Day 1188 - St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day isn't much of a holiday for someone who no longer drinks. All it meant to me today is that the park was much more crowded than usual and we had to keep our eyes open for people who didn't have their dogs on a leash. We saw one off-leash German Shepard loosely attached to a Frisbee throwing couple who wasn't paying much attention to him. Luckily, the dog was paying more attention to the Frisbee than to Dot and Dash. There were inattentive people with questionable dogs in the dog park as well. A pit bull who liked to play rough almost knocked Dot over. The dog wasn't mean, but its owner should have been paying attention. Usually dogs who come to the dog park are very well behaved, but holidays and nice weather bring out a totally different crowd. I prefer the quiet, uneventful days.

I'm getting tired of AT&T raising their U-verse prices while they continue to eliminate some of our favorite channels. I thought I'd try Hulu Plus as an alternative and see if we could get by without U-verse. Not as easy as you might think. First of all, the Internet gateway is provided by the U-verse modem, so it would be hard to get rid of U-verse entirely. Secondly, I discovered that I couldn't even connect to Hulu on our TV because the AT&T service technician had disabled the TV's WiFi capability the last time they were out to the house to fix the router. I knew that the TV used to connect to the Internet, because I've watched YouTube videos on it before. I put on my reading glasses, got out the manuals, and got to work. About 45 minutes later, I had the WiFi fixed and the TV hooked up to the Internet again. I clicked on the Hulu button and discovered immediately that it wasn't free. I guess that shouldn't have surprised me. Nothing is free any more. Hulu Plus does have thousands and thousands of TV shows in its database though, so it still might be a much better deal than U-verse.

I'm going to try to get as many out-of the-office errands done as I can next week, while I've still got the Land Rover loaner car. I don't know if I'll ever be able to trust the Defender again. Janet says it's time to give up on the car and buy something new. Maybe she's right. There's nothing out there that I like right now though. I keep waiting for Land Rover to introduce the next generation Defenders, but they keep pushing back the launch date. I thought they were going to introduce the new Defenders in 2014, but my mechanic tells me that it probably won't be until 2017 now. I doubt if my current car will last that long.

Next week ought to be interesting. The landscapers are coming to refurbish the back yard and I'm sure that both dogs will be obsessed with all the activity going on in their territory. I'm already trying to prepare myself for a whole lot of barking. Hopefully, I'll be able to confine Dot to my office for most of the day, so she can't actually see what what's going on outside. If I'm lucky, this will keep things a bit quieter around the house, but as you know, I'm not usually lucky.

Allie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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