05-17-2012
I'm engaged to my bestfriend and the love of my life!! We've been engaged since Feb 25, 2012!!!! We have been through tough times and plenty of wonderful times. I'm excited to spend the rest of my life with her.

02-08-2012
Wow it's been a while since i've blogged. Alot has happened since the last time. I started photography at the beginning of 2009. I upgraded my 3g pico fish tank to a 12g aquapod. Then I stopped with the tank about mid 2009 and started to do more photography. Bought a bunch of lenses.

My equpiment list:
Canon XSi
Sigma 20mm f/1.8 prime
Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8
Canon 85mm f/1.9 prime
stock canon 18-55mm is f/3.5-5.6 that I dont even use


had a sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro
had a canon nifty fifty 50mm f/1.8


Canon 430exii flash

I also started up golf about a year and half ago. Aug/Sept of 2010? Definately a sport I really never thought i would be so into. Definately having a great time with it.

What else is new... hmmm.. I no longer work at Capital Group, our department got outsourced and I was out of a job for 9 months. I didnt mind, I got to take some time off and play golf.

I started up my 12g aquapod again about june 2011. Very excited. Everything is going well with it.

Since Oct 2011, I am now working at QSI. I am having a lot of fun, and learning alot about how programs interact with SQL database. It's really something, even through I'm just a customer tech support , I really get to get hands on activity with analyzing the databases and the data being passed around between the program and database.

Oh, I also joined my Eucharist Youth Group again. It was a slow start (very slow first 4months), but after teach them how to Lion Dance for Vietnamese New Year a spark has started and I'm very excited to get back. I even created a php program, it's called LBT My Points. It's still in the works, but I got most of the functions working.

The PHP Program is meant to store contact information of the registrants in an SQL database. The password is encrypted in the database. They can log in and view their current points earned as well as change contact information and reset their own password. They do not have acess to anyone or anything else. Upon registering, a QR Barcode is generated, which they can print it out and keep it with them. The QR Code is linked to a "add points" function. I can scan their QRCode, it will take me to the add points function and I can add points on the fly. However, only logged in admins will be allowed to give them points. There are some improvements I need to make, a more quicker or similar way to add points cause I constantly have to keep logging in. The QR Reader program on the IPhone makes me. In a way it's great but annoying. It's great cause I know they kids can't just take my phone and I'll be auto logged in and that would just be bad. Maybe a mobile admin pin number? we'll see. My program also provides admins with more capabilities. View all users, search for users, update their info, reset their pw, and delete accounts.

Pretty impressive right? I taught myself. I used the framework of my previous addressbook, which I created a few years ago for a friend. I tweaked it intensly and integrated the log in / out function a little better.

I am thinking about learning HTML5, so I can turn the My Points into a mobile friendly verison, or creating an apple iphone app. who knows...maybe one day.

07-11-2008
So I've been really getting into salt water aquariums. I have a 35gallon one at home, which is basically some fake rocks and real fish. I've been dying to redo it with live rock and some corals in the mix, but i didnt want these fish to die.Since i've had them for probably over 3 years! so I just spent a good amount of money on a new 3 gallon setup for my room. Equiped will be a 3 gallon JBJ Picotope tank, an AquaClear 70 powerfilter (modified into a fuge), a Current Dual Satelite 2x18watt lighting with LED lunar light, and a 50w hydor heater! I should be getting my kit sometime next week, that's when the fun starts! i'll start modifying and testing out my tank then getting some rock and sand to start my cycle. 3 weeks later, i'll be adding a clean up crew and hopefully some coral. After everything situates, a goby and shrimp pair!! can't wait. so far total spent is $188.14, and i've saved about $30 dollars.

06-09-2008
So another month has passed while I was visiting Vietnam. My experience will later be posted, as I am working on that post. Just a bit of writers block due to the overwhelming realization.

However, the most suprising thing arrived in my work email inbox when I came in this morning. An email which was sent to me while I was out of the office: (Well it's not directly quoted. I took out all the last names and all the recipients in the to and cc fields. Let's just say it went to alot of higher up people in our department. Like high high up there.)

"Allen 05/22/2008 09:37 AM

To: Anthony Nguyen/CDS/CG/CAPITAL@CG

Subject Fw: Data Security Thank You

Great feedback, Anthony!!!
Allen

----- Forwarded by Allen on 05/22/2008 09:37 AM -----

Tim 05/22/2008 07:42 AM

To:

Subject Re: Data Security Thank You

Hi Samantha,

Thank you for your thoughtful note!
I appreciate the feedback.

Rudy, Alan, and Anthony, thank you for your support throughout our access administration efforts. Your good work and customer support does not go unnoticed!

Thanks, Tim

---------------------

Samantha 05/21/2008 09:28 PM

To:

Subject Data Security Thank You

Hi there,

I just wanted to send you a quick note to let you know how much I (we) appreciated the hard work of your team during last week's ETP Activities (ARMS / esarfs escalation). I thought this would also be a great time to call out outstanding performers on your team.

First, it has been great getting to know data security associates / contractors over the last several months (ALKF, CHOD, DEBA, MISM are all great leaders and it is a pleasure to work with them on a daily / weekly basis).

A couple folks besides the managers that stand out to me are: Alan, Anthony Nguyen and Rudy.

Alan: I am not really sure how Alan gets up everyday and comes to work, I know based on my daily interactions with him he always has a positive attitude, even though I (and I am sure others) hammer him all day with escalations. Alan does a great job of fielding status requests and escalating our urgent ARMS requests. Alan also does a great job of communicating with our team regarding any issues or concerns.

Anthony: Even though Anthony is fairly new he is already catching on. Anthony is a fast learner and asks questions only once (which leads me to believe he either retains the info or he takes good notes). Anthony does an amazing job with asking why, so that he can better understand how to field a request the next time around.

Rudy: I really enjoy working with Rudy. Rudy is always willing to help out where he can. He has been a great sport, especially when it is late in SNO and we ask for something to be done. Rudy works very hard and is a real team player, he sees what I see, which is we are one big family at CG.

I just wanted to take a couple minutes and let you know that your team is amazing and is always doing the very best they can. I really enjoy working with them.

Thanks,

Sam"

05-07-2008

Wow it's been a while since I've blogged. Time has just flown by during the past month. But what can I say? my life has been different. New Job, No Car, My Birthday, Going to Vietnam in 2 weeks (Wooohoo!!!), everything in my past blogs are slowly disappearing, oh yeah and Flyff. Just want to say thanks to everyone that's been picking me up and driving me everywhere during the past month. Going all out of your way to drive to the boonies so far from the freeway, just to see me! and taking me home from work. Thanks a bunch! Especially to my GF, being my taxi driver =]

So today, I finally get my car back. Finally going to start driving again. I'm kind of scared, yet I'm totally relieved. I'm probably going to end up driving like an old man, slow and distant. Stick to one lane, no more weaving through traffic. Better safe than sorry.

04-07-2008

My minds gone wondering and my hearts' gone astray. Thoughts in my head just won't go away. No matter how hard I push the thoughts just won't go away. The feeling in my gut just gives me the odd feeling. I don't know who to trust or what to do; because I feel like there's something hiding between me and you. Lately I've had quite a lot of time to sit and bed and ponder on my future, the mistakes I made and the consequences it led me to. Life is just an obstacle itself. A roller coaster ride, there are always ups, but the down is just more scary. You don't know what to expect, how hard you will drop, how long it will drop for, will it start to go up, or will it continue to drop. My mind isn't wondering around like search for new things, but it's just lost and doesn't know what to think. Confused, is actually the term, so confused that I'm just lost. My mind is wondering if I was the right choice, wondering why you chose to turn around and come back to me, for some reason I still think it was just based on her. I have my assumptions and my theories, but they could just be driven on my paranoia and worries. My heart isn't ready to trust, because these thoughts still haunt me.

03-25-2008

So today I said my farewells and goodbye to a great group of individuals. The time I spent at Lennar was a very educational experience. I met a lot of wonderful individuals, both coworkers and associates, which I assisted in their dilemmas. Received a lot of great compliments and rarely I left an associate upset. Not that I made them upset, but the issue was just out of my hands. I have calmed a lot of frustrated users, and gave them more insight. I believe I have always tried my best to be patient with my "customers" and provided all the help I wish I could do. A few weeks ago, I finally got to see surveys from associates I have helped in the month of January, and it felt good to read it. It provided great feedback with their experience with me and made me believe I gave them my all. I only wish that I could see more of these surveys and comments so I can continue to provide others with the same open hands.

If you don’t know me well, than you have got to! Get to know me, I am a quiet person, but I am always there to lend a helping hand. I don’t want to sound overconfident or anything, but I try to be very patient and I try really hard to work hard. It’s just my nature, and how I have always been. I am truly going to miss my stay at Lennar, as my first IT experience and the great people I met along the way. But don’t get me wrong, I won’t let you walk all over me, and you better not even try.

I received a lot of great feedback from fellow associates today and even a few of my favorite “customers.” But this one was my favorite from a “customer” and put a large smile on my face.

“Hi Anthony!

Oh my gosh I am so disappointed to hear you leaving:-( I'm sure it's a great move for you but a big loss for us. Shame the company would not match what you are getting with the new firm! You are absolutely fantastic, you have always displayed knowledge and patience with your work! Where ever you go you are an asset to the team!!!

Best wishes and don't be a stranger:-)”

Even as a contractor, I always felt at home; like I was part of Lennar. That is how great this group was, and I am surely going to miss it.

03-24-2008

if you do not lose hope then dreams will eventually come true in one form or another. It may not come how you dreamt about it; however, you must have an open mind and an open heart for the dream to fall into place. Do not be discouraged by a few upsets in life or misfortunes that come your way; the inevitable occurs to everyone. It's how you manage to work with what you have and move on in life to get your dreams tocome true in one way or another. I've hoped, wished, and dreamt that I would soon be reunited with the one special person, my love, my life; it's not how I dreamt things would be, but it's a great start of a new dream. This just doesn't happen instantaneously, you basically have to do whatever it takes to get your dreams to fall into place.

How many of you watch Lost? I just started watching it, and on Season 3, Episode "Catch-22": "Desmond's latest vision suggests that his girlfriend Penny will crash-land onto the island. The vision also suggests that Charlie will die if he comes along with Desmond to rescue her, but Charlie must come along to make the vision come true." In order for Desmond's dream to come true, there are things in life that just needs to take place, before it comes true. If you alter something that is not suppose to happen, than the dream gets altered, but if it's meant to be, than it will find a way to be. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow and let life takes its course. You can't just change the outcome with a snap of the finger, but you can slowly alter the path if you try hard enough.

03-17-2008

Why can't I just let go? Why can't I let things be, that I gotta keep on pushing for you and me. The thought of giving up makes me so angry, that I don't want things to happen repeatedly. I keep holding on to what use to be, never want things to change, dont want this to end, that its got my mind torn in two. Even tho things have changed, it changed once and we changed it back, why can't we just get it back. It will take time, it will be hard, but if it's what we want, hard will no longer be hard. I have so much hope that we could return to where we use to be, but that's if you want, that's if you try; but each passing moment, the hope just dies. But does it even matter what I want? Cause of right now it's what you want.

03-15-2008

Maroon 5 - Can't Stop

All alone in my room
think of you in a rate that is truly alarming

i keep looping my memories of you in my head
i pretend that you want me

and i fall asleep and dream of alternate realities
and i put myself at ease by pretending that she still loves me

and I cant stop thinkin about you
I cant stop thinkin about you
you never call what do I do
and I cant stop thinking about you love

(Ohhh Yea) Cant believe i could think that she would just follow me everywhere i go
I just wrestle with you in my dreams and wake up makin love to a pillow

and i fall asleep and dream of alternate realities
and i put myself at ease by pretending that she still loves me

and I cant stop thinkin about you
I cant stop thinkin about you

you never call what do I do
and I cant stop
I cant stop

What I would give to have you look in my direction
and I'd give my life to somehow attract your attention
and I touch myself
like it's somebody else

thoughts of you
are tattooed
on my mind
let me show you

and I cant stop thinkin about you
I cant stop thinkin about you
you never call what do I do
and I cant stop thinking about you

and I cant stop thinkin about you
I cant stop thinkin about you
you never call what do I do
and I cant stop thinking about you

03-14-2008

Snow Patrol - You Could Be Happy

You could be happy and I won't know
But you weren't happy the day I watched you go

And all the things that I wished I had not said
Are played on loops 'till it's madness in my head

Is it too late to remind you how we were
But not our last days of silence, screaming, blur

Most of what I remember makes me sure
I should have stopped you from walking out the door

You could be happy, I hope you are
You made me happier than I'd been by far

Somehow everything I own smells of you
And for the tiniest moment it's all not true

Do the things that you always wanted to
Without me there to hold you back, don't think, just do

More than anything I want to see you go
Take a glorious bite out of the whole world

03-13-2008

So the truth was told and the forgiveness began. The trust was lost, but that's not the end. "Love is all committment, and commitment requires trust," a wise man spoke. Will I gain that trust again? I wish i knew. Things are now different, and things wont be the same. If I have faith, than trust it might bring. All I have now is faith and hope, that one day she returns to my heart. But at the same moment, I believe its time to move on, move on with my life and hope for the best. I feel the pain and I feel the suffering, but that's what I get for making the decision. I thought hard, and I rationalized, and I tried to be patient. I thought we were inseperable, but even great things come to an end.

Someone said, where is the hope in love if you two aren't together anymore. That made me really sad, it reminded me of the story of Lucas and Peyton on One Tree Hill, of the girl who is living in Peyton's old house, in her room, with the initials carved on the closet door. Living in that room gave that girl so much hope in life and in love, that Peyton just had to crush it for her. Ironically, the last episode of One Tree Hill was about Nathan and Haley, the couple with so much hope in their love came to an end, during the time mine did too. Her favorite show was One Tree Hill, and it's just funny how our life resembles so much of it. It was great how people saw so much hope in us and had so much faith that we would have been so great together.

03-11-2008

The one thing I feared...happened. Losing the thing which made my life so happy. The one thing that kept me motivated in working hard. The one thing I wish I could hold on to forever. But all things come to an end; if not now than later, if not later than sometime in the future, if not the future than the past life. However, it happened sooner than I ever hoped. She was the one that kept me going in life, she kept me trying, never to give up; till today I had to give up. I tried to hang on, I tried to be better, but better was never good enough. I just had to give up. I have not given up on her, but on us. I hope the best for her future, that she can find somewhere to be happy at. I wanted to be the reason she was so happy, but lately it didnt seem so. An alternative route she may have found, a new path in life she will take. Will we end up back on the same path? I hope so, I wish, I really wanted to know, but only God will know. I let it go, so she did not have to choose, I did not want to make her choose, because choosing only brings regret, only brings sadness, only brings sorrows; things I hate others to feel. So I took the pain, the suffering, the heart ache more to myself. Is she sad about it? I bet she is, but at least she did not have to have the decision to make. Our path was ended, but she has a path right in front of her, whether she will go straight or turn around, is now her choice. Normally, its taking a right or a left which is the harder choice, not going back and starting again. I know I get lost a lot in life, in driving, in thoughts; and a lot of times, choosing right or left can only make being lost even more lost. So I put my car on cruise control and let life take me where it wants to go, till I find a new path or find my way back, only God will know. There's no point in turning back into the storm, but only to keep driving forward, avoiding the left and right, and the rear view mirror; time to look at the present and the future and to enjoy the scenary.

02-25-2008

So what's been happening to me lately? My luck has seem to be getting better. I have seen the light! I had a rough past 9 months or so, but things feel like it's been going the right direction. Opportunites are opening up, I will just have to wait and see where life takes me. As far as skill wise, I just taught myself some PHP and MySQL skills and I am pretty darn happy for myself. I always wanted to learn PHP and MySQL and get a better understanding of it, but I never had a reason too until this opportunity. I took the time and created a whole registration process which stores users information for one of my co-workers church group. It's not as fancy looking, but I was never good at design anyways, but the whole process is working great. If you want to test it out, please do so. Login Page there's not much to play around if you're just a user, but you have much more functions as an Admin.
After I spruce things up, I will give out a temporary Admin login for you guys to take a look.

11-13-2007
Well, where should I start? My name is Anthony Cong Thien Nguyen, born and raised in Mission Viejo, CA. I recently finished College, graduated with Magna Cum Laude and a Bachelors of Science in Technical Management at DeVry University, and I just received my CompTIA A+ certification, but I still don't know what I want to do in life. The IT World is so broad, so many different directions, and I just want to experience a little bit of everything so I can choose my destiny. I remember sitting at my graduation ceremony, and listening to our commencement speaker, he made a great point; to not be discourage from where you graduated from, that all it takes is hard work to disprove people. That after he graduated from DeVry, it was hard for people to give him a chance, but once he received that foot in the door, everything went up hill. The people that hired him, that worked with him, received a new insight in hiring individuals out of schools like DeVry. The main point is, you can receive great workers from ANY school. And truthfully, I work hard, I am determined, and I will achieve success, no matter where I graduated from. I have the knowledge it takes and the skill set people need to be a hard worker.

What was my reason of choosing DeVry? Well, first off, I really had no idea what I wanted to be, I went from Computer Programming to Business Administration. I had no idea there was a Business in Information Systems out there at any school. I was working full time 40 hours a week, taking between 12-19 units at my Community College, and just didn't know where to go from there. I knew some friends who just started going to DeVry, so I started to look it up. I really never thought about going to schools like DeVry and ITT-Tech that give out "technical degrees." The new trimester at DeVry was starting very soon, and I really didn't have much time to figure out the route I wanted to go. I went in and spoke to an advisor and they evaluated my courses and basically came out to either 4 more trimesters. I looked at the suggestion, made a few switches and basically was able to cram the rest of my school into 3 trimesters, in order to save some money. I could have graduated from DeVry a long time ago, probably about a year ago, but I held off a little bit so I wouldn't be in a large financial debt. Was it the smartest move to make? Partially yes and no, but that's life for you!

Am I glad I graduated from DeVry? Yes I am. I am glad I am done with school, for now, and hope to find a place that will give me a chance to work hard. I was a little iffy upon graduating from DeVry, and started seeking an alternative route, either getting my Masters or a second Bachelors degree at another college. However, upon graduating, I felt more confident of my knowledge and skills, maybe because I found out I graduated with Magna Cum Laude? Maybe it was because of a few individuals that I met, who really showed that they were interested in me, that they are able to see that I would become a great asset to the company. Even though my skills do not compare to my competition, just yet, but I learn fast, I am motivated, and I can multitask very well. I'm like a bull raging down a Spaniard street, with a eye on my red target; huffing and puffing in a fury to compete. I'm currently employed at Lennar, as a Help Desk Analyst. I started off at the bottom of the Help Desk, but 2 months in I got a promotion. I managed to maintain one of the top Help Desk associate at Lennar, in the amount of tickets I close per month; however, I'm bored. There's not much challenge in this line of work. I basically need something more, more challenging, more work equals more fun! So on my own time, I figured out how to set up a Windows 2003 server as a Domain Controller, DNS, and Active Directory just so I can broaden my knowledge. Get more familiar with infrastructures, is this the way I want to go? I have no idea. The next thing on my list is to do is set up Citrix Presentation Server and a MS Exchange server. I been thinking about getting back into Programming, but I don't even know if I want to do that for the rest of my life. I enjoy it, I still fiddle around with it every here and there, but I'm pretty rusty. Maybe one day!