What's the deal with XML?

XML is a generic skill you can learn on your own like html and then get certified online for it.

Components of XML:

XML Schema

XML Stylesheets

DTD

Namespaces? (on test)

XSL

Preparation Tools:

http://www.xmlmaster.org/en/preparation.html

Oxygen XML

XML Spy

Stylus Studio

XML Master download test application

XML in a Nutshell pocket guide

Practice Exam:

http://www.xmlmaster.org/en/practice_exam/

Free Online Training:

https://www.altova.com/training-tutorials free basic training for XML Schema 1.1 and XSLT

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=xml+training+for+beginners

Paid Online Training:

https://www.lynda.com/XML-training-tutorials/334-0.html

Santa Ana 12/09

I couldn't bring myself to drive further than home after having a sneezing/farting fit in my car at the Santa Ana Main Place Mall after dropping off my last pax.

As I was leaving the mall after relieving myself, I felt like my holiday sensibilities were assaulted. Too many different Christmas songs were playing and blending into each other as I walked through the southend. Too many sales signs, too much fake snow in the windows advertising cold weather gear in style for the next two minutes. All this marketing for 20-30 somethings with their kids. After all, Christmas is a commercial holiday for kids first and foremost.

Orange Julius is gone. Whatever restaurant I wrote about that used to be next to the restroom hall was gone. the FYE is now a Chico's. Change is good, right? If it's for the better, but change for change's sake may not be. We'll see.

I drove myself home and put myself to bed, but not after noting that I'm out of canned cat food and having some throat thing to the degree that my son was in my room asking how he could help. I drank the last of the lemonade I made earlier by the glass and fell fast asleep.

It's 2 AM and the cat is stirring. I watched the end of whatever Carson Daily show music something Bare Hand - shocked I even recognize who is playing but it's only due to the fact that one of the three XM Satellite radio stations I play frequently throughout my travels is an alternative station that plays this same band.

It's 3AM and now I'm stirring. Trying to find fresh meat and vegetables on sale in the digital ad that I clicked on from Grocery Outlet. And I can't. Not to the degree that I'm accustomed to in a full service supermarket. I look, again, and the two products that are most attractive in this ad are Pacific Natural Food Beef Broth and Amy's Chunky Vegetable soup with a runner up of maybe the Del Monte Whole Kernel Corn, but at $.69, that seems high. This Pacific brand I've seen for sale at my local Sprouts. I already bought two cans of the soup from my run there prior to Thanksgiving. That was 20 some-odd days ago?

It's 4AM and now the cat is giving me all of the tell tail signals that she is hungry and wants me to feel her canned cat food and we're out. The signal is the tongue to the upper lip. We trained her to do that and respond to the term numnums. And the stores around here don't open until 6AM. So I'm searching the internet trying to figure out where is the closest store to be that's open at this ungodly hour that would actually have the one and only variety of canned cat food she eats. I was sorely disappointed at the Walmart on Technology the other day because: 1) no canned car food she eats, and 2) I had to wait to go to the one restroom they have in the front. So I drove away feeling lighter, but with no cat food which was the day I should have bought it.

By 5AM, it's still darks but I'm resolved to obtain canned cat food before I turn into can food myself in the eyes of my cat. I have decided that the Anaheim Walmart that's open 24 hours is more attractive than anything else right now so I get ready and go. And I locate the pet aisle and the variety of canned cat food she eats and I purchase every can they have on the shelf. I am certainly not the cat lady of Tustin as my son likes to tease me about, because I only have one cat, but I feel like it buying all of these cans all at once. Screw what other people think.

There are very few times in your life where what other people think really matter. When you're tested, when you screw up, when someone is paying you to do something and maybe your parents to verify they've produced a compassionate, relatively happy, productive human being. I'm wearing denim jeans, sneakers, a grey v-neck t shirt and my big winter coat because that's what I feel a 5AM store run is supposed to look like from my perspective. And I drive in silence and I get home, grab the mail from the week and go feed the cat and them make me some tea to start my day.

I have to somehow make up for a shitty Friday night's pay for getting ill at around 6PM.

A Cautionary Tale

I have a love/hate relationship with my job. I love what I do, but I hate the fact that I have to commute to do it. And because of the commute, any type of social life that I once had has pretty much ceased. I used to be able to go out with my friends in LA after work, but now all I want to do is go home since the drive home is that tedious.

So knowing that there are all of these things to do at any some odd day of the week since I live in Southern California, I decided to eek out a social life once more however tiny it may be. I decided to do that with the help of Yelp!. Yelp! helps get me out of the house because what it is is a website made up of peoples opinions about stuff to do, see and experience and these generally cannot be done at home. And that makes me be more social and have something to write about.

So... this week was the first time I attended an officially sponsored Yelp! event. It was a house err hotel warming of sorts in Huntington Beach. And it was held at about the same time I landed back in OC, which meant I could go! Yippee! So dressed in my work garb, I traipsed over to the hotel and found my way up the stairs to the restaurant's balcony where all the people were. I was there for maybe over two hours talking to all these amazing people who participate on Yelp! just like I do. It was a very cool evening and I was encouraged to go to next weeks event.

So, I got to work the next day and I told my co-worker about what a good time I had out last night with my fellow Yelpers. And he tells me this story. He told me that one of his friends is into Disneyana and joined a group and befriended a man in his 60's. At first, he was fine because he was into the group, but more and more he wanted to hang out and do other stuff to fill up the void his day. The old man had recently retired and basically had no one to socialize with so he placed that burdeon upon my friend's friend. And as time went on, his friend decided that the old man was just plain mean and disgruntled with the world in general and had no friends. So my friend's friend decided he was going to take him on a bus run to Palm Springs or Las Vegas, I don't remember which one, and force this old guy to socialize with other people his age to get him some friends.

And a light bulb went off in my head. AHHH! I don't want that to be me. I don't want to end up a mean old lady alone because people can't tolerate me and/or don't like me. I want to have something to say. I want to get out in the world. I need Yelp! and these outings to get me to be more extroverted and less introverted. And maybe that will lead to other good things in my life.

In Succession

I live in an apartment complex that was built in 1964 and went condo in 1971. I bought this 2 bedroom / two bath unit because 1) it was in the same neighborhood I was living in for the past 8 years which allowed me to keep my son in the same school he was attending and, 2) it was dirt cheap as I got it in an auction from HUD in 1999 for $90,567. I live on the corner and have the biggest legal patio of all my neighbors. When I walked into the place for the first time I could see the good bones and tried really hard to overlook pepto-bismol pink walls, no carpet and lots of details that were needed to make this functional for a family to live there. I liked the fact that I didn't have to be responsible for the outside paint, the roof or the gardening. These things were all paid for out of my association dues as well as water and trash - that's the bonus you get with living in a condo. The one thing that was initially weird for me to get used to is that there was no gas. Heating, hot water and cooking were all electric. Now I'm used to it and I even prefer to cook with electric over gas especially when I bake. The edible results are so much more predictable and successful in an electric powered oven.

So, prior to me moving into my humble abode, I quickly had to paint, carpet and make sure that at least one of the two bathrooms worked. Brian helped me paint, and I ran around to every discount carpet outlet I could find on tile row in Anaheim until I settled on New York Carpets which did a fine job with better quality carpet than I hoped for, but lost my gate clicker during the installation process.

I had been previously sharing a bedroom with my son so I didn't even have a bed of my own. I slept on an air mattress for about 6 weeks until I could afford to buy a bed of my own. I lucked out in my timing joining Bankers Trust and had received a bonus for them meeting their sales goal one year and with that money, I went out and bought a couch, love seat from the attic/clearance floor of McMahon's Furniture on time and a dining room table and chairs from Ikea (which I still have to this day). I later went back to that same McMahon's and bought an oak square coffee table.

So over time, I have been working on little things around the place. I installed my shower door, but it took me a few years because there was this weird angle to tackle and I wasn't sure how I was going to do that. I finally decided to add a strip of painted molding and that made the opening perpendicular again. I changed out all of the light fixtures except for the combo fan and light in the dining room. I had to get new glass for that. I had to buy a crazy number of handles and pulls because they were gone. Eventually, I installed a garbage disposal and a dishwasher, too.
My last item to change was the faucets in both bathrooms and the kitchen, too. And I don't know how many times I've changed that shower head to something that I finally like. I never knew there were so many choices of shower heads in my life.

Now, I'm at a point where the little things are working and the big things that need to be updated are obvious to me. I need a new kitchen. I need a kitchen with maxed out cabinets for storage and a place for a tankless hot water heater, a dishwasher and a European style single unit washer/dryer. That means I need a plumber and an electrician, but not before I plan the kitchen. And not before I change out all the windows and sliding glass doors because I can't get the cabinets into the positions I want then without a tiny bit more wall space. And the sliding glass doors are not standard and I hate that. You can't buy non-standard sizes of screen doors and that is such a pain.

So here is my to-do list in order:
Kitchen & bedroom:
1) two new sliding glass doors in the back. These need to be moved toward the east. That will give me more wall space in the diving room for cabinetry.
Livingroom & front bedroom:
2) new windows in the front. Something dual pane and tinted to help take the heat and noise down a couple of notches.
Kitchen:
3)plan for the kitchen
4) demo the kitchen , buy the cabinets, hardware, new sink, and the tankless hot water heater. Install a new tile floor.
5) call the electrician
5) call the plumber to add pipes for the washer and the new tankless hot water heater
6) Install the cabinets and the tankless hot water heater
7) buy a new kitchen table and chairs and maybe a chopping block. Paint.
Main Bathroom:
8) plan for the new main bathroom. Locate and buy the new tub, sink and toilet.
9) demo the bathroom. repair the plaster walls.
9a) call the carpenter for the custom cabinet installation, rough out the tub area and tile.
10) call the electrician to rewire the exhaust fan to the light and install the motor for the tub. Up the amps for the circuit in the breaker box.
11) call the plumber to relocate the pipes for the new tub. replace all shut-off valves. Paint.
12) install the new toilet
Master bathroom:
13) plan for master bathroom
14) cut out the angular wall, greenboard and retile. demo the rest.
15) install new glass wall and door. new floor. new pedestal sink to make it more spacious. install new toilet.
16) install heat lamp new fan, create a cabinet over the toilet.

I still have to landscape the patio, too! But after all that work, the place will be nice, ready for sale and livable for maybe another 20 years.

Dear Commentator,

I had a dang useful comment applied last night to my 02/26/08 blog which told me about stainless steel hubs for my busted dishwasher wheels I was complaining about not being able to replace by utilizing a Maytag parts and service website.

J. Matthews reminds me of my dad = engineering metal parts that work because the solution is not cheap piece of molded plastic that's just going to break again. Thank you, Mr. Mathews. I will be checking into your website again just as soon as I can't stand the part malfunctioning because the glue won't hold anymore.

http://www.maytagwheelhubs.com/Maytag.html

Productivity

Sunday, I also finished installing the rubber moulding in my bathroom. Can you believe it? I left it half done for awhile.



Now, I need to tackle the rubber moulding in the main bathroom. Lowe's did not carry the 'dove' tannish color I bought last time like what I installed in my bathroom and I did not like the military gray, so I bought chocolate. I hope I bought enough to complete that project.

You take the good with the bad

So the good news is that I got a call from a temp agency about filling a position with a consultant company regarding Fannie Mae. The jobs hopefully starts ASAP. I'll know for sure next week.

The bad news is that since it was in the mid 80's today, this was the first time I have turned on my a/c in my car in a while and it didn't work. It was blowing room temperature air.

I took it to my local Chevrolet dealership in about 15 minutes because they said Friday afternoons are dead and they tell me the compressor is out, there is only one in all of Orange County and they have to hold the car to start the work, and it won't be until Monday when I can get my car back. $800. Ouch! But there is no way I can drive on the freeway for any extended length of time without it now that the weather is turning into spring like conditions, so I gotta do it.

I left my blue mobile in the care of Tustin Chevrolet and hoof it home. It took about an hour to walk home from the dealership. I looked at the path I took on Google Maps just because I was curious to see how far I really walked. It was 2.5 miles. Today, I'm happy for the fact that I'm not so out of shape that I cannot walk for an hour straight and make it home.

A Gemini's Mind

I usually have a ton of things I'm thinking about all at once during the day. I try to keep my thoughts organized into lists. Things I like, things I don't like, thinks I want to do, things I need to do, things I'd like to do, things I rather be doing when I'm doing things that I have to do... etc. So today, my mind is really in about 6 different places at once.

1)Due to my recent lack of employment because I was laid-off, needless to say I've been looking for a new job. I sent my resume to an unlikely place for me to be employed at and I did a telephone interview with the owner, but he was too busy to interview me in person during the week last week, so he said maybe Saturday. We'll, when I say 'maybe' that means to be "I'll work you into my schedule or I'll call". Neither did of these actions happened over my wasted Saturday waiting for the interview. I'm not sure if I now want to pursue this job any further because if the owner is not considerate and I have to depend on him for my pay, maybe that's not such a good place to work after all.

2)I need to finish those pillows for my mom. I'm going to visit on Wednesday and that would be nice for her to get those items back in a finished state as well as relieve my closet of the space these projects are taking up.

3) I think I may need to rework my resume because although prospective employers are reviewing it, they are not compelled to respond. I'm a seasoned, honest, hard-working professional and I am good damn it; reply-reply-reply! already. And if the revamping of my resume fails to get anymore attention than it already has, then I am also considering retraining because of my lay-off situation, but that is a scary proposition because I'm not sure if I can survive on less than half of my regular income during the training period. On the other hand, it's exciting to know that the opportunity to acquire new skills exists and maybe I can somehow get back to drafting, drawing or computer aided drafting, which I think would make me a happier person in the long run than just doing office work.

5)Circular saw acquired. What to do: I do not want the recycling to take over my patio area again, so I have to build a containment/collection unit to satisfy this need. I have a bathroom door that I intend on trimming to put up in my bathroom. I could cut wood for shelving in the main bathroom, too, but I think I'm going to use surplus shelving left over from my Ikea Husar collection.

6)I never realized how much Christmas sucks when you're an adult out of work. I want to give gifts, but with no serious money to buy anything, what the hell do you do? Banana bread. I think that's my answer for 2007. If you get a loaf from me, consider yourself 'special' because I don't make this stuff for just anyone.