Day 540

What did I learn today? I learned that Ooma, which I always thought was pretty cool, won't work with my Motorola SBG900 gateway. I learned that online merchants are increasingly using their own checkout systems when you choose to pay with Paypal. I learned that my new Colorburst RIP requires a dongle. None of these things are particularly good for me. The Ooma VOIP phone system requires a wired connection to your Internet gateway to work. Boo! I discovered the Paypal problem when I renewed some domains this morning on Network Solutions. Their checkout system automatically tells Paypal to use instant transfer instead of a credit card and then adds insult to injury by adding themselves as a "recurring payment" on your Paypal account. Boo again. And what's the deal about dongles? I thought dongles on software went out of fashion in the nineties. Dongles used to be the bain of my existence when every music creation/editing program on the planet required one. Everyone was in a panic about software piracy back then and developers made it so hard to actually use their software that it was hardly worth the trouble. Luckily, multiple software licensing dongles that use up all your available USB ports are largely a thing of the past. I guess Colorburst still thinks they need one though.

Getting rid of bees is more expensive than I thought it would be. It's going to cost $300 to have the bee guy come out and remove my bees. I guess this is money well spent though. If I can't get up on the roof to remove rain water, I'm going to need some even more expensive roof repairs. Bees aren't my only critter problems either. Just when I'm finally getting the new grass in the back yard established, there is now some sort of nocturnal animal that has been digging large and fairly deep holes in the St. Augustine turf to get at something they want underground. Whatever the animal wants is buried about eight inches under the surface. It's probably a Possum digging for grubs. The grubs aren't good for the grass either, but this isn't the way I would choose to get rid of them.

Our teacher wanted us to bring a dog toy to training class with us tonight. The theory was that playing with the toy in short 30 second bursts during the training exercises would keep the dogs energy up as the weather gets warmer. This theory didn't work very well with Dash. All he wanted to do was play with the toy. It actually took me much longer than the required 30 seconds just to get the toy out of his mouth again so we could return to sitting and healing.

At least Dash is feeling better. I'm kind of worried he might have Crohn's disease though. The symptoms certainly correspond to what's been happening with him lately. We'll find out one way or the other when we go to the vet next Tuesday.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day