
1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 26;
8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 27-29;
7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Nov. 30-Dec. 1.

Six candidates and here is what I know about these candidates,listed in the order they are on the ballot:

1. Terry Simons, a good friend, a former council member, who resigned and ran for Denton county Justice of the Peace but lost in the Republican primary early this year. A plumber by trade and a member of First Baptist Church of Carrollton.

2. Jack Stotz, a retired facilities manager for IRS, campaign treasurer for Nancy Cline when she ran for the CFBISD Board of Trustees. A fellow classmate and graduate of the 2005 Carrollton Government Academy. A first term member of the Carrollton Planning and Zoning Commission. When Jack first announced, I checked his website, and except for the first page with the name Jack Stotz, there was Bob McCranie everywhere else. Bob McCranie, whose endorsement is listed on Jack's website currently, has made political contributions to John McCain, Michael Burgess, Barack Obama, Bob Garza and Democrat Gary Page, who ran against congressman Kenny Marchant in 2004 and 2006.

3. Paul Kramer is a professional engineer who works for Medical City of Dallas. He's sixty years old, with two grown children out of the house. Both of them are owners of small businesses in Carrollton. Feel he has the time to give back to the community. A member of Sojourn Church, which I attended for about two years in 1996-1997. If elected, he would be the only professional engineer on the council. With the city's infrastructure over thirty years old, need a lot of repairs and improvements, plus the city will be putting in new infrastructure for Transit Oriented Development with DART light rail coming to Carrollton finally, he feels that his expertise would help serve the citizens of Carrollton well.

4. Kathleen York, a photographer, who ran and lost in the Carrollton city council race in 2005.

5. Cathy Henesey, a recruiter, is a good friend, who ran and lost narrowly in the Carrollton city council race in May this year.

6. Najma Ghouse, whose last name is wrong on the city secretary website, is a real estate agent. She will be the first Muslim woman to contest in the Carrollton City Council Elections according to the muslim-calendar.com website. Her husband, Mike Ghouse, is quoted in the newspaper and on local TV station CBS 11 as against the resolution passed unanimously 6-0 by the Farmers Branch city council this week, which would 1) make English the city's official language, 2) fine landlords for renting to illegal aliens, 3) provide for Farmers Branch police to be trained to enforce immigration law.

This, the city of Belmont, San Mateo county, California, banned all smoking except in single-family detached residences, has gone too far. I am not an attorney but I can already see one law suit being brought because they are discriminating against folks who are not rich enough to afford a house. Or is there case law or precedence already? I can see that drinking in a car can lead to Driving While Intoxicated but what's the problem if one smokes in one's own car?

Ok, so now we have senator John McCain, mayor Rudy Giuliani, secretary Tommy Thompson, a committee to draft Condoleeza Rice, rumor of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford being a dark horse, what a crowded field. My horse in the race so to speak, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is still looking the best in the pack.

Senator Join McCain has filed paper for a Presidential Exploratory Committee. With him being pro choice, I think he will have a hard time securing the Republican nomination. My guess months ago was of a Mitt Romney/Kay Bailey Hutchison ticket in 2008 because both of them are very well like and electable. With senator George Allen out of the running, the chance for my prediction to come true just increases a little bit. I realize that governor Romney is a member of The Church of Latter-Day Saints or Mormon church. So was Oklahoma congressman and candidate for governor Ernest Istook. This article very much said what I think.

This is rather disturbing. Maybe we need a replacement for Admiral William J. Fallon?

A friend brought to my attention the first and second place in the General Reporting Award category of the International Picture of the Year.

I was out building with Dallas Habitat today at 1060 Bickers in Dallas.

I was thinking of going to the Japanese Film Festival at SMU but then realize that the one movie being shown tonight is animation. It's not exactly my favorite genre so I am just going to stay home and enjoy my books instead.

Did you know that the wife of Democrat Senator-elect Jim Webb of Virginia is of Vietnamese descent, an attorney name Hong Le. She has been quietly campaigning for her husband and turning out the votes among the more than 50,000 Americans of Vietnamese descent in the commonwealth of Virginia. This is significant because the margin of victory in that senate race is between 7,000 to 8,000 votes. Check out these clips on YourTube:

• Hong Le Webb video portrait


• Speaking at a Women Choose Webb rally


• Election night


• Rally with Clinton

Asher Intrater was a passionate and inspiring keynote speaker at tonight's Messianic Jewish Bible Instittute fundraising banquet at the Hilton Anatole.

I personally feel some of the losses nationwide more than others, because they are just great Republicans.

On the Senate side, Pennsylvania Rick Santorum, Missouri Jim Talent and possibly Virginia George Allen.

On the House side, Arizona 5th J.D. Hayworth, Florida 22nd Clay Shaw, Indiana 8th John Hostettler, Pennsylvania 4th Melissa Hart, whom I first met in 2004 at the Republican National Convention, and Pennsylvania 7th Curt Weldon.

A disaster in Dallas county tonight. Republicans lost the County Judge, the District Attorney, all the judicial races. Democrats just went in and pulled straight ticket. Republicans picked and chose and we had a dramatic dropped off from top of the ticket candidates to the candidates at the bottom of the ticket. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst won so Dallas county is not as blue as some are claiming.

Remember Psalm 37:4: Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. It came true for me today, I met and shook hand with both president Bush and his political adviser, Karl Rove.

Thanks to governor Rick Perry and his most wonderful campaign staffs and volunteers, a handful of us were able to greet president George W. and Mrs. Laura Bush before he went on stage to address the crowd at Reunion Arena tonight.

Here is a picture of yours truly, Karl Ninh, with the "architect" Karl Rove

Went to see The Journey of Vaan Nguyen screening put together at the Angelika Dallas by the 3 Stars Cinema. Boris Palchik, who is on the board of 3 Stars, first introduced me to the organization. Met and said hello with Duki Dror, the director of the documentary. He proudly wore the ViFF shirt. Ysa Le, the founder of ViFF, was the first to inspire me and Hoang to start our VPS Film Festival here in the DFW area.

I was out walking for state rep. Bill Keffer this morning until lunch. Then I went and helped to put out yard signs around Tuesday's polling locations for judge Jay Patterson in the afternoon before picked up the ballots and all the election materials for my precinct 1409. I will be the election judge for my precinct on election day. Exhausted, primarily my legs gave out, I went home for a little bit. Afterward I went to pick up my VIP tickets for the rally with president Bush and governor Perry Monday night before headed over to Thuan and Hanh for a dinner get together.

One of the ways to judge a leader is by the staffers he surrounds himself with. By that standard, governor Perry is a great leader. Steve McCraw, the homeland security director knows his trade and has been doing an impressive job. The governor's campaign statewide field director Travis Griffin is an another example, effective and efficient, deliver on time what he said he would.

Spent the morning at a training put together by Intel and RogueWave. RogueWave folks introduced HydraSDO while Intel folks introduced Intel Threading Analysis Tools such as Thread Checker, Thread Profiler, and Threading Building Blocks.

We heard from Sandy Weill, former Chairman and CEO of Citigroup at today's World Affairs Council of Greater Dallas luncheon. He's an amazing guy, able to do a lot of things though he only has 24 hours in a day like the rest of us. He's been married to his wife for 51 years. Now that's great commitment in this day and age when the divorce rate is above 50%. He deserves more respect than say Jack Welch or Rudy Giuliani.

Sitting at the same table was Maurine Dickey, owner of Dickey's BBQ, a 65-year old family business with more than 70 franchise.

Another attendee sitting at the same table is Karen, who is a naturalized US citizen of Turkish descent. I told her I am very interested in Turkey as it is one of the three only stable Islamic democracies in the world beside Indonesia and another country, which I don't remember for sure but I think it is Cyprus. I asked for and she recommended a book, Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds by Stephen Kinzer. Already put in an order on Amazon so hopefully I'll get it sometimes next week and will enjoy reading it after the election next Tuesday.

Senator Elizabeth Dole was no match for Chuck Schumer last night on FoxNews. We need to find someone better to run the National Republican Senatorial Committee. It was rather pathetic because she couldn't coherently state why Republicans opposed government funding of embryonic stem cell research, whether at the federal or state level. She then asked for an extra 30 seconds, and I thought she was going to say something consequential, for which I was disappointed again.

The Dallas Cowboys did well, really well, in the fourth quarter against the Carolina Panthers. It's 4-3 now and should be 5-3 next week after the game against the Washington Redkins. The game after that against the Arizona Cardinals should be a good game for the Dallas Cowboys as well. A 6-3 record would be nice.

For a couple of hours this morning I made calls for Jerry Hoagland, a friend who is running for re-election to the Collin County Commissioners' Court. Had lunch and went out walking for Livia Liu another couple of hours. Then got my haircut, showered and headed over to Tony's place for our all hands fellowship tonight.

What should you do if you were AG Alberto Gonzales or if you were one of the attorney generals of one of the states that use electronic voting machines about the services offer here.

Check this out, grandma Carole Keeton Rylander Strayhorn's secrets.

Also, I wish the Vietnamese Community of Houston and Vicinity didn't do it but ...

This a great collection of TV ads commissioner, lieutenant governor and governor Rick Perry had over the years.


Ron Branson, a good friend and a good city of Carrollton council member resigned due to his health. A special election will be held this December 5th to fill his seat. Six packages have been taken out from the city secretary office. Two have been turned in, Jack Stotz, campaign treasurer for Becky Miller when she ran for mayor in 2005, and Cathy Henesey, who narrowly lost the election in May of this year.

Check out this really cute radio spot for Dawn Estes.

Here is yours truly with congressman Eric Cantor, representing Virginia 7th congressional district. He's the only Republican Jewish member of the House and currently is the Chief Deputy Majority Whip, highest appointed position in the House. He is traveling extensively right now campaigning for many of his colleagues.


Karl Ninh with deputy majority whip congressman Eric Cantor

Today is first day of early voting in Texas, October 23rd through November 3rd. Standing in front of the Richardson Civic Center were Mr. Lennox Bower, a Democrat running against Republican incumbent judge Neil Pask, who handed me his business card size campaign literature. Another lady also handed me campaign literature for the Democratic challenger running against my good friend Republican incumbent judge Bruce Woody. Bruce Woody and his wife Jan are such grassroots leaders that the Democrats are going out of their way to try to defeat him. Last night was the first time I saw Bruce's ad on Fox News, with my picture included among the many supporters. I loved both of these folks, great caring individuals. The same lady also handed me a Perry bashing campaign literature from the Democratic opponent of Republican incumbent judge David Kelton. This guy is hoping to get elected by riding on the anti-Perry sentiments, rather pathetic candidate wouldn't you say?

Our church's family camp at Three Mountain Retreat this weekend went very well.

Group picture this morning, right after the worship service and before lunch:


Yours truly was out riding horses yesterday, Karl Ninh on horseback:



Karl Ninh on horseback, closeup

I certainly would like to have enough to live on by the time I am 40 years old so not having to work for an income but instead doing whatever I love, serving Christ, helping with charities, political campaigns, or just travel the world. This couple, Bill & Akaisha Kaderli, proved that it's possible if you live within your means and save consistently.

We heard from Ross Ramsey, editor of the Texas Weekly at today's Dallas Friday Group luncheon. Learned a few interesting tidbits of information such as Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson is endorsed by the AFL-CIO, that the National Republican Congressional Committee has pulled one million of its funding out of the Van Taylor race against incumbent Democratic Chet Edwards, that attorney general Greg Abbott is sitting on more than seven million dollars, saving it for the next race and not spending it in his bid for re-election against David Van Os, .... Sitting next to me was Joel T. Allison, president and CEO of Baylor Health Care System. I have seen a lot of titles following people's names but I had to look this one up, FACHE. At the table was also a private banker with North Trust, a financial advisor with Merrill Lynch, a sales executive with Hyatt Classic.

I have "Early voting Oct. 23rd to Nov. 3rd, election day Nov. 7th," on the white board in front of my cube, along with "Free voter guides ==>" and a stack of Free Market Foundation voter guides available. People have been picking them up. I am doing my part to help people make informed decision when they get into the voting booth.

A co-worker, whom I have not met before and is a member of the Muslim American Society MAS - Dallas chapter, stopped by to pick up one, and chatted about the alcohol sale issue that is on the ballot in Richardson, Irving and a few other cities around the metroplex. It's great to have folks from different beliefs working together toward a common goal, keeping it dry.

Curious what kind of salaries congressional staffers get, check this.

Interesting initiatives around these united states, actually 24 of them where initiative and referendum is possible by the state constitutions, check here for details.

Check out this ad. Arlene Wohlgemuth failed to unseat Chet Edwards in 2004 after the DNC poured tons of money in. Let's hope Van Taylor succeed this time. Van is an incredible genteman, very attentive and very likeable. Congressman Pete Sessions will lead a big group of volunteers going down there to help Van this weekend as well as the TYRF after their board meeting.

Gianna Jessen gave the most touching testimony at today's luncheon put together by the Free Market Foundation. She survived an abortion attempt by her biological mother but suffered from cerebral palsy after burning 18 hours in her mother's womb.

Phone banking at Victory Center tonight for judge Jay Patterson.

I am a strong Republican because I believe in the same principles of strong national defense, limited government, individual responsibility, traditional Judeo-Christian values, .... I am not advocating a single party rule system because that would be communist like Vietnam, which I ran away. We need competition of ideas, and let the party with the best strategy to present the idea and make it a reality wins.

The Victory Center was buzzing with activities last night. Many volunteers for judge Dianne Kathryn Jones as well as judge Catharina Haynes busy making phone calls to potential Republican voters, getting them out to vote for our Republican judges.

I woke up at 6:00 am this morning, ran some errands, and then headed to the victory center. I, Laura, Maci and Seoljeong, dressed in State Representative Bill Keffer's T-shirts and carrying his literature, we walked pushing for straight ticket Republican votes. After lunch, I manned the front desk for a little bit and then got on the phone to push for more straight ticket votes.

Done at the Victory Center 5:00 pm, I headed over to Randy and Karen's house to celebrate Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacle. They are Messianic Jews, members of Baruch HaShem. This is my second year celebrating the feast with them and a whole bunch of their friends.

My net worth crossed an important mark today. Not that my security is how much money I have, for we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it (I Timothy 6:7). But it's a measure of my financial discipline, living within my means. I have never known the burden of any credit card debt. Ever since I started using it in the freshman year in college, thank God, I have always been able to pay off the balance every month, doesn't matter how many cards.

We begin running ads in the Asian newspapers this week for Livia:

pick up Vietnam Weekly News for the Vietnamese version.

pick up the C-Weekly, World Journal, Sino-US News, or Dallas Chinese News for the Chinese version.

pick up the Korean Journal for the Korean version.

Juan A. Gonzalez-Moreno, President and CEO of GRUMA Asian/Oceania, Mission Foods and Azteca Milling LLP, was the keynote speaker at the Greater Dallas Chamber International Business Achievement Awards luncheon today at the Fairmont. There were about 800 folks there. This was the first time that their parking is full, no valet service at all. Kimberly-Clark Corporation, a $16 billion company with sales in over 150 countries, won the corporate award. Masergy Communications Inc. is the winner of small/mid-size business category, which has four other finalists: GrandPrairie Accessory Services, LLC, New Market Technology, Inc., Omega Environmental Technologies Company, and TransTrade, Inc..

Members of the North Dallas Republican Club, including yours truly, putting in time doing phone bank at the victory center tonight. Pizza for dinner courtesy of judge Dianne Kathryn Jones.

I was the best man at my friends Thuan and Hanh's wedding yesterday. I first met Thuan over seven years ago at the orientation when we both started out with our first full time job at JCPenney. Hanh was also at JCPenney and she was also a very active member of VPS Dallas at the time. Here are a couple of pics from my camera. I forgot my camera bag at Thuan's parents' house when we left in the morning, didn't have the charger with me so I took as many pictures as I could until my battery completely went dead.

Here is the bride and groom, Thuan Ngo and Hanh Tran


Karl Ninh and Cindy Nguyen, the maid of honor
.

Check out this meter, which suppose to measure the reported amount of money Bank of America account holders have pulled out because of the bank's refusal to help Matthew Shinnick, an innocent man who was falsely accused of fraud.

We heard from author and lecturer Christopher Avery on the topic of "A Set of Methods and Skills or a Leadership Mindset and Culture." The seven levels of how one progresses through to take responsibility for any problem: lay blame (on something or someone else), justify (ourselves), shame (I should have known better), obligation (I have to), responsibility (it's my mess and here is how I am going to clean it up).

The presentation by Nick Geise dealed with how one goes about moving to Scrum. Then we heard from Mike Ratliff about FitNesse, which really helped Mary Kay as a couple of their folks gladly testified. The best presentation of the day was Introduction to Aspect Oriented Programming by Brett Schuchert and his demo of AspectJ in JVM 1.5. The presentation of JBoss ESB and SOA by Burr Sutter was packed with information. He drove home the point of interoperability and provided demo of interoperability between Sun Java web service and Microsoft Visual Basic. He quickly went over a lot of the JBoss technologies, from jBPM to WSBPEL.

Jonathan is out of town so I ran the Dallas County Young Republicans monthly meeting tonight before heading to the Heritage Alliance Foundation reception honoring the ten most conservative members of the Texas Legislature. All ten of the honorees were House members.

We heard from Crag Larman, chief technologist for Valtech this morning. He was a great presenter and really drove home the point of the necessity of a balance between total command and control (Stalin five years plan) system and total laze faire system. I learned a few good things about the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. We should anticipate change, welcome change and seek to lower the cost of change. This was how Toyota was able to penetrade US market begin with the oil crisis in 1973. We learned one Japanese word, Gemba. He advocated that leader should be where the actions are (no private office), maximum face to face interactions between developers.

John Blundell, Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs spoke at today Texas Public Policy Foundation luncheon about Margaret Thatcher and the war of ideas. I love the British accent. Got an autographed copy of his book, Waging the War of Ideas.

I picked up a really cute bright red Hermes tie. The design looks just like this one.

The presentation of Ruby on Rails by Matt Ratliff was the most interesting of three presentations in the afternoon.

Lisa, my brother and I were out putting out more yard signs for our friend judge Livia Liu today. After lunch, I am going to be doing phone bank for governor Rick Perry at the Victory Center.

There are Republicans like Texas Secretary of States Roger Williams. I contacted his aide earlier this week requesting a bulk shipment of voter registration applications and it's already on my doorstep today. And then there are Republicans like congressman Mark Foley of Florida. Well, at least he admited the wrong he did and did the right thing by resigning immediately.

Stopped by the book signing of my friend Kristie McCrary and her 13 other girlfriends before heading to church for our 4th week of our second 13-week semester of Evangelism Explosion.

The 2008 Republican National Convention will be in the twin city Minneapolis-St. Paul from September 1st to 4th. One interesting tidbit of information, the Bush family is such a dynasty that this cycle would be the first in many decades where there is not a Bush name on any ballot around the country.

The Bible said it's inevitable and it's coming, the ten nations of the world. Here is the North America Security and Prosperity Partnership, the beginning of the America continent version of the European Union. While you are at it, check out the North America SuperCorridor Coalition.

The Dallas County GOP had its executive meeting tonight at the Victory Center. Republican Party of Texas chairman Tina Benkiser dropped in to visit.

I am learning more and more about political campaigning every day. Here is another tool: Aristotle.

As far as projection for the 2006 midterm election, I like what I see here. For more details, look here isntead.

I and Larry attend the Mar Thoma Church of Dallas dedication service this morning at their new facility in Carrollton, 1400 W. Frankford Road. It was all conducted in Indian so I and Larry for the first time understand what it feels like for those who do not understand Vietnamese to attend our Vietnamese worship service.

After my brother's band practice, he helped me covering precinct 4630 in Irving for Pete Sessions.

An interesting article about David Banh, who with 72 AP credits, completed 60 hours and finished his bachelor within a year at University of Virginia.

I had a gut feeling for over a year now that Mitt Romney, the Republican governor of Massachusetts, and also the one that pulled the 2002 Saltlake Winter Olympic out of the red, will be the Republican nominee for the 2008 presidential election. He's doing pretty good among all the contenders. And the senior senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison has been doing everything she can to position herself for the vice president slot on the ticket.

I and my brother were putting out yard sign for our friend judge Livia Liu when the rain came pouring down. We waited a little bit and it didn't stop so we went home.

I had lunch and then went to the Dallas County GOP Victory Center, helping there until time to go to state representative Bill Keffer annual rock and roll fundraiser. I was wearing my Livia Liu t-shirt so people thought I was running and asking me how my race was going. I then had the opportunity to tell people about Livia and her race.

We went out to celebrate Michael's birthday at the Fujiyama Sushi restaurant. The food was great, pretty nice atmosphere.

TI senior vice president Melendy Lovett spoke at this morning first of a serious of breakfast events organized by Texas Instruments. The topic was "The Future of Education and Keeping Our Country Competitive." We need to keep the kids interested in math and science. And the drop off of interest happen somewhere in middle school, starting with 5th through 8th grade. Most of the engineers in the world by the year 2025 will be in Asia. If we are to keep the pace of technological invention in the US, we need to keep the pipeline filled with kids interested in math and science throughout middle school, taking advance placement (AP) math and science classes in high school, majoring in math and science in college, and go on to graduate school and post graduate research.

Ari Fleischer spoke tonight at the local Republican Jewish Coalition event. I loved his jokes. He made a strong case for a democratic Arab state is the best path to peace in the middle east.


Karl Ninh with former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer

We have a total of 62 Republican judicial candidates on the ballot in Dallas county. If you are a Republican, you are encouraged to vote straght ticket Republican. If not, if you pick and choose, please vote the entire ballot, to the very last candidate on the ballot. If you don't, you have just handed that part of the ballot to the Democrat who pull straight ticket Democrat 20,000 more ballots than we Republicans do. That was how we win the top of the ballot with president Bush in 2004 but lose the bottom of the ballot with our judges.

Manny Alvarez
Keith A. Anderson
Anne Ashby
Jennifer Balido
Ada Brown
Lynn Burson
Danny Clancy
Jeff Coen
Elizabeth Crowder
Keith Dean
Nikki DeShazo
Dawn Estes
David Evans
Craig Fowler
Lisa Fox
Molly Francis
Robert Frost
Tom Fuller
Brenda Garrett Green
Mark Greenberg
Karen Greene
Becky Gregory
Mary Anne Haren
Frances A. Harris
Susan Hawk
Catharina Haynes
Faith Johnson
Dianne Kathryn Jones
David Kelton
Douglas Lang
Elizabeth Lang-Miers
David Lewis
Marilea W. Lewis
Livia Liu
Joe Loving
Lana McDaniel
Amos Mazzant
Mary E. Miller
Joseph B. Morris
Jim Moseley
Mark Nancarrow
Neil Pask
Jay Patterson
John B. Peyton
Robert E. Price
Susan Rankin
Martin Richter
Jane Elizabeth Roden
Russell H. Roden
Cheryl Lee Shannon
Tomi J. Shehan
John Sholden
John W. Stilwell
Charles Stokes
Linda Thomas
Nancy A. Thomas
Henry Wade, Jr.
Kristin Wade
Janice Warder
Karen Willcutts
Donna Winfield
Bruce Woody

We heard from Peter Brookes, the Heritage Foundation senior fellow on national security affairs, at the inaugural luncheon for the Dallas Heritage Committee.

The Dallas County Young Republicans were at the Victory Center tonight, phone banking for straight Republican ticket and building yard signs.

The last day to register to vote in the November 7th, 2006 general election in Texas is October 7th. To get a voter registration application, pick one up at your local public library, or request one from the Texas Secretary of State website here.

To look up who are your elected official, and also which county you are a resident of, and thus should be register to vote in that county, go here, punch in your address and find out.

Mail your voter registration application to your county election administrator, look up the mailing address here. Unless you are in a populous county, you won't have a separate address for your county election administrator, just use the address for your county tax accessor-collector.

I just finished listening to the audio book My Life So Far by Jane Fonda. One of my reasons for reading/listening to the book was to find out if she had really been saved and is a Christian. Rumors had it that was a big reason for her divorce with Ted Turner. Well, according to Jane, she does not believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and that she's more or less a universalist. Another reason for listening to the audio book was to give her the benefit of the doubt and let Jane "Hanoi" Fonda tell her own story. Americans of Vietnamese descent should know that she played a very big role in lobbying the US Congress to stop funding for the assistance of the Republic of Vietnam. "Communist sympathizer" are the two words that describe Jane Fonda very accurately. Let me summarize and put it this way: if I were not a Christian, who believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation, who acknowledge the sovereignty of God and believe that all things work together for the good of those who love Him, I would say that the world would have been a better place had Jane Fonda not been born.

The hard drive turns 50 today, IBM introduced the first hard drive today back in 1956. Check out the timeline of the last 50 years. For more artifacts, check the Magnetic Disk Heritage Center.

We heard from Evans J.R. Revere, a senior foreign service officer with the State Department who is also a Cyrus Vance Fellow in Diplomatic Studies with the Council on Foreign Relations, at the luncheon hosted by the Japan-American Society of Dallas/Fort Worth. He provided very interesting perspectives on the North Korean problem from the US, China, Japan, and South Korean point of view.

I can't even remember how airport security was before September 11th, 2001. I remember exactly where I was on the road heading to my office in my truck. I heard the announcer on KCBI 90.9 FM prayed and I thought, oh no, another Columbine. But I soon realized it was much bigger.

I had a meeting with the Greater Dallas Vietnamese American community leaders and the boy scouts about the upcoming moon festival on October 7th before getting to the Westin Galleria for the DFWAACC banquet.

Clayton Fong, the executive director of the National Asian Pacific Center on Aging was the keynote speaker at our DFWAACC annual banquet tonight. Clayton had served on the 2005 White House Conference on Aging. It's not hard to see why. He is passionate about senior services, especially for Asian American seniors in particular and non native English speakers in general, who might be conversant in English but still think in another language. This becomes obvious in his father's case, who is in mid stage of Alzheimer. There are more bad days than good days for his dad these days, and his dad communicated on those bad days in Chinese only.

Now that another successful banquet is behind, I can fully focus on the next event, the VPS Film Festival.

I've been under the weather, also buried at work, busy with the DFWAACC annual banquet on Saturday night, September 9th at the Westin Galleria, and the VPS Dallas Film Festival on Saturday September 16th at the UTA Lone Star Theater.

The banquet is this Saturday and we have close to 200 elected officials and expect to have about 850 to 900 people in attendance.

The film festival free admission to the public is sponsored by the UTA Office of Multicultural Affairs, a division of Student Affairs so if you are in the DFW area, come to the film festival from 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Then you are welcome to join us for dinner with the cast members, directors and producers of the movies at Zander's House in Plano, Park at Central Expressway. Contact me for more details using the link on the right hand side.

Great source for medical references for regular folks, MedicineNet. I found words that my doctor wrote down and about medication given by the pharmacy. I was just curious and also wanted to make sure the pharmacy gave me the correct generic version of the drug my doctor prescribed. You keep hearing these horror stories where surgeon removes the wrong and healthy organ, pharmacist dispensing the wrong drugs, ... so I tried to do my part in creating another safety check point.

Republicans like senator Ted Stevens of Alaska are the ones that give the GOP a bad name and thus losing seats this November. What a shame!

We had a great worship service, with testimonies about God's work in Vietnam and a great sermon on the necessity to give thanks to God in all circumstances. I went out as part of our EE ministry. The gospel was presented to our elderly lady but she was not ready to accept the gift of eternal life. She would like to take time to consider carefully what we had shared with her.

Went to Hoang's going away party in the evening before we had our VPS Dallas staff hangout at Zander's House lounge.

We went to Banana Leaf for a group lunch to celebrate the August birthdays. I really like the color scheme there, green. Everything has a different shade of green and really pleasant to the eye. It was especially cool in the Texas August heat. While we were en route, Roy pointed out that Chaat Cafe, an Indian cuisine place on the corner of Preston and Frankfort, serves really great lamb dishes.

It didn't dawn on me that Baylor is on I-35 and getting to Woodlake would be off of I-45. We were glad pastor Bruce brought along a printed copy of Mapquest directions. We however didn't use the step by step directions because we had no idea where the Barnard street was. Rather we looked at the second page of the directions, looked at the map and fortunately was able to take Highway 6 south to the town of Marlin, then Highway 7 east past Centerville to the town of Crockett. We were good from there, taking Loop 304 south then 287 south to the town of Groveton and just a few miles south of Groveton on highway 287 lays the Pineywoods Baptist Encampment. We got there a little after midnight and both Houston and Austin folks were already there. We had a pretty productive day today discussing and preparing for Springbreak camp 2007, which will be from Friday night, March 9th to Monday noon, March 12th, 2007.

Check out my friend Katie Luong's website: baby photogrpahy.

We had our small group gathering last night at Thuan and Hanh's place. Great food and great fellowship. I am so grateful for the friends, Christian brothers and sisters, that God has blessed me with.

I am leaving town after work for our Vietnamese Alliance Youth - Southwest region staff retreat this weekend at the Pineywoods Baptist Camp in Woodlake, about a three hours drive from Dallas. Will pick up Oanh at Baylor in Waco on our way down to camp.

Discovered Christian News Wire and love it.

Picked up my truck from Service King today. They did a great job and had the vehicle ready for pickup right on time as they estimated. Dropped off the rental Huyndai Accent at the same time. Enterprise charged by calendar day and not 24 hours day. I had to pay for 3 days instead of two even though I picked up at 15:30 on August 22nd and return 13:30 on August 24th. I noticed a sticker on the Accent, which stated that Enterprise had a certificate of self-insured issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Interesting, I wonder if they have to have $50K deposit per vehicle for that.

We went out for some "bun bo Hue" at Tay Do today at lunch.

Lother, Margaret, Zeming and I worked on the DFWAACC program book final edited copy today before sending it off for mass print.

Dropped off my truck at Service King and picked up a rental car, a Huyndai Accent, from Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which is right next to the Service King located on southbound Central Expressway just south of Springcreek.

Congressman Kenny Marchant spoke at tonight Greater Irving Republican Club meeting. Followed his remarks was a lively discussion about various issues: ILLEGAL immigrations, the midterm election, 2008 president candidates, ....