• On Life and Love

    Belly Dance Is Back!

    Last December, Nayna found herself without a dance studio, making it rather difficult to teach class. All of her students–me being just shy of one year and ready to move to intermediate–dispersed woefully. We spent all of 2011 nagging the hell out of her. Ten months later (?!), she’s back with an email to the masses the day before classes began. So tonight I dug my hip scarf out from the back of my underwear drawer and giddily bounced my way to the pole-dancing studio where she held class tonight. It was awesome. It was amazing. It was like the first time, except with that fun disjointed experience of your…

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    eTapestry API: Recurring Donations

    I spent long enough trying to puzzle out whether I should use Recurring Gifts vs. Recurring Gift Schedules in the eTapestry API that I figured it was worth a short post. The goal was to handle recurring donations. Every month, Suzy wants to donate $10 to Cool NPO. It’s not a pledge, in that she’s not dedicating herself to $120 for one year. Just $10/month. (Forever! Bwua-ha-ha!)

  • On Life and Love

    Farm Tours: Goats, Horses, and Cows

    Here’s a great way to spend a Saturday: driving around in rural Charlotte-ish areas, then walking around and seeing goats, horses, cattle, pigs, donkeys, plants, and bees. Yes, bees. Some folks and I gathered a couple of weeks ago to tour three farms. The first was Apple Orchard Farm (my favorite!), the second was Maple Springs (too pumpkiny and commercial), and a third one I forgot the name of (with sad animals). I took and posted quite a few pictures, because most of the animals were adorable, and the ones that weren’t were often notably sad. Apple Orchard will definitely become my go-to farm for if/when we need extra meat…

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    Blackbaud Merchant Services: No Sandbox Account

    A word to anyone doing an eTapestry API integration for a client who uses Blackbaud Merchant Services: you may have an eTapestry sandbox, but you don’t (and can’t) get a BMS sandbox account. So how do developers test their API interactions? According to the BMS account rep I spoke to, they do it on the live system. With live credit cards. From the get-go.

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage: Harlem Shake

    This is what happens when Greg asks, “What’s the Harlem Shake?” I just about feel off the couch. Especially when I realized at about 2:40 that that’s a DVD in his belt, not a buckle. Greg may never ask me another dancing-related question ever again. A few other nuggets: Three Word Phrase, by Ryan Pequin – I’ll confess, I started watching Hoarders recently. Just entered Season 3. I’m not sure how I feel about myself anymore. In my defense Season 3 fired off with enough drama that I’ve skipped episodes. Autumnal equinox – It’s almost time to break out the sunlamp. Capital One Says ING Direct Deal Will Create Jobs…