In other news...

McCain seems to have failed to gain any ground over Obama in Friday's debate. That Obama was able to hold his own against McCain on foreign policy, the area in which McCain is supposedly strong, is a good thing.

Sadly, during the debate, I saw bits and pieces of the McCain I used to like. I'd still be willing to consider him as a candidate, but for his desire to keep us in Iraq, and his selection of Palin as a running mate.

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I refinanced the house last month, cutting $400 off my monthly expenses. Woot! What with the layoff, lowering the mortgage is a good thing. I also switched my DSL from Earthlink to AT&T, and haven't experienced a single failure. Earthlink was DREADFUL. For almost six years, my connection would drop multiple times a day. And for the several days before I finally switched, I was seeing 2,000 ms pings (for those who don't know what that means, it means I may as well have been passing notes on paper, than communicating electronically).

The switch to AT&T also had the benefit of cutting that expense by $20 a month, and increased my download speed by almost 4x.

Did I mention Earthlink was crap?

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Toby's doing well, though he seems terminally bored. Even when I manage to get him playing, he loses interest in that after only a couple of minutes. He's fine, per his last physical a few months ago, so I'm not sure what's going on. He just seems to prefer to lie around the house. He used to bring me toys all the time, to play fetch or tug. He's only six -- I wouldn't have expected him to lose interest in playing just yet.

Workers in yard == Stressed dog

During the winter storms, the support posts on the rear fence snapped at ground level. The fence leaned into the backyard neighbor's backyard, who propped it up with supports.

Today he has workers in the yard (my yard) replacing the supports. I'm not sure why there doing this from my side, except, possibly, for the fact that I don't have as many plants along the fence. Heh, good thing I removed all the bougainvillea shortly after I moved in. It was growing along most of the back fence, and I didn't find the inch-long spikes particularly friendly. PG&E had a crew here shortly after I moved in, topping the Italian cypress. The bougainvillea drew blood from at least one of them, which is ultimately what prompted their removal.

Of course, their being here has Toby in stress mode. I have to keep him inside while they're working in the yard, and he keeps shoving aside the blinds to look outside and whine. Twice they've rang the doorbell -- first to let me know they'd be back there, again to ask where they could plug in their Sawzall. Both times, Toby became barky dog.

Toby Poem

Heh, I just found a piece of paper with a poem my nephew had written about my dog...

Toby
He runs he plays
He jumps he stays,
He's Toby.
He drops fur here
He runs in fear,
He's Toby.
He smells real bad
He grunts when he's mad,
He's Toby.

The dread of July 4th

We're three days away, which means about a week of idiot neighbors driving Toby insane by setting off fireworks in their driveways.

Dogs really don't like loud noises, and every hear around this time he turns frantic, trying to figure out where all the shrieking is coming from. Kaylin told me that last night, two neighbors were setting off fireworks in their yards, and yelling back and forth to one another, "Is that the best you can do?" I wasn't home, but would likely have called the cops on them.

The 4th, itself, is really bad. Toby spends the entire evening running around the house in a panic. I think I'll ask if I can just take him over to Darren & Corrii's house to help keep him calm. No noise equals calm dog.