Regrets

Have you ever regretted anything in your life?  I know I do.

I can't believe I'll say this, but I've never felt so much regret in my life...except for this.  I know I have regrets...but not this much.  I didn't wish for another way around...except for this.  I never hoped to turn back time...except this time.  I never cried for anything that doesn't involve my own life and my loved ones' lives...except for this person.

I can't recall ever saying, I wish I didn't have a child so soon...because I'm happy with my kids right now.  I haven't said if I can turn back time and marry again, I wish it's more fabulous, because my wedding was the best it could be that time, and I'm happy with it.  And never in my life did I say, I wish I didn't take that job in Cebu...because I had the time of my life there, I learned to live.

But last night, I cried so hard for one regret...and it doesn't even involve myself, my family, my loved ones.  I cried because of one regret...that I hesitated.  I asked myself, why did I ever hesitate if it can cause one innocent life?  Every time I remember that event, I bow my head in shame, and cry in vain.  Why did I ever turn my back?   What have I become that I was so cold and heartless?

I wish I called out.  I wished I asked.  I wish I helped.

8 Signs That You Are Alone

8. When no one reads your blog nor leaves a comment on it.

7. When you receive forwarded text messages or emails ONCE IN A BLUE MOON.

6. When it's only your partner who texts you that often. Either because you are away from each other or because it's out of obligation.

5. When no one buys you on "Friends For Sale" in Facebook.

4. When you're the only active Facebook user who doesn't use "All My Friends" application because you were not tagged in the first place.

3. When the only people who you think cares for you don't always call/text/email you.

2. When your family only texts you for important things.

1. When you can only feel happiness when you are with your family, more specifically, you bundles of joy.

Bird "IN" the House

When you hear this, you might say, "so what??" because there's a lot of people who are already keeping birds as their pets. But not us. So this is unusual for us. hehehe...

My sister, my kids, and I discovered our visitor when we got home from our older sister's house. We thought it was our father who caught it, but they were also as surprised as us when they got home.

My parents and siblings said our cute visitor is a woodpecker. It has a blue body and a long beak. But I can't tell if it's really a woodpecker (since I haven't seen one, yet. hehe). Maybe they're right. What do you think?

Anyway, our initial reaction was very funny. It's not everyday that we have a visitor like it. So what happened to it after? Well, it's still here inside the house. I saw it a while ago about our cabinet, now, it's on the chandelier.

Vertical Subcategory Listing in Entity XMLPackage

Last week, I was dead worried on how to do this.  The default in ASPDNSF is horizontal listing.  Although it's okay for my client to display that way, he wanted a vertical listing more.  I consulted the forum but to no avail.  Finally, I came up with a solution.  It's a very long one, and I must admit, it's not the best one either.  I'm hoping there's a shorter one, but for now, since I have a tight deadline, I'm okay with this solution.

Here's what I did.  I created a new XSLT function that accepts the parameters WebsiteID (This is multistore so WebsiteID is necessary), ParentCategoryID, and the NodeCount (although personally, I don't think this is necessary anymore).  This function does all the work.  I can't think of anything else that will only touch the XMLPackage so I went deeper.

In my XSLT function, I created an ArrayList of Items that will hold the nodes (or the subcategories) of my query.  I also created a temporary ArrayList that will hold each field of my subcategories.  This temporary one will be stored in ArrayList Items.

then made this code:

// sql query to store categor fields into temporary ArrayList
// then stores the temporary ArrayList to Items

double SubCategoryCount = Items.Count;
int ItemsPerColumn = (int) Math.Ceiling(SubCategoryCount / 3); // I only have three columns
int counter = 0;
StringBuilder str = new StringBuilder();

foreach (ArrayList al in Items) //traverses all subcategories in Items
        {
            if (counter < ItemsPerColumn)
            {
                str.Append("<tr>");
                // code for the first column

                if ((counter + ItemsPerColumn) < Items.Count) // checks if this index is not yet out of bounds
                {
                     ArrayList al2 = (ArrayList)Items[counter + ItemsPerColumn];
                     // code for the second column
                }

                if ((counter + ItemsPerColumn + ItemsPerColumn) < Items.Count) // checks if this index is not yet out of bounds
                {
                     ArrayList al3 = (ArrayList)Items[counter + ItemsPerColumn + ItemsPerColumn];
                     // code for the third column
                }

                str.Append("</tr>");
                counter++;
            }
            else
            {
                break;
            }
        }

This is a very long solution but works fine with me, so I'm sticking to this for now.