Well, we just got back from Christmas at my family’s house. It was great to have everyone together in one place. The food was great and the jokes were flying one after the other from the time I got there until I walked out the door. I love my family and feel very fortunate to have such good people in my life. Tomorrow it’s off to my in-laws for Christmas Day brunch and then we can cap Christmas 2008. To anyone reading this, have a safe and happy holiday!
Dec 252008
Dec 122008
Wow. Two months since my last post. I’m not that surprised really. I always start out strong and then my chronic procrastination kicks in. So here we go.. a brief rundown of the past two months.
Got new pet (shocking, I know). It’s a veiled chameleon and he is beautiful. My wife named him Ryland. It’s very entertaining to sit and watch him chow down on crickets and such. I uploaded a picture of him to my Flickr photos.
Got a PS3. Kind of a mutual decision between my wife and I. She wanted to play Little Big Planet, I wanted a Blu-Ra player. So it worked out well for the both of us.
Got a cold. Worst cold of my life. And I mean that. Not like when some people are just feeling crappy and they say “This is the worst I’ve ever felt” but they really don’t mean it. I MEAN IT. The left side of my throat and nose feel like they are completely solid. No drainage. Just like a brick has been shoved up my nose all the way to my ear canal. The glands in my throat are huge (thanks for noticing). The right side is noticeably swollen but the left side is like a golf ball. I’ve been taking antibiotics for a week now and my healing progress has went back and forth. ‘Tis the season I guess but I don’t ever remember it being so hard to fight off an illness. I guess I’m either getting old or that air based mind control agent they’ve been spraying by my house finally made it’s way into the air ducts. :]
Oct 252008
I was cleaning up a little in my garage today when I noticed a small jumping spider watching me. I took a few pictures of him and he seemed to be just as interested in me as I was in him. As I took a little video of him, he must have wanted a little closer look. The video will explain the rest.
Of course, he didn’t really attack me. He jumped onto the lense of my camera where he felt around for a second and quickly jumped back to the pool ladder where he had been sitting. I was so impressed with the way he was watching me, that I offered him a feeder cricket which he quickly jumped on and dragged to a spot where he could eat in peace. :]
Oct 022008
I came home from work today to find that our pet praying mantis Mimi has laid an egg! We’re so happy since this is what we really wanted when we got her in the first place. The downside of this is that she probably won’t live too much longer, although you would never know it by looking at her. She readily took a cricket from me and has been munching away on it for the past few hours. We will keep the egg safe throughout the winter and hope to see hundreds of tiny mantis babies in the spring.
Sep 302008
It won’t be too long and a spider like this will be very hard to find. The cooler weather will make most of the wildlife, that I love to spy on, retreat into their burrows and tree homes. This orb spider was found just outside the place where I work. Now he has been relocated to my back yard hopefully to get a few last good meals before it’s time to hunker down for winter.
Sep 252008
A friend called me today to let me know that she had found a snake in her basement. She wanted me to come by and get it. Of course I said yes. So I went to get it not knowing what kind it would be. When I arrived, I was given a shoe box and I could hear the snake inside crawling around and undoubtedly trying to escape. Once I got home and had a tank ready, I slowly opened the box. To my surprise, what I thought would probably be a common garter snake turned out to be this beautiful gray rat snake. I gave him the once over to make sure there were no stress injuries and then left him alone to calm down a little. I had planned on keeping the snake a week or two and then releasing him but after seeing what a wonderful speciman it is, I believe I’ll give him a permanent home.
Sep 222008
I found her in our backyard yesterday. She’s a Carolina Mantis and looks to be an adult due to her size and coloring. We are going to keep her for a week or so to film her more and then release her. She’s been eating very well and seems to be just as curious about us as we are about her. I’ll post more (and hopefully clearer) pictures when I get some.
Sep 162008
Not even close actually. I don’t consider myself a handy man of any kind. But I have been getting the urge to build somthing lately. I roughed out a plan for an aquarium stand that will consolidate a couple of my tanks with built in cord/tubing managment. I haven’t desided if I want to build the frame from wood or PVC pipe. I like the way PVC looks when painted but I’m just not sure I can get the support needed for a couple tanks to sit on it. Here’s a mockup I made in Google Sketchup. Any suggestions?
Yup. I’m still here. I ALWAYS drop out of the habit of posting after awhile. I’m seriously thinking about writing a program will ask me “What happened today?” each night when I logon to my computer. Then using a little voice to text conversion, have it converted my spoken words and post them here. To be honest, there is most likely already a program like that somewhere on the ‘net. But I digress… My wife has been out of town for the past 4 days so most of my time has been spent playing video games and watching movies. My favorite type of movie is horror. I’ve watched a few lately that I think are ‘must see’ titles for any real horror fan. The first that I’ll recommend is Burnt Offerings. It’s a movie from the late ’70s in the same vein as The Amityville Horror. But I’ll take Karen Black over Margot Kidder any day. Karen Black just seems like she was made for horror flicks. Check out Triology of Terror for another one of her classic performances. Another recommended watch is Donnie Darko. It’s a very bizarr movie about a schitzophrenic teenager that keeps getting visited by a 6 foot rabbit. The story is actually very good even though it’s sounds very stupid. Every day brings us one step closer to Halloween which is my favorite holiday of the year. So bring on the scares. You can always turn the lights on. :]
Aug 182008
Long story short, I told Seth to call me at home but when he called, I couldn’t make it to the phone. This is what I got as punishment.