Robert Bui

Rude Customers – There’s no need to be

admin — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 03:02:37 +0000

Just like you expect us to be polite and happy to see you come into our shop, we also would our customers to return the same politeness that we give. So, if we greet you please greet us back. If we ask you a question, please don’t ignore us. We may be not as rich as you, not as educated as you, not the same skin colour as you nor speak “perfect” English like you, but we are still human. We may be not as muscular or perfect like you but we tried out best to stay healthy with long hours taking care of our small businesses.
So, next time you approach a shop owner, a crew member at your local take-away stores or even a waiter/waitress at your local restaurants, please show the same respect that they will show to you. Greet them if they greet back, answer them if they ask a question, smile back if they smile at you.
Then the world will be a better place. You will also enjoy your experience.

Can our future rely on the younger generation?

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:46:50 +0000

While sitting on the grand-stand of the Fairfield Showground with my family waiting for opening ceremony of the 2010 Tet Festival, we saw a group of kids (mixture of girls and boys) around 13-14 years old sitting near us. The girls all dressed in provocative cloths with tight mini-skirt and revealing tops along with a face full of make-up. The boys were dressed a bit better than the girls. However, they all have cigarette in their hands. They puffed away without a care in the world for the people surrounding them.

I can understand if this group were made up of 20′s something people but 13-14 years old kids ?!?! Moving my eyes away from this group of kids, I saw more groups of kids standing or sitting around with the same scenario. Can our (Vietnamese community) future rely on these kids? Each year I attend the Tet Festival, I feel more and more disappointing at the younger generation of our Vietnamese community.

At the same time, I wonder to myself – where are all the parents? Shouldn’t they be spending time with their children and guiding them the right road to take?

I am proud of my baby girl

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:54 +0000

My baby girl, Minh-Thi, started to walk when she just turned one year old. Minh-Thi can just barely talk with few words uttered out of her mouth such as “be” (“carry” in Vietnamese) and “di” (“go” in Vietnamese). However, she is as bright as her older brother (who is almost 3 years old) if not brighter. Each time, we changed her nappy Minh-Thi would climb down the bed and bend down to pick up the tightly wrapped dirty nappy we place on the ground. Minh-Thi walks to the rubbish bin in the kitchen and drop the dirty nappy into the bin. After, Minh-Thi turns around and smile to indicate that she is happy with her work. Sometimes, she even claps her hands to say “Well-done”.

In the morning, she would points at my work cloths hanging on the walk to tell me to change to go to work. At night time, before she go to bed she would kisses (or rather licks) everyone’s cheek in the family to say goodnight. Of course, not to forget the moment her brother does something naughty and she knows she unable to do then she would runs out to find us and tell us (saying her brother’s name and finger point to the place where her brother would be) about the mischievous that her brother is up to. These are the best moments that all parents would never going to give up.

Apple Store is for the elites or it is a pain in the backside

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:52:43 +0000

I broke the SIM tray of my iPhone after spending 2 hours on last Friday night trying to get the stupid thing out of my iPhone. The SIM tray was stucked because one of my colleagues re-inserted the SIM tray in the the wrong way after he borrowed the iPhone.

After searching around, I can only get the official SIM tray from Apple Store (can’t even purchase via the web!). There are only TWO in the whole of Sydney and both are in the city. Nothing out western suburbs at all. Of course, I can hand my credit card detail to unknown foreign company to get a “replica” but….

After a 10minutes wait on the phone, I finally spoke to a guy from Sydney Apple Store and was informed that it will only cost me around $11.95 but I will need to “drop” into the Apple Store. OK, fair price to pay for the “elite well designed” product.

So, I’ve asked one of my colleagues who happens to travel to the city today to grab one SIM tray for me. Thinking I will get my iPhone back tomorrow so I handed $50 note with the iPhone to my colleague. My poor colleague called me saying we have to make an appointment just to get a SIM tray – a small piece of plastic for the phone. The next available time is at 6pm tonight! Who is going to hang around for 4 hours!

Why does Apple make it so difficult just to get one of their products!?!? Is it cater only for the “fashion” conscious designers that have plenty of free time who look down at “fashion-challenged” nerds like me who has no concept of colour matching scheme?

Got classified as “aging” at mid 30′s

admin — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:03:56 +0000

No “old age” lines the face apart from the laughter lines. A revisit to the family doctor for a lower back pain, I found myself got labelled as “aging” by my family doctor. He said this sort of symptom is quite common for those who are aging. So, at what age is a person is classified as “old”. I don’t feel like I am old as all. Yes, I spend more time at home with the kids than going out than when I was still single (not many years ago). I preferred that way. But, I am not OLD.

Watching My Baby Develops

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:18:59 +0000

Being a man, I don’t get to experience a life growing inside but as a parent I would not miss the experience of watching my baby grows and develops. Minh-Thi has surprised me when seeing her developed mentally more quicker than his big brother, Minh-Tri. There are many similar characters between Minh-Thi and Minh-Tri, like both like me carrying them with both arms and swing from side to side like an aeroplane. However, last night, Minh-Thi did something really surprising which made me very happy.

Watching Minh-Thi playing on the bed after dinner as usual, I noticed Minh-Thi crawled to the plastic jar containing pieces of puzzle so I went to the jar and open the lid for her thinking she would start pulling out the pieces of puzzle as usual. Instead, Minh-Thi picked up the lid which I have placed next to her and start to put the lid back onto the jar. It is not just putting the lid in whichever way but the right way down. Once she managed putting the lid onto the jar, Minh-Thi would pull it out again to start the exercise of putting the lid back on again. She spent more than 10 minutes doing this repeating process with her eyes confirmly on the jar and the lid and mouth open with saliva dripping down her chin. Her concentration was so strong that she did not let anything or any noises distract her for the whole 10 minutes. The concentration only broken by the voice of her grandmother calling her to stop and let the grandmother carry her.

Another surprising moment was this morning while I was half asleep at 6:30am. Minh-Thi was already awake and slapping my face to wake me up to play with her as usual. As usual, I pretend to be asleep and as usual she would turn to slap her mother’s face. After a period of time, she gave up and started to play by herself and crawl around the bed. Minh-Thi eventually found my beanie which I normally wear to bed on a cold night. She crawled back to me and started to put the beanie on my head. She knew the beanie was mine and I normally wear to bed!

Seeing Minh-Thi develops mentally so quick made me so happy. I look forward to the day she can talk (non-stop).

A Happier Man

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:59:13 +0000

After 4 months working as an IT consultant/technical, I am feeling better than before. In May of this year, I decided to resign from the IT Manager position after 2.5 years on the job plus 3 years as the Software Development Manager at Allied Express. Working long hours (90+ hours per week), working much less hours (70+ hours per week) is very relaxing.

Despite not working full time as a developer of the last 6 years, I have not forgotten my programming skills. I am as good as developer in C/C++ as other developers with similar number of years of experience. I am working on porting the document scanning application which I wrote in C++ on Linux across to Windows now. Working on Windows Vista at the moment.

Moving Site Commercial Server

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:54:01 +0000

After many months of procastination, I have decided to migrate my web site onto a commercial server. The old site was running on my home Linux-based router with Pentium-4 CPU. I have splitted my website into two seperate sites; one for professional blogging and one for personal blogging/pictures.

Minh-Thi : The Cheeky Little Baby Girl

admin — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

5:30AM morning – tired and sleepy, awaken by the movement of my little baby girl, Minh Thi, lying next to me. Head turned to look at her and with her eyes wide open she smiles at me. Shutting my eyes again pretending to sleep but she won't let go. Minh Thi vibrated her lips making noises to get my attention. As soon as I turned my head to look at her again, the noise stopped and she smiles again. Only 5 months, she knows how to get my attention to play with her despite it was 5:30AM in the morning! Shutting my eyes and pretending to sleep again. I fell asleep while smiling as Minh Thi keeps on vibrating her lips.

That moment I will cherish the rest of my life.

Happy New Year – Year of the Ox 2009

admin — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Chúc Bạn Nam Mới Vui Vẻ

Fun Nin Fai Loc

Happy New Year