Ahhhhhh The Colonial was great last night..............only a few couples went so we were able to play more shuffle board games.....;)................we play "fifty one" and sometimes this game takes a good while to end................so the more couples playing, the longer it takes for your turn to come around if you lose ...................fortunately I was winning all night....;)............we all sang "Love Shack" at the end of the night too..............it's a "classic" now......;)

Now for a really nice rant about the ball pythons that were stolen from Jeff Houston..............many of you are not going to like at all what I have to say about this, and that is fine by me.........I have received too many emails asking for my help and why "Ralph Davis Reptiles" is not at the top of the list of contributors for the "REWARD".............I could put this all up on the forums but I won't.............and that is my whole "beef" with the subject.............it SHOULD NOT BE PUBLIC!!!..............but now that it is, I will write why I, and many other top breeders in the business are not contributing to the reward fund................First off let me explain that all of the "Non - Contributors" I have spoken too feel bad for Jeff and what happened to him, BUT we totally disagree with the way the whole thing was handled from the time it hit the internet.................so Jeff or anybody else reading this, I can speak for myself and many breeders when I say we feel bad for what you are going through.

What I'm writing from here on is the way I see it and yes it is fortified with some "blurps" from conversation of the other breeders.............you don't have to like it.........it's the way I see it, it's where I'm coming from and it's the way that it should have been handled in my opinion....

I don't know every fact there is to know other than what I'm reading on the internet and the phone calls I have had about the subject from Dan Sutherland and Jeff Houston.................so I'm writing from the facts that I know.........and that leads me to the first problem with this whole thing..........

Jeff finds that his $75,000.00 plus collection of ball pythons have been stolen when he comes home from work.............his house was trashed.......I guess most of the "regular burglar items" were left alone..............all of his high end snakes are gone...........I can only imagine how bad that must have felt ..............I assume he called the police and filed a report and went through all the proper channels of a robbery..............now Jeff says that he is very "low key"..............he doesn't post in the forums much, he pretty much doesn't want anyone to know what he has...........there are a lot of small breeders like this.....guys just getting started and they just want to stay on the "down low" until they are ready to sell some offspring.............well this to me means that Jeff should have a very short "list" of who stole his snakes.........reading his material it sounds to me that he could have been a little nervous about his collection and also naive about security precautions..............he also wrote that the some snakes that were left were "hets", which must have gotten mixed up and now he doesn't know "who is who".........this is really bad.................but it ain't the end of the world by no means.

Now don't think I'm playing Jeff up as an inexperienced twit, but he obviously allowed the wrong people to know about his collection, he must not have had an alarm system or any hidden cameras recording his collection and no picture verification of his hets?........this is all stuff you don't do because you don't "think" anything is ever going to happen when your a small breeder ...........security is very important.............even though a burglar can get in and out while the alarm is going off, they still have the police on the way, they have the alarm blaring in the house............all the neighbors will hear this and try to see what is going on...............AND...........the shitty burglars know they are under the clock.........but all of this is moot right now...................what happened is done and that is that..........I would recommend to any of you who have a high-end ball python collection to have an alarm system installed.............a camera recording your snakes................and I don't think it's a bad idea to share the fact that you have these high-end snakes with the reptile community.............it's kinda like "the more who know the safer you are" type of deal.........anyone who visits my place knows that it has an extensive alarm system and they have to "smile for the camera" when they are here.................sure they may think to themselves.........." man I can't wait to catch Ralphie not at home one day and steal all his shit"..........BUT.........knowing about the security precautions would scare most away from ever acting on that..........it has to be an "inside job" to be pulled off correctly in my opinion .................reading Jeff's posts leads me to believe that he was a little "paranoid" about his collection and he was afraid of theft...........so why was there no security precautions?.....................as for the insurance on the snakes...................who does that?.............it's a risky business and all you can do is protect your stuff "on site" the best you can.............you have to make your collection very "unattractive" to steal.

So Jeff finds that he has been robbed ..........basically it was a "snake robbery"..............it's not the first and it sure won't be the last..............it happens..............what he did from there as far as publicizing it to the snake community I do not know...............all I know is that it was done wrong in my opinion............it was TOO PUBLIC, TOO FAST...........maybe this was done in a panic?............I could understand that but it was still the wrong thing to do for all the parties involved with bringing it way out into the open. The way it should have been handled was to privately contact all the "Big Players" in the business............let these people know what happened and to keep their eyes open for the snakes.......like I said before...........snakes get stolen more than most of you will know..........9 times out of 10 it is not "public knowledge"...........the "right people" are informed and then we wait for the thieves to try and move the snakes..............or maybe they won't move the snakes?..........maybe they will keep them?..................even breed them and sell offspring ...............regardless usually the thieves will screw up and somebody will get the info to get them caught...............it takes time is all...............and believe me I know how impatient I am..............it sucks to have to wait it out.............but waiting it out is the best attack........you get the list of stolen snakes out to the right people and you wait...............this business is too tightly knit for these things to not eventually be found....................now is it a bad idea to eventually "go public" on the theft............it probably can't hurt..............I still wouldn't do it..............I would keep it quite and let the thieves work while I build a case.

Let's go public, offer a reward and what the hell.........let's even get the robbery featured on PRIME TIME FOX NEWS!!!...............yeah!!.............that's a great idea!...........NOT!!............going public and hyping this up to where it is now only damages the outcome..............if I were the guys who stole these snakes and seen the reward offer and all the publicity it's getting..............not to mention the threat of going to the NEWS, I would kill the snakes and bury them in my back yard..............plain and simple.............all evidence would have to be destroyed.............it's just too hot of a topic and not worth the risk of keeping them or selling them.................BUT if I didn't think there was any "heat" on me other than Jeff and his local police department I would not feel as threatened ..............everyone has their own ways of doing things........some people agree and some people disagree with the way people do things................I happen to disagree with this whole "PUBLIC FOX NEWS" thing...........I will help people for free as will all the other good people in this business ..............I don't need my name on a list associated with what money I sent to the cause.............this is just wrong...........who's idea was it to put a "value" on the reward and then give people a number to shoot for??.............they use the phrase "money loosens lips"..............yeah maybe it does..............and it also brings out all the liars and scum bags...........I look at "That List" and have to get sick...............I know of several liars, cheaters and dead beats on that list................people who have stolen and who have questionable stuff in their facilities right now...............people I will never associate with is this business ..............total scum bags in the industry..........yet they are on this list?...............why?................it's easy......they see this list as a place to "start fresh" and maybe be forgiven or maybe new people will see this list and the names on it and associate them with "honest breeders"................well I got news for you folks..............some of the worst in the business is plastered right on the list with the "good people"...............I've been emailed again and again asking why I'm not on the list?.........there are a lot of reasons ................mainly I don't believe in having to pay for help................I don't like a number put in front of me like some "marker" to get the job done.............and most of all it ain't anyone's business who donated the money or how much...............that has to be the tackiest thing I've seen on the net yet................a list compiled of some very good people along with the scum bags...............and it is organized as to who donated the most money........LMAO!!............you got a guy on the list donating a couple grand and then you got a guy on the list donating fifteen bucks................but every little bit counts right?...........LOL.............if the reward had to be done it should have been anonymous donators................when the mark was reached it would end................if the donators must be publicized so be it..................do it in alphabetical order and leave the money out of it..............I doubt there is anybody in this business who would donate more money to a good cause than me.................and I ain't on the list............do I want to help?................sure..............will I help...............absolutely................and it is nobodies business what I do.................I don't need to make myself feel better by having my name plastered on the net on a bogus list with a huge dollar amount next to my name..............the reward was unnecessary..........you guys want to see the reptile community "unite" huh..............well then lets do it for no gain what so ever...............screw the bucks and the recognition..................let's keep our eyes and ears open not only for Jeff, but for anyone else that has troubled times that needs help....................what are we going to do, have to cough up money for a reward every time somebody gets something stolen in the business? ..............I can see it now............the scum bags will start saying that their animals have been stolen for the attention and the possibility of scamming reward money out of someone whether there is an arrest or a conviction ..................rewards are for missing children and that's that.....................so getting back to the "community uniting"..................give me a break..............this just drove the wedge in deeper..................that list is a tiny fraction of what this community can do................

Everyone has their reasons for donating or not.................some people may just be sceptical........some people may think he got what was coming to him..............some feel terrible and want to dig as deep into their pockets as they can to help.............others may think that this is a tacky way at promoting yourself as a "good guy"................I even seen that somebody posted that the people on the list would be good trustworthy people to do business with?................now how in the hell would you know that?.................I know the scum on that list.................LOL..............everybody is thinking right now............."Ralph is such an ass hole, I wonder if he thinks I'm scum"............you'll just have to wonder than won't you?..............maybe it would have just been easier for me to pony up 25k and get my name at the top of the list..................or maybe give them a buck and be at the bottom?.................it doesn't really matter..............I flat out disagree with the way it was handled and that's that.................since it is so easy to get everyone's money in this business than it shouldn't be a problem at all raising a hundred grand each year to put an official in DC working for the reptile community ...............somebody working for US and fighting for our rights and beliefs..............am I right here...................somebody to stay on top of federal and state regulations ...............somebody to work with Fish and Wildlife................a real worthy cause that effects us ALL..................believe me folks .................reptiles are not on the "good list" with the officials..............all they seem to get is bad press.................so lets go to FOX NEWS about Jeff's ordeal and give them more "bad press".................lets let the whole world know how much money there is to make in ball pythons................lets set up the red flag so that every breeder advertised on Kingsnake or any other site or publication is a target to a " real thief"...............sounds like a great idea.................how hard is it to look up all the breeders on Kingsnake..................go to their web sites and see what they keep................get an address and go take all their shit..................seems pretty hard right?..................well not to a pro................lets not give the pros a new market................." Snake Thieving"...........stealing snakes looks pretty damn attractive don't it?.............huge money to be made, easy marks.................hell the rewards are huge...................I got a buddy who would take the rap, do a year in jail to make 50 grand................yepper...............there are people out there that do that kind of shit.

And what about all the people in the reptile world with real problems................cancer, lay-offs, sick children..............can we give them all the help and money that they need?..............nope..............it would be nice but we can't............Jeff is just one single problem among thousands of problems with all of us...............so we are using this incident as a turning point.............."we are going to put our feet down"................"no more"..................yeah right..............this will not change anything............it won't stop theft ................thieves are always looking for easy marks.................so start by not being an easy mark.................if your paranoid that your going to get robbed then do plenty about it.............alarms, cameras, pay a neighbor to watch your place, get a huge dog............shoot to kill...............that kind of stuff.............hell Jeff didn't even have an alarm!!.................100 k in snakes and no security???............I hope everything works out great for Jeff.............I'm not wrong if it does pan out...............and I'm not right if it don't................it's just not being done the right way in my opinion...........get the dollars off the names on the list...............get rid of the list all together...................tell Fox they don't have a story, all Fox cares about is the money raised not the snakes ..............raising the money is the big story there..................let this simmer down and let the thieves go to work.

There are a lot of people in the reptile industry doing business illegitimately.............yepper............new guys starting out, a first year or so are pocketing all the money they can...............doing things that you can't do in real business................not to mention other things like not paying taxes and bogus expenses..........why?...............because the snake business isn't "real"................LOL................it's just extra money................OK........I get it now................well tell that to the officials when they come banging on your door.................hell to make it all happen quicker lets promote the hell out of every bad reptile experience we can on the NEWS...............yeah that will teach them...............and it will bring us all together as one loving reptile community at the same time..................BARFFFFFFFFF...........big news flash here folks.................the reptile community will NEVER unite...........what's happening with Jeff right now is all smoke and mirrors.................Jeff's bad luck is giving others a chance to look good and feel better about themselve's.................it's actually pretty pathetic..............it will all go away in a week or so and nobody will care...................that beauty of a list may stay or it may get yanked?...................who knows?.................but don't make judgments as to who the good people are and who the bad people are by the names on that list.................I have talked with VPI and NERD on this subject.............we feel bad for the guy...............hell we together could raise a million dollars in ten minutes between the three of us...................don't think we wouldn't rise to the occasion if need be................and don't think we think this is "small potatoes"....................something funny I just remembered was how some of the people on the list owe other breeders money for snakes..............and they have owed it for quite some time................but they have the money to cough up for the reward.................I sure hope there is no problem collecting on this reward from those kind donators ...............I see snakes being offered before money for some.............that's what I think the best way to help Jeff would be ..............people get together and replace his snakes..............in turn Jeff has to give the breeder back some babies..............or what ever type of deal was worked out...............this should be done by the breeders Jeff purchased the majority of the high-end snakes from.............which I would say has to be Jeremy Stone.................from the looks of the list and the people involved it paints a pretty easy picture for me as to who has the most invested in Jeff and who wants to invest in Jeff...................call me an ass hole but that's easy to see................If I was the one who sold Jeff the Spider and the Mojave I would send him new ones in these hard times...................if he got his snakes back then he would send mine back................if he didn't I would work out a way for him to repay me with babies................this would be the best way to keep Jeff on track and lose the least amount of years breeding................No I wouldn't say "hey lets get everyone together and rally up a fifty thousand dollar reward"................and to top it off lets give them a reason to hit that fifty thousand dollar mark...............NEWS Coverage...........LOL.................bahhhhhhh.........bahhhhhhhha bunch of sheep if you ask me................as bad as "Ralphettes"...............:P

So to you scum bags on the list trying to re-invent yourselves..................go right ahead.............I know who you are............after all I'm the ass hole that knows everything right...............the BIG MOUTH in the industry................the guy that nobody can find any dirt on................the guy that thinks most of the time before he does something as drastic as to make up a stupid list of people and make people feel obligated to "unite" and pay out bucks to get this "bad press" even more bad press................nope not me..................in order to keep Jeff happy and preserve the good name of the ball python world I would have contacted some of the industry's leaders and we would have sorted this out................we would find the guys.............and to ease all the pain I'm sure we could find it in our hearts to pony up some nice snakes for Jeff to fill those empty bins...........to even think of rallying the troops on several occasions out on a public forum to raise funds is ridiculous...............that's one of those "what were they thinking?" moments................but now the can of worms has been opened............so I guess it will move forward ..............I have talked with Dan Sutherland today, Dave and Tracy Barker and Jeff Houston himself...............they all know that I'm writing about this...............I have to.................people want to know why I'm not at the top of the list or on the list at all................well this rant pretty much should sum it up nicely .........I hope that stealing snakes is not going to be a "new trend"................all you folks reading this will at least have an alarm system installed right?..................I hope you do.

To Jeff...............I feel for ya bro and I will keep my eyes and ears open...............I have as good of a chance as anyone at finding out who may be responsible for this...........I think there is way too much heat on the topic right now and I would hope that the thieves don't even know it...............I hope they start going to work either trying to sell the snakes or just having loose lips..................I hope the snakes have not been destroyed from the amount of heat...............and what I really hope is that your snakes are not with some scum bag breeder right now who already has Spiders and Mojaves................because they are as good as gone unless you can prove that any one particular snake they have is yours...............that's where your pictures will come into play..........as for you guys on the list................way to go!!.........I think it's great that you guys want to contribute to such a worthy cause.............are you guys going to contribute each and every time somebody needs a reward raised?...................I sure hope so...................and to some of you losers on the list.................nice try but you don't impress me one bit ................cheap advertising for some.................expensive for others ................tacky as all hell is all I can say..............we did a great job uniting the good with bad on this list................I'll say that................as for The Snake Keeper and Jeremy Stone................I ain't got much more to say.................I talked with Dan today and explained to him the way I was feeling...............I told Jeff Houston the same thing................this whole thing ain't about me............but when I'm taking heat for not being on the list then it's time to explain myself.

For all the people who agree or disagree I just want you to know that this is the way I see it and that's that................no harm done either way, I don't have anything to say about it on the forums or anywhere else public but here.................it was a bad move and I with many other breeders did not want to be part of "The List"...............I don't think any less of the people on the list now as I did before..................I will say seeing ten bucks next to somebody's name looks pathetic too me.................but that's just me...................every little penny count's right?.........let's raise that fifty grand so that we can get on TV.................It will be interesting to see how this all pans out and how much closer we will all be now that we all "united" for such a great cause......................that cause would be money you know................it's always about the money................trust me..............their is plenty to be gained for some from all of this.......a new sucker enters the herp world everyday..................we can't save them all................

Great talking with you today Jeff ( my cell phone died........sorry )...........please let me know how you make out on all of this............next time call me and I'll set up a "Bounty"...................screw that pussy reward.................lets get real pay back!!!.........I really hope you get some leads soon.............and I offer any help to you that I can give.

Politically Correct?.............did you think it would be?............again, what goes on behind the scenes and what is known before "you know" are two different things..........it's actually a shame that it has to be that way but it is.................this is one shady ass business and that's for sure.........I'm ready to spend my days doing "talks".................any takers?...............I work cheap...............let's start the bidding at one dollar and stop when it reaches fifty grand.................come on folks!!..........we're half way there.............

Bottom line............I ain't paying for any information that The Ralphettes could beat out of somebody for free........;).............I don't want to gain popularity for being "the good guy who does the right thing"..................even if it's wrong...........and I sure don't throw money at my problems ...........a reward would be the last resort............at this point who ever does have any info about the theft is watching the reward increase and is waiting to spill the beans when the price is right.............duhhhhhhhhhh............

"Does your neighbor have a hundred thousand dollar snake collection in their home"?

Ralph

Rat barn today..........I didn't get there until 11:00 and Bob was a "no-show"??..............Robot was there working alone.............turns out that Bob called me later and said he got pulled over by the cops for not having his seat belt on............then they noticed that his tags were dead............so they followed him home..............BONER!!...............luckily Fatty had a half day of construction work, so he came by and helped us finish up,,,,,,,,,,,,,,we got done at 6:00.......not too bad.............T went to work today because they are calling for a bad ice storm tomorrow............ she re-scheduled all her customers to come in today .............she'll be missing volley-ball too...........she ain't liking that......;)

I got a late start this morning because I was flooded with emails about my post on "The Reward"............all of them agreed with me for the most part, but it wasn't about that..........all I wrote was the way I see it and the reason why I did not pledge..............if your feeling guilty now, then I guess you should have thought it out more..............it's over with now as far as I'm concerned............the list has been pulled down.There was a really pissed off person who posted over in the public ball room that obviously did not agree with what I wrote in the journal............I expected too piss some people off , comes with the job...........everyone isn't going to agree with everything...........especially people who don't know all the facts....................the mods yanked the post and emailed it to me.............I'll post it at the bottom of today's entry............it's pretty entertaining to say the least................I'm offering a REWARD to anyone who can pin point exactly who this coward is...................four versions of the RDR T-shirts to the first person to bag this BONER.....hehehe.......;)

Couples Fear Factor broke my heart tonight..............my favorite team lost.........;(..............it looks like that one snooty couple is going to win the million.........but if they are the best so be it..........and Average Joe is looking to me like an "Average Joe" just may win it............she got rid of poor David Daskall last night..............LOL........what a shocker...............the show is almost cruel.............but the STUDS are all losers too on this episode...............pickins' are damn slim....;)

So should a breeder be held liable when a person he sells snakes to is a boner?.................just a thought I had?........maybe some should and maybe some shouldn't?..........." normal people with dreams"........."people who run their own businesses"................"people who are just trying to get by"................BARF!!.............what the hell are you selling???...............this is real cryptic shit ain't it?...............just some thoughts I thought I would throw out there for no particular reason....................really though............does anyone really even care?.......... isn't it really all about "how is all this going to benefit me?"................"this has to make me feel good to be the right thing to do"................right?...............wrong........this business is so divided, am I the only BONER who knows this?..........business as usual.......... business is business................sorry............it's just business.............and all that shit comes with the business..........are you SHOCKED yet??.................

Ralph Ralph Ralph...
Posted by Ralph Skeezer on 2/2/2004, 4:09 pm
209.19.98.166

Hi
I am new to the Forum, and I just wanted to say what a Mother F'er Ralph is. He's the biggest hypocryte EVER. Nothing but a big fat lazy ass bastard that loves to sound holier than thou. Litte does everyone know what a lazy fat #### he is and that if it wasn't for someone else's funding, he'd be nothing right now. He bags on an honest attempt to help someone out, probably because it wasn't him that did it. I don't know Ralph personally, but I hear about him all the time and I've read his 2-grade level story telling journal more than once. I also see all these losers that look up to this fat ass and permanently mark thier body's with his diareah-with a head-looking logo. I'd bet good money that if it was a customer of his that got robbed, he'd be the last one to offer replacements. I just love how he throws names around claiming what he thinks they should have done.
Ralph, if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. If you're pissed off and bitter because you're so ####ing fat and such an asshole....try shoving a hadful of slim fast down your throat. I'm sure your good looking wife is more turned on by your bank account than your ugly and unchanging body.
Try eating your Ego you ####ing idiot. You're a ####ing SNAKE BREEDER.

Today Robot is feeding.........the kiddies are off school AGAIN!! we got a mixture of rain and freezing rain today...........I have tons of paper-work to do today, plus I have an appointment to see the doctor...........I finally got bronchitis from the kids...............they have been bouncing "the bugs" around with each other for a month or so...........I think it finally caught me....;).............so I'll go in later and get some antibiotics hopefully..............Im also going to con him into burning off some hanging moles on my neck......hehehe........."skin tags"...............Ralphie's DNA!!....;)............We got some good news today...............our brand new table saw that broke last year is finally fixed.............I think it was out of commission six months or more?...................i had forgotten about the damn thing................seems like warranty work "that's free" is always "we will get to it when we can get to it"...........but it's done.........Fatty will be happy about that...;)............

Today I started closely checking out what my female ball pythons were doing so that I can start my 2004 potential offspring page............I have thirteen female building up follicles right now............and a few of them look like they want to ovulate soon..............I'm hoping to produce two dozen clutches this season.................I'll be very happy with that.......;).............a birthing records page under three pages would be nice......;)............it's all up to me I guess................so far I'm sticking to my plan of "less is more".................not to mention I want to screw off most of the 04 Summer..................Sea Dooing and herpin' baby!!!..........

Brooke and Gump's cousins are over and they are running around the house today like lunatics!!...............I'm sure T will be handing out "Time Outs" like crazy today.......;).............I'm safe here in the dungeon. George called today and cancelled the guitar lessons..............he didn't want to drive in the ice and I was too lazy to drive up to his place...;)................yes the weather has us slackin' on my guitar lessons................but I still pluck away at it during the week at night.

I went into chat tonight.............it was nice to have fun and see you guys again.........I still say Stu should have taken the 50k we put up for a "lather session" with Amy..............that's your loss BIG BOY!!..................LOL...........AMY!!!!............getting back to Jeff Houston...........he posted up a " Huge Thank You To The Community" over on the ball python forum at Kingsnake............

Posted by: Jeff Houston at Mon Feb 2 19:24:24 2004

My wife and I can't even begin to explain how awesome it has been to receive the kind of love and support that we have. When this theft took place we were crushed, 4 years of work, dreams and hopes were destroyed.
Many, many of you understood this and came forward. I can't say thank you enough.
I have been very busy with all of this. My wife is having some complications due to the miscarriage so that has my full attention right now.
I will try to get back to all the emails as soon as I can. I have not forgot about them and they are VERY important to me. If you have not heard back from me, you will soon.
I can't say enough about the Sutherlands. I don't know where to start, when Dan brought this up to me I thought he was kidding. I did not expect such a generous showing. I am blown away. There are many people who have made awesome offers to help me. I won't mention them now, I plan to get my own site up soon and with their permission will post more then.
Lets hope this reward will get people talking!

A word to the wise... I know it seems like everyone in this industry is set up like fort knox. That is not correct. Most of the people I have talked to had no idea how much theft goes on in this industry. It is shameful. Most people are not well protected. Please let this be a wake up call, GET ALARMS! It might not protect all of you but I sure wish I knew about all the theft BEFORE it happened to me.

Thanks again. We will be updating everyone soon.
Jeff and Rachel Houston

Well thank's for the wake up call Jeff, you being a business owner and a person who has experience in the Police Force knows how important security really is.............I would like to thank you for making such a great example of how things can really go wrong when you ignore simple details like security, and being able to identify snakes in your collection............I'm sure "many" of the folks you talked to that have no idea about theft or security are tightening things up right now!!............and GOD BLESS Dan and Colette Sutherland...............I had no idea this was all Dan's idea??.........don't forget Jeremy Stone..............Jeremy has the best quote to this whole charade............." Good Intentions, Bad Idea".............words to live by................said perfectly!!............As far as the Sutherlands go...............I have a quote that's really easy to remember..............." Bad Idea"..............but that is what I expected from a breeder who could care less what the rest of their colleagues think or how it would effect others in the business...........what is it?.................10 for 10 now..........??...........but they will have their supporters just like anyone else ............everyone loves to be a victim..........oh please................yuck!!............I guess Jeff is thanking all the people on the "pledge list" for raising $50,000.00 for "the cause".................I'm not exactly sure what the 50k will do..............but I think it is supposed to "loosen some lips".........we thank you for thanking us Jeff Houston and I'm sure we all look forward to a speedy arrest and and even speedier conviction on these sorry bastards who stole your snakes............I hope like hell that money has to be paid out..........hehehe...............blahhhhhhhhhh!!.........there will be an even bigger story if the money can't be collected on when the conviction occurs.........yes my feelings on this are drifting further away from being "helpful" than they were when I first posted.............that's only because I have gotten a few "scoops" that I greatly appreciate hearing straight out of the doggie's ( people involved ) mouths............some things were done completely different than discussed to my surprise??........did I say that?..................I expected it..............this is the snake business...................this is the place where breeders are looked at as Rock Stars.................you can be famous over night...................a forum can make you feel like a GOD!!..................so why not milk it for everything you can get out of it??...............this is where being a victim comes back into play as being very handy.......;)...............I'll just settle for being a PRO.

I guess Jeff will be going full bore into publicizing this on the news and where ever else he can get it out in the open............."ZERO Tolerance" for offenders he is definitely showing..........I'll say this..............if somebody does get pinned on this crime they have to be the stupidest people on the planet second only to the people involved in letting the "bandits" know who, what,where,why and when...........next time lets draw them a map too................Peace / Out............BEST of luck to you Jeff.............

The Snake Keeper's ratings are soaring ever since poor Jeff Houston got robbed.............hell there was a post put up today thanking them for their support on this travesty........then there is this big blanket statement saying that "I and the ball python community thank them"...........well "I".......maybe you do..................but I don't..............I'm part of the ball python community............but I'm sad to say that I don't thank Dan and Colette..........or Jeremy Stone or Jeff Houston or all the people that so generously pledged the bucks on that list................anyway that thread grew a little in a not so favorable way............and in classic form KS had posts removed..............it's a wonder anyone can even tell what half the really steamy info on KS means after the threads have been butchered.............but it was...........it didn't get any posts from people in the industry that you could "build a thread on" anyway...............pretty much like Jeff's big " Thank You".............just your average people passing by responded................that thread pretty much boiled down to what dog would be the best to protect an expensive snake collection.............dogs, guns, alarms and video cameras...............come on folks................we don't need these things .................remember Jeff says that "most" of the people he talked to have no idea how much theft there is in this business and they are not protected................damn??................he must not have talked to the right people................AGAIN!!!..............but for what it's worth.............lets all take Jeff's good advice and get your place more secure ...................something always has to be sacrificed to teach you something...............in this case it is Jeff's snakes..............as unfortunate as it is, lets all try to learn from it...............and say our prayers for Jeff and his family..................thank God nobody breached his pool business and stole any of his inventory or disrupted him to the point where he would have no income..............a pool company has to be secure I'm sure................there ain't nobody going to mess with that....after all it's a "real business" unlike a hundred grand worth of snakes.............

"Blanket Statements"...............we all make them.................what do they mean?.............it's petty of me to dissect it like that...........but the guy posting should have thought it out more................I mean after all this is a guy who said The Snake Keeper ripped him off before.........even tried to get them banned from KS forums in the past...........what the hell is going on here??....................problems arise and we need to unite right?................the problem is that 90% of the ass holes are the only ones that want to unite, yes there are damn good people on "the list"...............I don't need to name and names................hey "it's party time" lets all jump in on this one and get a few "extra lives"...............yepper..............just like a game.........how many lives do ya got left huh?

So anyway I don't know much more about anything other than the subject was supposed to "go under-ground"............BUT it hasn't.............it stays a "hot topic"..............hell even I'm promoting the hell out of it.............screw the money or the reward...............I say we unite and put a big herp community foot up the thieves asses!!!....

Today Fatty worked on his own.................so I had his helper Rick come over and do some painting in my home.............we are finally starting to pick colors for the rooms in the house...............it's been five years!!.............we've had our alarm installed ever since we moved into the house.................I figured it would be a great way to protect my family...........hehehe...........yes I'm a total asshole................oh yeah............I do have bronchitis..............the doctor gave me a strong antibiotic for it..............and I did talk him into whacking off a bunch of my skin tags...............he cut them off with a super sharp pair of scissors, then he burned them closed...............it hurt like hell on the side of my neck..............but it was worth it..............I'm beautiful you know................hehehe.........BITE ME!!!!................So Rick was painting and I went out to run some errands................the dump was the most importanat..............the weather has been so bad that I have been carrying around a couple weeks worth of trash from the rat room ..............mostly paper and stuff..............but it's covered with snow and it's heavy and wet now..............

Robot is feeding the adults that will eat today................they ain't even worth trying feed for the next two months................no biggie..................we will enjoy the vacation......;).........I still have many yearlings that are eating well...............I helped Robbie double up on feeding some of the females I'm trying to get to breeding weight for this Fall.........and wouldn't ya know it folks.................Jeff inspired me to have my alarm guys come over today and do some up-grades.................yepper.................I had some work done on the ole' alarm system today...............wouldn't you like to know!!..........;P..........you never can be to safe people.............even though I'm an ass and all this bad karma of me disagreeing with Jeff and the Snake Keeper' tactics is gonna get me some bad luck...............just look at what that bad karma did to my tongue??...............it's still numb as all hell.................but I'll explode if I don't get this shit off my chest.................I'm so lucky to be able to say what I want to say and have so many people "listen"...............some of you get pissed off.............and that is to be expected ................I'm sure I make some of you happy some of the time..........I don't expect people to totally agree with every word I write.................kinda like that dude from the entry above.........."Ralph Skeezer".................since the time that entry has been posted I have been flooded with info from friends and people who really want to help.................it will be a matter of time before I hang a name on this guy................I'm just hoping for his sake that too many people don't know him...............he sure thinks he knows "The Fat Bastard" pretty well don't he??..................which brings me to the really nice post Christy put up on the RDR Public Forum to Mr. Skeezer................it totally caught me by surprise because Christy usually never get's involved with the nasty flames..................but she jumped right in on this one...............thank you very much GIRLIE..............and if everyone else thinks your brown nosing,,,,,,,,,Screw Um"!!.................below is what she wrote............

Hey Skeezer!
I really tried to ignore your post about Ralph but I could not quite manage it, so here goes…

Ralph is a hypocrite? Let me explain to you what a hypocrite is. A hypocrite is someone who expresses one belief and then acts in the opposite manner. Ralph said he did not think the list was a good idea. It would have been hypocritical, then, to contribute just to look good. Ralph didn’t do that, did he? For further clarification, an example of hypocrisy might be if someone said “if you can’t say something good, don’t say anything at all” in the middle of an inflaming, highly critical post about a person the writer doesn’t even know. That person would have professed one thing (“if you can’t say something good, don’t say anything”) but done another (intentionally wrote something nasty about somebody, instead of keeping quiet).

I have to comment on the most amusing part of your post – Ralph the LAZY BUM. Anyone who has spent, say, ten seconds with Ralph in person knows that whatever Ralph is, LAZY is far from it. Hyper, perhaps! LOL!!!! Lazy, NEVER. Just watching him exhausts me. I come home from his place and sleep for three days!!

Now, as for how Ralph would have nothing except for “someone else’s funding.” Well, I guess in one sense that is true, but that IS kind of what a business is about. You provide a service or make a product and someone else gives you THEIR money for that item or service. The whole point of business is to get someone else’s money. Lazy Ralph, as I see it runs four successful businesses – snakes, rodents, rodent racks and construction, and started each from scratch. I have seen his construction, rats, snakes, and racks, and all pretty amazing. Have you ever run your own business Skeez?

About his comments about the reward fund. Did he bag on it? Sure. Did he enjoy bagging on it, no doubt . But, remember, had things been handled a bit differently (for instance, no names and amounts posted), Ralph would not have been taking a bunch of heat for not being on the list. One of the unintended consequences of posting the names and amounts was it that this act polarized people. It was clear who felt what about how things were handled by whether their names were on the list. Ralph gets a bunch of calls asking why he’s not on it. Being Ralph, he could not just say, ”I don’t think it’s the best way to help”, he had to tell us EXACTLY what he was thinking, uncensored! He only did it on his own journal site, where presumably, people might be interested in what he thought.

Of all the things you said, Skeezer, the one that gets me the most is the idea that Ralph would not help one of his customers in that situation. I have been on the receiving end of Ralph’s help on numerous occasions. I have also spent about $500 with Ralph over the last five years. So, I’m not exactly a high-end customer. Yet, Ralph has often helped me in ways that COST him far more than the $500 I have spent with him. I’m not going to tell you how because that is PRIVATE. I bet many on this forum have benefited from Ralph’s help in a variety of ways. I am not the only person he has given a leg up to in this industry. I have never heard him brag about how he helped this person or that…he just does it when he sees fit…and that’s the way it should be, isn’t it?

The only other thing I’d add is, at least when Ralph gives his opinion, he is man enough to include his name under it. I wonder why you didn’t include yours? Maybe you didn’t donate to the Reward fund yourself. That would make you a H…Y…P.. LOL!!!! Or maybe…well, maybe, you are just a weanie :-).

Christy

I got another "King Cake" from Sean and Celia ( theres your name again Celia ) down in Louisiana............we ate the hell out of it.........it was so soft and tasty,,,,,,,,,,,,,,thanks Sean and Celia!!..............will this be a tradition now??.........yummy........;)..............I went to the airport first thing to ship out two snake shipments with Delta.........after that I stopped by Mom's on the way home to show her some more things she could do with her computer..............one of them was teaching her to view public forums and post to them...................I don't know if it was a mistake or not?.............LOL.............but I gave her a password to my forum and let her post away............she didn't do to bad for someone who has never been in a forum before..............."we" think this stuff is easy but there are plenty of people out there who have no idea how to do things on the computer...............Mom is getting better though................she basically wants to be able to understand the internet, use her email and learn some of the writing programs..................so she put up a few posts and got responses ( Thanks Gail......:)............I showed her how to pick out the post within the thread that she wanted to respond to.............I think she has the hang of it??...................let's all keep an eye on her...............and by no means do I want you guys to "go changing" just because Mom is in there .................trust me..............after raising me there ain't much that surprises her anymore......;)............Plus she knows quite a few of you guys just from visits ................usually anyone who has visited me here has bumped into my parents...;)

After I gave Mom the crash course in forums I headed out to go stock up on all the medications I need for the snake room............all my stuff ran out of date so I ordered new meds................I got panacure, flagyl.................baytril and some syringes...............this is all good stuff to have handy when you have a large collection of ball pythons...............I bet Mom is trying to figure out how to get on some "Elvis Forum" right now..........LMAO!!..............if you want to score points with Mom, just post some pics of THE KING.................LOL............hint,hint......;)...............so I got all my meds and headed back home..............Robot is cleaning today.............I'm working in the office...............they are calling for some more winter weather so I went up to the barn and hooked my plow back up..............it probably won't be any snow?.............sounds like ice and rain on the way..............but you never know?.............as I was headed to wally-ball tonight the snow started...........it was a light snow that you could tell wouldn't really do much................we had a great time playing wally-ball tonight...............Fatty, Rick and I..................we kicked the living crap out of the opposing team most of the night......;)...............I got home around midnight and did a little surfin' on the net before I went up to watch my SURVIVOR tape.....;).............I seen that Jeff Houston was promoting the fact that he would be on TV and that his story would be in the newspapers.................his posts seemed pretty candid to me..............I think Mr. Jeff is starting to loose all that shyness.........this was a guy who didn't want anyone to know anything about him?................now he is up on KS posting when ever he gets some news..............good for you Jeff...............stay on top of it bro!.................just don't drive people away............that post got like three responses?..................what's the matter with you people?!!!..................SK said to UNITE!!!!!..................I still can't even believe that this will be on the news..............the newspaper yeah......so be it..............but TV??................it will be impossible for Jeff not to say "the wrong thing"................it's as good as done now..............I guess we will have to tune in and see what he said..................I'm sure we will be informed on KS for all further updates..................looks like SK's site has stayed pretty much the same as far as the theft info is concerned ................I'm sure Dan can't wait to take a stab at me on his journal when he starts writing................but knowing him, he will not even bring it up.............oh well..............Dan himself told me that he thought going on TV was a bad idea...............well it looks like it's going to TV Dan....................just more bad publicity for snakes.................not herps in general, but for SNAKES!!................your average person hates snakes.................lets make them all hate them some more..........lets not have them just worry about the snakes, but lets also have them worry about the scum bag burglar who will break in a home to take your snakes..........lets just make sure that Snakes and TROUBLE go hand in hand.........how about that!!!!................grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....................Jeff says he looks like a dork...............well he acts like a dork too...................his last post was a little to humorous for me..............has he lost touch with the real problem, clouded maybe?.......I wonder if he has anyone on his list of suspects yet?............

Robot is finishing up cleaning today.............the kids are off school again for bad weather..............unbelievable??...................T has all four of them today...........ours and her Sister's two kids..................and they are wound up to all hell!!!..............buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!.............Rick stopped by today to get a few snakes from me that he will be taking to a show this weekend...............I let him have a bunch of males that have been sitting around too long............stuff I'll never use again and I'm too lazy to sell.......;)...............We have rain today like you wouldn't believe!!..............the rain is coming down like mad and the snow is melting...............so we have major flood conditions today................my back yard looks like a river is running through it.............damn right!!..............I'm glad it ain't snow though, because I was too busy to go out plowing today............:)

Jody the electrician is up at the barn installing more lights in my new storage area.........I think he should pretty much have it all wrapped up today...........I called about my Sea Doo trailer and they said that it was done and ready to pick up........BUT....they did not want to do the brake work on it...............so I called around and found somebody local who will work on the brakes.....;).............then I called the people who sold me my snow plow...........I have noticed while driving that the plow will slowly lower down an inch or so in a few minutes............so I called them up and they told me that that is a "known" problem with the newer plow pumps and it was simple to fix...............so I'll go in next week to get that fixed................next week is gonna be busy.....;)..............

SURVIVOR was great last night................poor Rudy............I feel bad for the old guy but he was the logical choice...........that team needs to win some challenges...........two people have been voted off the show and both have been on that team.................RUPERT's TEAM................Rock On Rupert!!...............Fly under the radar baby!!...............but I'm really hoping that Hatch wins.................he is such an arrogant ass that I want him to win the million dollars again.................if anyone can win it twice it will be him........;)............hahaha...........the naked bastard that he is................damn that has to be distracting as hell...............LMAO!!.........a big gay man running around with his mangos flappin' around in the breeze...............and did you see last night where he stepped onto the boat and did a split??...................I felt my own nuts draw up into my body.............that's just wrong!!................put your pants on during the challenges Hatch!!.............

Well Jeff Houston did it...............he made the local newspapers and got on TV............for somebody who was a "nobody" he sure is a "somebody" now...............he's famous!!..........I heard that The Snake Keeper's site is linked up to some of the articles about the snake theft on the net, but I have not been able to find them??................I read most of the articles that I could find...............then I watched the clip of Jeff on TV............WOW!!..............that's all I can say...............these thieves have to be quaking in their boots right now........does anyone have any "tips" yet....................that 50 thousand dollar reward still stands right?............well unless he gets on Leno it looks like he pretty much did all he could do to make this as public as he possibly could..................that 50 grand helped really get this out in the open where it should be people.............even though The Snake Keeper took the list down I copied it and will post it here...............it will be nice to look back on it and remember a time where everyone banned together and put up the bucks to "loosin up some lips"...............I just love the way Dan thinks..............lets throw money at it..............LMAO!!........he sure did make it look easy that's for sure.............

So anyway hopefully I will have some positive stuff to write about soon............the emails are slowing down, so that's a sign that it's becoming "old news".................I want to thank everyone I spoke to................people who agreed with me................people who didn't................people who were sorry they got on "the list"..............everyone who had something to say...............fishtail RULES!!!...............Jeff shouldn't have any hard feelings either way.................he did what he set out to do regardless of what has been done or said.............it's done................some of us would have handled it way differently...............so now all that is left is to see if he gets all his snakes back?.................I read that a lot of his snakes escaped and it took him awhile to find them.................I wonder if that Mojave and Spider are tucked away in the bed coils?................wouldn't that be great!!..........so I'm gonna post the list here...................you can be mad or you can be glad..................the list started early on and any of you who didn't think you would not be seen publicly on the list are fools...............this is the last time I seen the list so I'm not sure whether it is complete or not?................but what a list it is!!.................you guys are the total best in the business..................like Jeff said..................anyone seeing the names on the list better damn site buy their next snake from these people...................this list represents the best people in the industry..........and to the people on the list that I have talked to and know your good people.................don't sweat it............anyone reading my stuff pretty much knows who the scum bags are..................that's the beauty of the interent...............it actually paints a picture of everyone on it as time goes on.................some are good pictures and some are bad..............it's not rocket science to read posts and watch classifieds .................visit the board of inquiries and make up your own mind.....................just remember I want to step up right now and always be know as the biggest ass hole in the business....................so don't take that way from me........;)

Rock On Everyone!!................have a great Week-End...............Bob and I will probably be working at the barn tomorrow................and as always.............this is my journal............it's the way I see it...............it don't mean I'm right and I sure ain't pushing this on anyone..............it's pure entertainment!!!................Who luvs ya anyway??...........

Contributors to the Jeff Houston Stolen Snake Fund in order of how much they pledged ( taken right off of The Snake Keeper's site :

Jeff Houston - $10000
The Snake Keeper - $5000
Jeremy Stone Reptiles - $3000
Millennium Morphs Inc - $2000
BHB Enterprises - $2000
Constrictors Unlimited - $2000
ASFReptiles - $1500
Markus Jayne - $1000
Jared Horenstein - $1000
Eric Sandoval - $1000
www.vintagegas.com - $1000
Ken Foster - $1000
Big Cheese Rodents - $1000
Jack Briggs Designer Snakes - $1000
Alex @ Boa Republic - $1000
Dave Lawson - $1000
Graziani Reptiles - $1000
Morton Wright - $1000
Exoticballpythons.com - $600
Serpent's Den - $500
SJS ballpythons - $500
Mike Durbin - $500
Cutting Edge Herpetological - $500
Paul Edwards - $500
Skip- SNReptiles - $500
Sticky Tongue Farms - $300
Glenn Polanco - $250
Loxahatchee Herp Hatchery - $250
Dembinski Reptile's,LLC - $250
Spiderballs.Net - $200
Napa Valley Snakes - $200
Jennifer Destree - $200
Ryan @ scaleszoo.com - $200
Michael Luhrs - $200
[email protected] - $200
Santa Cruz Reptiles - $200
OzzyBoids - $200
Hermin Soler Reptiles - $150
Exotics by Nature - $150
RK Reptiles - $150
Hiss 'n' Things, Inc. - $130
Tony Bocanegra - $125
Jeneric Reptiles - $125
The Gourmet Rodent - $100
Ghann's Cricket Farm - $100
Tom Baker - $100
Daniel Wedeking - $100
Vision Products - $100
TJ James - $100
Cheryl Marchek - $100
George Sampson - $100
SSNAKES - $100
GiantFeeders - $100
Albino Tricolors Inc. - $100
Ectothermics - $100
www.designerboas.com - $100
Kevin Dunne - $100
Conley Herps - $100
Rich Ihle - $100
[email protected] - $100
Rick Cunningham - $100
Summit Reptiles - $100
Renegade Reptiles - $100
Isis Reptiles - $100
BoidMorphs.com - $100
MV Pet Boutique - $100
BASICALLY BOAS - $100
Chad Fuchs - $100
Pythonderosa Ranch - $100
Dave @ COLUBOIDS - $100
Greg Hubbard - $100
www.myexotix.com - $100
Ed Bradley - $100
Jeff Foutz - $100
David & Kathy Cooke - $100
Wasatch Reptile Expo - $100
Dana Olsen - $50
Loren and Dana Pennebaker - $50
www.oldgaspump.com - $50
TERRY BCHEESE - $50
herpbreedingresearch.com - $50
www.cranwill.com - $50
oldgas.com "Sinclair Joe" - $50
George Knaack - $50
HorridumAngeli Reptiles - $50
Mikey and Kelly Marshal - $50
Patricia Osborne - $50
Mark Schmidtke - $50
David Walklate - $50
Fred Hammes - $50
Bill Schendel - $50
Troy James Cromwell - $50
Clyde - $50
Ty Young - $50
Boas By Klevitz - $50
Aprylla - $50
Anonymous from Utah - $50
Colby & Amber Laidlaw - $50
Janie Manaski - $50
Classic Dum's - $50
Jerry Feldner - $50
Signal Herpetoculture - $50
Walkabout Reptiles - $40
Philadephia pet center - $35
Diapsid Reptiles - $35
Chris Moeller - $35
Steve and Kelli Hammack - $30
Kelly McKinney - $30
Geckoranch.com - $30
Daniel Garcia - $30
Tongues-N-Tails - $30
WFReptiles - $25
Randal Berry's Lanceheads - $25
Outback Snakehouse - $25
Jon Yuhasz - $25
Krawls - $25
Dave Beller - $25
Striking Beauty Reptiles - $25
Richard Brooks - $25
S&H Exotics - $25
Kevin Sheldon - $25
www.IntenseHerp.com - $25
Richard Strieber - $25
Janice Krakora-Looby - $25
Craig at Boydssnakes - $25
John & Missy Chausmer - $25
Corallus Closet - $25
Greg Holland - $20
Dustin Davis - $20
Anonymous - $20
Paul Yancick - $20
Ricardo Rubio - $20
April Homich - $20
SandyD - $20
Meredith Whitney - $20
Twin-State Reptiles - $20
ISLAND REPTILES - $20
Jason Perez - $20
jamie ingersoll - $20
Kylie Ghim - $20
Tim Sourwine - $20
Gaylynn Carter - $20
Juanita Hoffman - $20
TC Reptile - $20
Fred Tribbett Jr - $15
Tammy Rehbein - $15
Mystical-Dragons.com - $15
Traci Engle - $15
Pacific Coast Herps - $15
Briana Baham - $15
Hillary Webb - $15
Kyle Hoffman - $10
Sherri Bowman - $10
Ignacio Perez - $10
Abhishek Prasad - $10

Total: $49360

I didn't post this list to make myself look any better or hurt any feelings...............the subject is moot now...............have you not seen the clip from TV?...............it was a crock of shit..............talk about taboo..............who in their right mind would mention the prices of these snakes on TV during a very "un-positive" interview? ...........WOW I'm glad I had no part in this.................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...........who ain't on that list?

The End

Warm and sunny today................feels like the first day of Spring......;)...............our buddy Dan posted up a pic of "The King" for my Mom in the RDR forum LOL...........Elvis wished he had jowls like mine...............:P...............I didn't get any emails asking me to yank "The List" down from my journal.................that surprised me a little?...........I wouldn't pull it down anyway,,,,,,,just another "Bone Head Event" to log down...................I did get plenty of emails from people supporting my opinion on the subject.............I'd say that the majority of people who know anything about this agree that is was a bad move and they do feel bad about the theft............it will disappear in a day or so just like everything else in the snake world........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..............I hope that fifteen minutes of fame was worth it.............duhhhhhhhhhh............."uniting" for a few days was "Dreamy" wasn't it???............just business as usual again................

I went up to the rat barn this morning to water buckets and check on things..............I dropped the plow off too...............if you were to judge the rest of the Winter by today you would say it ain't never gonna snow again...............today is gorgeous!!..............after that I went and got all the Valentines Day cards that I have to hand out next Saturday....;)..............listen up DUDES..........don't forget Valentines Day...............I warned ya!!..........."Crazy Gary" put up a pic of "Ralph The Rock Star" on the RDR Forum..............he is the dude who makes up all those cool RDR games...........he has been quiet lately?.............he surfaced today with a really funny "bit"..............it got some laughs ..............I will post Gary's and Dan's work here in the journal today.

Jody the electrician did a great job installing the lights up at the barn............he has a few hours left of work to do there............we are still slowly but surely getting the barn cleaned up for me to store my new Sea Doo trailer in..............it's a dusty mess.............it was where the cows stayed at night.............yepper..............the floors are caked with cow poop..............but in great shape once you get all the poop scraped off...;)...........after T got home from work, the family and I went out to a Chinese Restaurant ...........I tried to get Brooke to eat some sushi but she wouldn't..............Gump was interested in the way it looked but he thought it was nasty................LOL...........after dinner we came home and played two games of Sorry............Brooke and I ganged up on T each game................I won both games and Brooke came in second................T lost.........;(.................Sorry is one of those games where you never know if your going to win or not?................I just get lucky...;)..............

I got a "hair" to pull out all my males and get them back with the ladies late last night .............actually 1:00 am this morning..............there was plenty of breeding to see when I checked on the pairs today.....;).............I snapped a few pics of some snakes today too.............the Blonde Lesser Platty and the Pastel Lesser Platties are looking very awesome!!..............I piled up my baby Bandeds for a shot too..............I haven't been much in the mood for taking pics lately.........things will start to "spice up" here soon once eggs start hatching................then I'll take some good pics..........I moved a few males around that were totally not interested in breeding..............ya gotta love it when the males curl up at the opposite end of the tub and go to sleep...........LOL..............after that I went up and checked on the rat barn...............we all pretty much just lounged around today............my Dad is in Pittsburgh doing a car show............so we took Mom out for an Italian dinner at one of the local restaurants............the service there is very slow.............it always is.............after I had my appetizer my mouth started hurting really bad................I could hardly take the pain while I sat there...............so I grabbed the keys and took off for home to pop a pill.............I figured I had time since the place is so damn slow..............yepper.............my tongue is still numb and I'm getting wicked pains in my lower jaw towards the evening hours..............nothing that a pill can't fix..............but the pills knock me for a loop..............it still sucks!!!.............so I got my pill and went back to the restaurant............Mom and the family had finished their meals by the time I got back.............I woofed mine down and we got the hell out of there.............we came home and watched the Grammy Awards,,,,,,,,,,,,boring......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,the best thing I seen was Christina Aguilera's boobs in that super revealing top...................I was thinking one of them was gonna plop out................I guess she had the top glued on?................who knows?...............damn little huzzy pop stars!!!........gotta love em'.......hehehe.........it was nice to see Evanescence win best of the year.........shes kinda cute in a "gothy way"........

Rat barn today................Fatty's second week in a row helping at the rat barn too..............Bob couldn't help today and I have been spoiled with a helper sooooooooo........;),,,,,,,,,,,we got done around 5:30..........slooowwwwwwwwwwwwww!!..............Rick is painting our formal living room at the house today..............we painted below the chair molding pure white and above a cool green color..............it looks really nice................it's the second room we have painted a "color" since we moved in five years ago. I came home and T had cooked dinner......;)..........it seems that we are going out for dinner less and less...............I like that.....;)...............I didn't grab a shower either................LOL...............they all had to smell me stinking of rat at the dinner table........LMAO!!...............and believe me..............we stink like hell after being in the rat barn all day cleaning..............ain't I bad??..................just lazy today.................:).........you get used to how you smell after awhile................but when other people get near you they start to gag............" it's all part of the business"...............after dinner T went to play volley-ball ...............I went and got a shower.................then the kiddies and I watched TV and set up shipping boxes for me to ship tomorrow...............they were a big help too ...........Couple's Fear Factor was great................it looks like the snooty couple are going to win the million.............and damn if they didn't win two cars............AGAIN!!..............I loved it when Meg freaked out during the "rat stunt".............it amazes me how people react to different things ............phobias suck!!!................she wanted no part of those rats.............she just " lost it"................hehehe.......;)................so we have three couples left..........I want the "BOOBS couple" to win.....;)................but I have my money on the Snots!!...............then "Average Joe"..................lmao!!................TV is getting pretty hard up when they have to blow up boats.............that was just too much................majorly CORNY!!!...............who's gonna win the beauty??...................an Average Joe or a Stud??..................I'm thinking an Average Joe..........I'm gonna hit the sheets early.............I have to get up early tomorrow to finish packing snakes and then I have a few hours at the airport...............I'm shipping three shipments in the states and one shipment to England..............my airport has really beefed up security so things take longer to get done than they usually did.........it seems that a lot of airline rules and protocol got more strict this year...............

I got up extra early to bag all the snakes fro shipping out.............I snap a pic of each snake before I bag it and make sure it is sexed correctly...........then I loaded up four boxes and headed to BWI.............I went to Delta and shipped three packages with them first.............I've been shipping with them for many years now..................after 911 all the active shippers had to be inspected at their facilities to prove that they were actually reptile breeders and that reptiles would be what they were shipping.............so I had some people from various airlines come here to inspect me..............there were no problems..............the inspection allowed me to stay on the "know shipper" list..............I always close and seal the boxes here before I go to the airport.............well now Delta has a new policy regardless of who you are ( at BWI anyway ), that all shipments have to be inspected at the counter..............so now I have to go "open box" to the counter..............let them inspect that I do have snakes in the box..............then I can close the box and tape it up..............it sucks..............this just started in 2004...............but I can understand where they are coming from.................there is an organization going from hub to hub enforcing the inspection rules................if they catch an airline not complying with the rules they will be fined heavily...............so far Delta is the only ones that have inspected me................I'm sure the other airlines are doing the same thing........I was told that this is for the entire Country...........I can't tell you how much of a "privilege" being a "know shipper" is.............so things take a little longer now and they are not as convenient as they were before.................it won't be bad in the warmer weather...............it's shipping in the Winter that sucks ...............because of adding the heat packs.........but if it helps keep the airports more secure, I'm all for it..............I don't think our airports are secure enough anyway............so I got through with Delta and headed over to the US Fish and Wildlife Office to have my England shipment inspected...............this requires CITES permits.............that went smoothly ...............I called British Airways while I was at the US Fish and Wildlife office to ask them if I could seal the box right there ................British said that I could..............then I went over to British to ship..............it cost almost five hundred dollars to ship a 7 pound box to England................yepper..............US Fish and Wildlife inspection fee is $55.00 and the CITES permit is $25.00................so shipping over-seas can cost a few extra bucks......;).............all the shipping went smooth .............I was at the airport two hours...............not bad........I seen some really cool hawks flying around.............they were "buzzing the tower"............

I called Mr. John on the way up the road and told him that I would pick him up on the way to get my Sea Doo trailer..........he asked back when I put the deposit down on it if he could go back with me when I picked it up..............I got to the farm and he already had my trailer hitch and a licence plate ready to go...............I was just going to use a tag off the trailer I have now to get the new trailer back down the road............the lady that sold me the trailer was not there to issue me the temporary tags and do the paper-work today..............and today was a good day to pick it up..............so the guy at the shop said I could come get it, but I would have to come back to get the paper-work finalized................cool!!........so we get there and drive down to the trailer.............this is a used trailer if any of you remember when I was writing about it earlier .............I picked it up for two grand..............and they said that they would check out the brakes for me to make sure they were in good condition..............well Mr. John and I get there and the brakes are gone??.................the calipers and pads.............all the brakes lines..............gone??.............so I asked the guy what was up and he said that the brakes were totally shot from being in salt-water.................he said that Triton didn't even have the parts to fix the brakes because the trailer was so old...............Triton uses a new braking system now............as soon as I heard that I said that they could keep the damn thing.............it's $4,500.00 brand new................I paid $2,000.00 for it and it easily had a thousand dollars worth of brake work to be done..................so I just told them to keep it and order me a brand new one.....;).................so they did................I had my heart set on driving it home...............but it didn't happen................I'm better off now anyway............knowing that the parts on the old trailer are not being made anymore scared me away from even dealing with it...............so now I gotta wait a week or so for the new one to come in................damn it!!

I dropped Mr. John off at the farm on the way home...............his ribs are doing much better now...........he is back to his ole' "piss and vinegar" self........;)...............then I called the snow plow company that installed my plow to get the pump repaired.............yepper...............all my stuff is JUNK lately!!................my brand new plow pump is creeping down while I drive.............and that shouldn't happen..............there is a problem with one of the O rings......no biggie..............it's just a pain in the ass to go drop the pump off and then go back and get it..............wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!...............I took it down and dropped it off..............they said that they would need a couple days on it..............now we will get a BLIZZARD!!......;)..............then I came home and started paper-work..............Robot is cleaning today.................I did a little paper-work, then I went into the snake room and started moving males around...............then I did a little palpating on the females to see who is gonna lay eggs for me this year.......;)................shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh................it's a BIG SECRET!!..........LOL..............I'm not sure how well I'm doing this season?.................I'm afraid to palpate all the females yet..............yepper.....................20 clutches will be perfect!!!...............I worked with the snakes until George and Mel came over for my guitar lessons...............I really suck ass at guitar................I haven't been practicing switching my chords...............and it shows...............I have not made any progress in a month..............but we have been "snowed out" a few weeks...............the main thing is I'm having a hard time getting the time to practice...............when I first started I was "balls to the wall"...............I made time to practice..................then I had all the shit go wrong with my tongue and started popping the "lazy pills" and got BUSY as all HELL!!.............so I've decided to just take it the way it goes................I ain't gonna be a Rock Star, so I'll just learn it at my own pace..............I actually know where all my chords are................power chords too...............I just can't switch fast to save my ass...............slow songs yes................a normal paced song and I'm all messed up with it LOL..............I'll get it...............maybe this will be one past time that I don't turn into a JOB....................Phil stopped by this evening to show me the four Sea Doo dollies he built for my boats..................they are dollies with wheels that I can slide my Sea Doos on while they are not on the trailer................it makes it nice for moving them around and great for doing repairs...............he painted them bright yellow for me......;)...............Thanks Phil I really like the way they turned out!!..........

I had breakfast this morning at Bob Evans with George and Mel...........Robot is cleaning today...............I decided to switch all my smaller snakes onto newspaper.............so we have slowly been doing the "switch over" the past couple weeks..............I hate to admit it but newspaper is the cleanest substrate for a snake.............it has to be................it's just not the most convenient...............it's a hell of a lot easier to spot clean fiber bedding once a week than it is to change out newspaper...............but your really never "totally clean" with fiber bedding unless you change it out each week...............and not many people do that..............so now I'm heading back to newspaper..........and that means "humidity problems"...................Freedom Breeder racks can be royal nightmares for bad sheds.................they need to be tweaked perfectly as far as heat and humidity go to get good sheds out of your snakes..............I've found that a hot spot of 87 to 88 works the best..........that way the snake is warm but not "Dry"................plus on cleaning day each snake gets their paper wet down.............the paper will stay damp a day or two..............this helps keep the humidity up in the room and the racks.................if a snake is in shed we wet it more than usual...................I'm not saying I'm gonna stick with newspaper................but I should..............it's just slower to clean...............but when your done you know your snakes are perfectly clean and that they are not living on bedding that is tainted with urine and poop...............I ain't judging anybody though ........I could care less what substrates people use...............I've used them all.................most fiber bedding molds when pooped or urinated on..............I hate that ...............cypress mulch is nice but it is sharp and dangerous to ingest..............yes I've used it and just taken my chances................it's the best substrate for holding humidity .............I may end up keeping my adults on cypress mulch and all the younger snakes on paper.................who knows??..............I do like the way the newspaper smells when all the cages have just been done......;)..............

I ran some errands after breakfast..............picked up some supplies and got some stuff ordered..............then I came home and did paper-word for a few hours................it was a nice day so I decided to take a break and go wash my truck................it was covered in road salt from all the bad weather ................T caught me before I rolled out and asked me to drop off a bunch of old cloths that the kiddies out-grew to Good Will................so I did that and then I went to wash "The Beast".................. after that I was in such a cleaning mood that I went up to the barn and did some more cleaning in my new trailer area..................Mr. John stopped by to chat with me for awhile.................he got out of there fast once I cranked up the blower.......LOL................I can blow and blow and blow and still find more dust in the place.............but I'm gettin' there...............it's turning out great for a place that cows ate, slept and pooped in.......hehehe............the main thing is that it's BIG..............and I need room for my new trailer..............so I'll get it cleaned up.............I cleaned until it got dark............then I came back home and finished the paper-work I should have been doing..............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......................

Robot was cleaning today and he came into the office around lunch time to tell me that he had to leave for a few hours to go talk with some detectives about some robberies??................I had no idea, but the place that he delivers pizza and subs for on the weekends has been robbed several times in the past few months.................mostly the drivers have been robbed..................Robbie says he thinks he knows who one of the "bad guys" is..............so he had to go talk with the detectives today to give them what info he had..............he was pretty nervous about that.............I think he wished he didn't get envolved...............hell maybe it will be on FOX!!................damn I'm bad!!...................:P...........so he was gone a couple hours while I worked here in the office.........Brooke got home from school..............so I took her out to do some shopping for Valentines gifts and cards for her Mom and Grandmoms.............she loves to shop..........she always ends up getting a "little something" for herself................she has me " wrapped" for sure..................she picked out some nice stuff..............then we went to the flower shop and I ordered some flowers to be delivered to T's shop and my Mom's shop on Saturday..............yes I know I'm a Boner for writing this, because both T and my Mom will read this before they are surprised by the flowers.............."it's the thought that counts right?"........hehehe.........:)...............maybe they won't read this until next week?............after we got all our shopping done I took Brooke to her most favorite place in the whole world to eat............Burger King...............yepper..................she loves their food..............I do to...........but I'm still a Mickey Dee's guy.............I want my Happy Meal!!..............after our late lunch we came back home.............Brooke worked on writing in the Valentines cards, then she started her home-work...............I worked in the office...............I ordered new snake bags, some new IRIS tubs for my Freedom Breeder rat breeder racks and I also ordered some mini hide boxes for the new 04 babies.............some of my IRIS rat tubs are on their last leg..........they lasted several years before they started to crack............and once they crack it's over............the rats find the crack and chew a hole in the tub within hours................so I ordered 20 new boxes..................I plugged away on paper-work until it was time to go play wally-ball................SURVIVOR was on but I didn't watch it .............T tapes it for me..........Brooke ran down just to tell me that Hatch got chewed up by a little shark............but she said he was OK.........LOL..............Phil met me here and we went to play wally-ball.

We had some really great games tonight............Fatty and I were on the same team............and yes we destroyed the other team.............:)...............I love to win!!..........I got home around 11:30 pm and have been at the computer ever since..............it is 2:00 am right now as I type................I'm pretty damn tired right now...............not sure if I'm even going to watch the SURVIVOR tape or not?................I'm going to call the dude I reserved my new 2004 Sea Doo from and see what the status is on delivery ...............I can't wait to get it..............Phil has even decided to buy one of the 2004's...............so now we both will have a 185 horsepower super charged three seater...............and we both will have a 215 horsepower super charged two seater..................ROCK ON!!!.................this Summer is gonna be a blast!!.............

I was too damn tired to watch the SURVIVOR tape last night.........I got to bed around 3:00 am............after I finished writing late last night I went into the snake room and palpated some girls.............:)................T was telling me about Survivor this morning..............I heard that Jenna left the show because of her Mom dying of cancer................Jenna's Mom was dealing with that the first time she was on Survivor.........so there was nobody voted off tonight because of Jenna leaving...............hell she won the million last time and did the Playboy spread..............I think she'll do OK.................she'd trade that million for her Mom any day of the week I'm sure.............:(..............I guess I'll get caught up on Survivor and a couple episodes of CSI that I've missed tonight?..................Robot was here finishing up on the cleaning..............I moved a few males around and marked down some copulations, T is out running errands................Brooke had a half day of school so she is home playing sony play station...............I'm gonna finish writing and add a few pics to the journal..............after that I have an hour or so of paper-work and I'm done for the week....;).......I'm having some friends over this week-end ................tomorrow a bunch of us will be getting together for Valentine's dinner and then go play some shuffle board.................our new shuffle board is still a month away from being delivered.................

Here is a link to some of "Crazy Gary's" games..................LINK

Have a GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE.......and ROCK ON!!................hey, did you hear about the horse in New York City?.............he made a pile on Wall Street..............:P

Ralphie.......TOTT

Last night the family and I went to do some shopping...............then we ended up back at the Chinese restaurant ................Brooke loves the place now.........:).............we usually call it in and have it delivered...............now that she has been in the place she don't want to call in anymore ..............LOL.........after dinner we came home and got the kids to bed............T watched the SURVIVOR tape with me............she didn't mind watching it twice, she said it was a great episode. ........and it was ................Richard Hatch caught a small shark by the tail............the shark turned around and bit him on the arm and wouldn't let go!!.............so Rich bit the shark on the head...............LOL..............so they had shark for dinner that night!!............Rich is probably the best fisherman of any of the Survivor shows that had access to fish...........yep..........Rupert may be just as good.............but I ain't seeing it yet...........and while I'm talking about Rupert..............all I can say is that the "cabin design" for that challenge was really a bad idea............who would dig down a couple feet on the beach to build a cabin??................hello Rupert,,,,,,,,,,,your gonna fill up with water!!!........;P...........so they lost that challenge for sure................it was funny seeing the "inspector dude" checking out each tribe's shelter.............he was shaking stuff and trying to get the things to collapse ..........Boston Rob and his tribe did a great job.............there was nobody voted off because of Jenna quitting the game to be with her Mom that is dying of cancer...............she said that she had a "vibe" that her Mom was in bad shape..........at the end of the show it said her Mom died eight days after she left ...............pretty sad...........after that T went up to bed...............and I watched two episodes of CSI to get caught up..

Gail and Nigel left this afternoon to make their way down to my place................we are gonna hang out and have fun this week-end..............I was up watching my tapes and it was 1:00 am or so..........I called Gail on the NEXTEL and they said they would probably be in around 2:00 am..............I told them I was hitting the sheets and to come on in and make themselves' at home.................I think they ended up getting in at 2:30 am..............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Today ( Sat ) I got up and went to the rat barn............Phil was already there working on the finishing touches on the Sea Doo dollies he is building for me...............he had to put carpet on the "runners" where the boats will rest...............I worked in the rat room watering and adding food to the bins................I didn't wake Gail and Nigel in the am before I left........:)............T had gone to work and the kids were at their Grandmother's.................so G and N had the whole place to themselves.........;)..................they called me once they got up and said they would be getting showers and heading up to see Phil and I at the rat barn............after I finished with the rats, Mr. John and I went over to the building where my boats are stored now and moved them to the new area I have been cleaning out...............then we unloaded one of Mr. John's Son's Sea Doos and put it on one of Phil's new dollies.............John's son bought a new Sea Doo and needed to make room on his double trailer to go pick it up................so the dollies were made just in time....;)................G and N showed up close to when we were all finishing up..............I introduced them to Mr. John.............we BS'd awhile.............Gail was freezing her ass off too........LOL..................she found the little electric heater in the rat room and kept warm.............Phil, John and I were in the other side of the barn that is not heated.............so I brought a propane heater over to our side so that Gail could come be with us............I wasn't cold???...............LOL...............so we finished up, Phil went home, G,N and I went to get some lunch..............then we went back to my place to hang out and look at the snakes.

They brought the family and I some really great gifts................all SWEETS.................boxes and boxes of gourmet chocolates and cookies and treats.............Nigel even brought me my own box of chocolates from " him"................there ya go Nigel..............you got your "props" for being "My Valentine".............hehehe........:P...............T and Gump are major sweet eaters...............I like cookies!!!................so T came home from work.............I went and got showered................Phil, Robbin and a couple they are friends with showed up at my house................we all piled into Phil's truck and went to an Italian Resteraunt.......then we went to The Colonial to shoot some pool and play shuffle board.

Phil's friend Mike and I played pool against Gail and Nigel most of the night...............T and Phil played shuffle board with T's Mom and family.............we had a great time.............it was also Karaoke night............Mike and I sang four songs from the 80's and them finished off the night with "Love Shack"

G and N rolled out today around noon............it was fun guys!!............I'm glad you guys liked The Colonial..............your the first "herpers" we have taken there...............hehehe...........we just lounged around the house today for the most part............we all took some nice long naps...............after we woke up we ate dinner then T and I hung curtains in the living room that we just had painted.............that room is almost complete aside from a few pictures and "doo dads".................Ralphie was in slow motion today........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

Rat barn today.............I had a bunch of stuff to get done in the morning before I went to the barn............I wasn't worried about being late because Bob would be there helping Robbie...........well I get there at 11:00 and Bob never showed up?................he's been slackin' on my big time.................you reading this BOB?............GOOB!!............so I knew Robbie and I had a long ass day ahead of us cause I got started so late..............George came up and helped us out at the end of the day..............he saved us a couple hours ( thanks George ).............we still worked till dark..............oh well............we finished up and rolled out.............T went out and got us some subs to eat...............she played volley ball tonight..............the kiddies and I watched Fear Factor..............and man oh' man was I glad to see Meg QUIT!!...............I knew from the coming attractions last week that they had to get in the spider tank..............I was just hoping it would be an elimination stunt............and it was!!...............she QUIT............that couple had the million dollar prize in the bank as far as I'm concerned.............they practically won everything there was to win except the money?.............all she had to do is let her man get her out of there in a minute??...............one minute??..................she passed up a million bucks for one minute?...............I'd a knocked her ass out and shut the door and told Joe to start the clock.........LMAO!!..............I'm " tweaky" with a lot of things..............but I don't think there is any stunt I wouldn't try to do for a million bucks.............this ain't the 50 grand!!...............ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!!.............and her man took it very well..............( wonder if they are still together?...........they were BRUTAL to each other )...............so they were gone..................it came down to the "Boob Team" and that poor young couple that had not won a single thing.......;(...............they did finally end up winning a trip to Moscow........whop de dooooo??...............but in the end my team won!!.............BOOBS!!!.............damn right!!...............but I would not have minded if that poor "under dog couple" would have won, that would have been a HUGE upset...............she was a cutie.....;)...............they should do "Couples" at least twice a year..............I really liked it!!...............then I watched Las Vegas..............they pushed the envelope pretty good with a wet T-shirt contest and NIPPLES!!!.............yep I said it folks...........hehehe,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and then "Average Joe"...............damn I like that show!!...........I have no clue who she is going to pick in the end??................will it be Fredo???..............next week will be a good one................I seen a preview of Fredo spying at her on the beach makin' out with one of the "studs"..............he was in a small submarine LMAO!!...................I love it!!!!..............maybe they will blow something up again?...........

They say it could snow tonight?.........and my plow pump has been in the shop of course.............so I called the shop to see if it was fixed?.................they said it was all done and that I could come get it.........so that's what I did first thing..........I didn't hook my plow up though..............it don't "feel like snow" to me...................yet?.............Rick is at the house painting Brooke's bathroom a two tone blue................she has this whole "Dolphin Theme" thing going on in her bathroom................so the two toned blue walls look like the ocean...............:).............gotta love it!!.............Robbie is here feeding a bunch of hungry young mouths.

I'm swamped with office work and setting up shipments today..............so I called George and canceled my guitar lessons................yes folks I'm not making time for the guitar like I was..............I'm still very interested............it's just that I can't seem to find the best night to do the lessons?.................the damn snake biz has you workin' all hours of the week, day and night.............it's NUTS!!...............but I love it......;)...........I worked all day in the office until it was time to pick Brooke up from Church...............while I was working Robbie came in to tell me that one of the hoses on my turtle pond came apart and started shooting water all over the floor..................so I walked in to see how bad it was??...............it could have been much worse.............thank God Robbie happened to go out in the big room where the pond is or it would have really been a mess.................Robbie was in the baby room feeding all the young snakes..............so he would not see or hear the water.............yepper..................I think that's gotta be at least the tenth time that's happened................but it has happened much worse.............this was just a hose coming lose on the pump.............most of the floods are when I'm filling the pond up from a hose connected to the faucet and I just forget about it?..............so I end up over-flowing the pond and letting 500 gallons of water fill up the snake room.............great for humidity though!!..............the room will stay humid as hell for two weeks when I do that....:)...........Pete Kahl used to wet his floors down on purpose to raise humidity in his room where he was trying to breed his Boelen's pythons..............don't ask me where that came from??............but humidity is good!!.............Fear Factor was on again tonight.............those little mini motorcycles at the last stunt were awesome!!.........

Robbie is here cleaning...........I'm still pluggin' away in the office............this week has been brutal.............every time I start getting something done, something else comes up that I have to take care of...............I'm going backwards this week!!...............The house smells like fresh paint..............I love that smell..............Rick is painting the kitchen AGAIN..............T and I picked out a "plum color" that we thought would look great in the kitchen with a "plum and vine" border..............well Rick got two coats up and rolled out...............T came home and seen it............she hated it........LOL..............I did too but I could have lived with it if she did.............it was just WRONG..............so her and I picked out a new color and had Rick paint the kitchen again..............this time the color was perfect and the border matched nicely......;)...............the plum color would have been great in a bedroom maybe..............but it wasn't for the Kitchen................I wanted to go yellow................yepper............so while construction work is slow.............I'll have Rick painting and maybe "re-painting" our house for a few weeks...............It works out nice...............I paint well.............but I hate to do it............it's all the prep work that sucks.............I just want to get the damn paint on!!.............who cares about taking down the drapes!!...........LOL.

I helped Robbie change out a hundred water bowls today...............we went to a larger water bowl in the medium snake tubs..............since we have switched to newspaper I need all the humidity in the cages I can get.............so if any of you "local people" need the 3" crocks or minis , just let me know................I have hundreds of them I'll sell ya cheap.....;)...............we are using 3" crocks in the baby tubs................and 5" crocks with the medium and adults..............so far so good, your always going to run into some bad sheds regardless............I decided to clear the RDR Forum of all it's user names and passwords today.............I had 800 plus user names and passwords issues since I started the passworded board...............I know that many of the passwords were not being used and that some of the passwords were "Bogus"...............meaning a few people I banned just emailed me under another name to get a new password so that they could "lurk".............well after I did that there was panic!!!....................I sent out 50 new passwords the first two hours...............I was shocked to see how many people were actively visiting the board...............I figured that I would be handing out PWs to the "regular posters".................which I did at first..............but then all the "lurkers" started emailing me for new passwords................you lurkers gotta start posting damn it!!.............LOL............I know there are a lot of lurkers because of the hits on the site..............lurkin' is fine by me....................so by the end of the night I had issued 60 or so new passwords to "legit" users................not bad.......;)................remember when I said I was going "backwards" this week.................well clearing the passwords was not the right thing to do on such a busy week................I did it to myself!!........:P..........so if any of you are reading this..........don't panic................just email me for a new password and your right back in............nobody's old passwords work anymore................let's just say I TOTT.............."took out the trash"...............just like some other web sites should think about doing............it's hard to believe that there were 800 users?.............I guess I'll know in a couple months once everyone starts filtering back in.

I went out to the store late tonight to get some cigs...............yes I know I'm stupid..............and I was on my way back home..............I was talking on my cell phone to Phil while I was driving ...............I was coming to a small turn in the road and a few more yards was a stop sign............so I hit my brakes to slow down..............as soon as I did that, my huge dually went into a 360 spin in a second flat..............it was like being on an amusement ride.............I was on the phone with Phil as I was spinning around in the middle of the road..........it scared the shit out of me!!............that is the first time I've ever hit "black ice"..........and let me tell you.............there is NOTHING you can do to stop.............I was just there for the ride..............my truck is so long and bulky that it barely spun around without hitting the guard rails and a ditch on one side........I was damn lucky..............Phil said he could here my wheels screeching as I was spinning...............it was nuts...............I did a one and a half spin..................ended up facing in the direction I was coming from..........ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

We had a nice RDR chat tonight................most of the "regulars" got new passwords and attended...........the RDR Forum seems "fresher" for some reason???.........well maybe I'll talk a little about some snakes this week...............my breeding season is going "slow and easy"............I'm getting great results from the projects I "wanted" to produce from.............I should definitely get some answers this season when I hatch out the eggs from a Lesser Platty female bred to "Platty Daddy"................I'm glad I gave him last season off................he is a mad man this season!!...............ROCK ON !!...............I also have some cool new double het projects that are doing well...............so with-out giving out all my secrets just yet.............I'd say for sure your gonna see some interesting stuff this year at RDR..............it just won't be ALOT...............I'm just gearin' up for 2005........;)..................

Robot is here cleaning cages today..........and man can you feel the humidity in my snake room from the damn pond hose screwing up...............I could keep frogs easily.........LOL.........it's damn humid!!.............maybe it will trigger some great ball python breeding?...............maybe it will get some of my lazy males off their asses??.............who knows?...............I kinda like the way it feels.............all hot and muggy..........kinda sexy..........LMAO...............what a freak!!!!,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,shut up!!!...........yep..........like a broken record I'm still planted in the office............I'm a total LOSER this week..............not to mention I spent a few hours sending out more passwords..............I'm not sure that was one of the smartest things I've done..............I should have know when I seen the 800 passwords that I was in for some serious work the first few days of shutting down the board..........oh well..............your all in ain't yas'?............Robbie worked on the snakes and I clicked away at the key board all day..................I was burnin' incense to get in that humid tropical zone............LMAO!!...........really I was burning incense.............I do that quite often..............I remember as a kid burning incense in my bedroom and listening to KISS records...............damn they were the good ole' days.............ALBUMS skippin' and all scratched up................Atari..........Love Boat and Fantasy Island on Saturday night...........and the bestest of all, Gilligan's Island and Gomer Pyle after school............damn right!!

Phil called today and said that he was feeling sick............so he wouldn't be playing wally-ball tonight..............Fatty stopped by after work and we BS'd for awhile...............he is getting his vasectomy tomorrow.................yepper...............he's gettin' the ole' nutty nuts snipped.............LOL..............I've been through that already .............I had it done the day before the Twin Towers were destroyed...............I was sitting on a bag of frozen peas watching the terrorist attacks on September 11th..............it's kinda weird too, because I don't get to see much TV during the day...............but way back when the Space Shuttle blew up with the school teacher onboard, I was home from work............just watching TV and I seen that disaster............it's just kinda creepy that I have been home "mending" on days that disasters have happened on live TV...............so anyway I went to go play wally-ball..............we had some really great games...............it was the "old guys" against the "young guys" again...............Fatty, Rick and I................we destroyed them as usual..............hehehe,,,,,,,,,,,,I came home after wally-ball and decided to get caught up on my inventory.............Rick is doing a reptile show this week-end and he bought all my low-end stuff that has been sitting around..................so I had to log everything in as to where it went and blah..........blah.......blah...............so all you people "thinking" about getting possy hets from Ralphie...............take a look...............most are SOLD!!..............ahhhhhhhhhh.................I'm makin' some room...............Rick will be over tomorrow to get everything.............I'll have to snap pics of everything which will take some time................so if any of you buy from Rick Krumrine.............those ball pythons would be from me and I have pics to varify.............;)............

Robbie is finishing up his cleaning today..............he had a mishap at the sub shop he works at last night...........he was cutting pizza dough and he sliced his finger to the damn bone.............and hard headed Robot ain't going to go to the doctor............he has it bandaged up pretty good............he showed it to me.............it's closed, but you can see it's deep as all hell...........can't blame him though.............Lord knows I've had some cuts that needed stitches and I let them heal on their own................it's a "guy thing"...........I still have not watched my SURVIVOR tape yet.............I'll probably watch it tonight.............I did see some bits of it before I left for wally ball last night..............and Fatty told me that Rob is gone..............Rob just didn't get in the groove this time I guess?...............he can't compete with Boston Rob anyway.............Fatty called me after he got out of the doctor's office..............he has officially been SNIPPED!!...............yepper..............he said that the procedure wasn't too bad...............I hated it when I had it done............I could feel everything the doctor was doing............then naturally I came home feeling great the first day and worked all day...............the next day I woke up with swollen sore balls.............and they were BLUE!!...............ask anyone who got the pleasure of seeing them the weekend of the MARS show................they were Black and Blue................I go through hell don't I?.............which leads me to my tongue................it's still numb..............and that be that................I'm getting used to it.............it may ever so slightly be better..............but it's numb and distracting.......and eating still sucks!!........most of the pain is gone though............I'm glad about that because those pills were the BOMB............one pill, a half hour later and your on cloud nine.......hehehe..................so Fatty is OK..............Robbie finished up and rolled out.............I worked in the office.........handed out passwords..................worked on the journal...........went in and farted around with the snakes.............I moved a bunch of males around............I seen a few females ovulating ............things are pretty "normal" with the breeding.

Rick came buy and I just got finished loading him up with a bunch of snakes..........he has a show in Virginia tomorrow to do...............so he's gonna try his hand at selling some (low end) "high-end" stuff.............it feels good to make the room......;)................I'd like to send out huge PROPS to Eric Davies over in England for that awesome full page advertisement in Reptiles Magazine..............the page features a gorgeous pic of Eric's male "Black Eyed Lucy" with Bob Clark's info at the top and Mike Wilbanks' info at the bottom............in the back ground it say's Good, Better, Best!!.......the snake looks totally awesome on that black background.........there was no mention of Eric in the ad so I figured I would put a hand up to ya BIG BRO..............you made history with that advertisement!!!............."Goodness Gracious Great Balls Of Fire!!"...............I seen earlier in the week that Bob Clark put out some info about Eric's Lucy on Kingsnake's ball python forum .............below ( in bold ) is by Bob Clark.

This is a completely patternless, bright white ball python with contrasting jet black eyes. Both leucistics and 100% heterozygous animals will be available for sale this year.

The heterozygous snakes are interesting in their own right. We've named these snakes "FIRE BALLS". The trait is co-dominant
and is inherited exactly like the pastel gene. The super form (homozygous) is leucistic.

Hmm.................I gotta hand it to Bob..........the man works damn fast .........assuming from his statement above he already has bred a pure Lucy out to normals and produced a littler of ALL " Fire Balls".............he has bred "Fire Balls" out to normals and produced clutches yielding an average of 50/50 ratio of "Fires" and normals.........and then he has bred "Fire" x "Fire" and consistently produced Black Eyed Lucys with no other visible "Super Fires" other than Black eyed Lucys.........

So it's like this in my mind if this gene works just like a Pastel Jungle........

Fire X Fire 4 eggs.............1 normal, 2 Fires and 1 Lucy

Fire X Normal 4 eggs.............2 Fires and 2 normals

Lucy X Normal 4 eggs...........4 Fires

Lucy X Fire 4 eggs..........2 Lucys and 2 Fires

Lucy X Lucy 4 eggs..........4 Lucys

I wonder if it's possible for a co-dom trait to also carry a "hidden" simple recessive trait or a mystery gene?........I mean it's happened right?..............it's happened here more than once I think.............I guess I'm saying that I would not make assumptions of a trait unless I was absolutely positive with-out a shadow of a doubt of the genetics of a mutation..............but maybe that's just me............that's what being a PRO is all about..........and BOB is a PRO!!!

A big congrats to Bob Clark and Mike Wilbanks on being able to buy 66% possible hets from Eric Davies and teaching us all the genetics behind them..............I for one greatly appreciate it and have learned from it...............I wish you guys all the luck in the world this season...........2004 will be the first year that you guys get to breed your possible het males to some normal females and get the ball rolling..............Rock On Guys!!!!...............I'll be watching this project very closely...........;)...............I can't wait to get my Blue Eyed Lucy project figured out...........I'm gonna take the long way and breed my Lucy males to normals to see what the babies look like?.................I already know that Phantom or Lesser Platty X Normal produce more Phantoms, Lessers and normals............I was lucky enough to produce Lucys from Breeding Lessers and Phantoms together..............so I guess that makes it co-dom and Lessers and Phantoms are the "hets"...............and the SUPER is a Lucy?...............or is the combination of the two a Lucy?..........but what the heck is that Phantom/Lesser cross??..............now I'm all confused................shit!!............I wish my project was as simple to figure out as Eric's Black Eyed Lucy................oh well...............back to the drawing board...............I'm gonna go count my millions now...........

And you all thought the journal was going to be lame this week...............look!!............it's packed with valuable information on ball pythons and genetics!!..............so have a great Week End Everyone!!.........................."what would you call a sleepwalking nun?.........a roamin' Catholic".................LOL..............

I went up to the rat barn this morning to meet Chad, he was picking up rodents..........I watered and touched up the feed............then I went over to the new area of the barn and did some more cleaning up................the electrician is almost done.........all he has to do is install a couple more light switches and give me an extra circuit or two and its done.........;).........Mr. John stopped by while I was working and I could tell he want to "get into something"..............so we decided to remove a big slab of concrete that was in the barn where my new boats will be stored...........its actually a concrete ramp that the cows used to walk up into the barn.................so I used my snow plow to drag it out of the barn...........I was able to hook the plow blade in the front lip of the ramp and drag it out...............it was not attached to the floor..................or I would have never been able to do that, it was just sitting there................we were lucky.............so we dragged that out and busted it up in small pieces to load on my truck...................this ramp had to be removed because it was in the way of where I would be backing my new four boat trailer in............so we cleaned up and backed my two boat trailer in right to the curb where the ramp was...............that's why the ramp was there in the first place,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,the cows had a hard time stepping up into the barn.............its only like a six inch step, I guess cows like ramps??......... it was in the way and got rid of the sucker!!..............John loves to work I'll say that about him..........he never turns down a project.............I like that......;)........so we got the boats backed in, then we dropped my plow off in front of the boats.....everything fit perfect once the ramp was removed....;)..........after that we called it a day............I got home in time to meet T and the kids after she got off work...............we went and had dinner...............then we just relaxed and watched TV.............I watched my Survivor tape...........man did Boston Rob's team crash and burn on that puzzle challenge??...............and they had a great lead!!...............I was surprised to see Rob go..........but like I said earlier...............he never got "his game on" this time........I still want Hatch to win...............YEPPER!!.......Fatty is home sitting on a bag of frozen peas..........hehehe.............

I got up early and fixed the kiddies breakfast...........they wanted scrambled eggs and sausage .........I can cook well............but breakfast is the only meal I like to cook..........I did scrambled eggs, eggs over easy, bacon and sausage, toast..............and hominy..............do any of you guys eat hominy or grits?..............I love them!!...........and so does Brooke.............we put syrup on them.........YUMMY..........my Mom made them way back when I was a kid and I have been eating them ever since.............seems most people I know do not care for them..............just like scrapple ..............I love the stuff!!.........so we had breakfast while T was sleeping...........then everybody split up and did their own thing for awhile.............I went and checked on all the breeder pairs to see how things were going.............it didn't take long.........I don't have much together..........:).........."does he or doesn't he"...........hmmmmmmm?..............you'll know when you call me this Summer and my ass is out on a boat!!!.......;P...............then I went back upstairs to watch a movie called "Jagged Edge"..............I think it's from 1986.............I never seen it before but always knew about it............and it was really good............its a murder mystery ..........check it out if you haven't seen it.............the ending was "original" for the time it was filmed ...............since I've seen the movie I can say that the ending has been copied several times since 1986...........after the movie we all played UNO.........we play to 500 points..............I lost every damn time...........Brooke won one game and T won the other..............:(............I got the craps of losing so I went up to the rat barn to water the holder bins..........:).............I came home and we ordered some food for delivery...............and then we played more damn UNO............man was I on a losing streak today!!...............I finally quit and came down to the computer a few hours to issue a bunch of passwords to you BONERS!!..........

Rick called in sick this morning ( yeah right )............so T won't get to see any paint work done at the house today...........she is going MAD with paint!!!..............she is having each room painted a different color..............Rick used to be a painter and he paints well..............I bet he can't wait for the Construction Biz to pick back up so he can put down the paint brush.......LOL....( it all pays the same )......I have to say the place looks great ............curtains and paint can really make things look totally different, really cozy..........I went up to the rat barn after I did a couple hours of paper-work and phone calls in the morning...............Bob was working today thank GOD!!...........we took our time.............got done around 5:00 pm............I hung out awhile after we were done cleaning to BS with Mr. John...........I wanted to thank him for the new drive way he put in for us.............now we can drive completely around the barn on gravel..............yepper...............I hate backing up.......hehehe..........Mr. John ordered a dump truck load of gravel and had it delivered at the farm..............then he graded out the driveway and put the stone down............it's sweet!!..............he really did it so I have some place to turn my big ass truck around when I'm pulling the 28' Sea Doo trailer...............gotta love the guy......;).............I paid for the gravel and his labor..............he didn't want to hear it, but I told him I wanted to pay for it.....;)..............now we don't have to be trackin' mud around when we drive around the barn..........this is the second drive way he has put in for us...............is "black top" next???....................:)

John and I talked awhile.............." farmer gossip"...............then I came home and T had made home made pot-pie for dinner.........HOLY SHIT!!!...................it has been five years or better since the last time she made it.............she must want money for more curtains or paint???.................LOL..............what a treat!!!.............we ate, then T got the kids bathed before she left for volley-ball...............then the kiddies and I played OLD MAID until it was time for them to go to bed................Gump is a riot to play Old Maid with..............Brooke knows exactly where he will pick from in her pile...........so he always gets the Old Maid from her if she has it...........I kept telling him to pick from another place in the pile...........but he just kept pulling from the end............and Brooke knew it!!..........LOL..............we had fun...........and damn if I didn't get stuck with the Old Maid a couple times...........I remember when I was a kid I was scared of the Old Maid card...........I mean I literally was afraid to look at the card............she scared the crap out of me.............LMAO!!............that is true!!.......Gump got tired of Old Maid and started playing with his toys............so Brooke and I played a few hands of UNO...........we were watching Fear factor the whole time..............it was a special hour and a half show............it was good..............the dude who won in the end surprised me.............he was weak in every challenge............he just "squeaked by"..........then a special episode of "Average Joe"...............Fredo got to drive the submarine and spy on the beauty while she was sucking "stud face" on the beach.............LOL..............he was so pissed!!..............he ended up quitting the show...............he wrote her a letter and said he QUIT!!..............she said she was gonna give him the boot anyway?..............who knows??..............then the beauty gets to go to the Stud's home town and see the way he lives?........well she obviously did not like it at all................she thought he lived like a pig!!..............LOL..............you could see the grossed out look on her face when she walked in the room where he kept his doggie............you could almost "smell the room"................he was toast!!................she booted his ass and now its down to two............a Stud and an "Average Joe"......I ain't got a clue who she will pick?..............I do know that she would be in the sack with all of them if the cameras were not around...............hehehe...........I love it!!!!........

Ricks back......:).....he is doing a really cool gold two tone paint in our hall power room......Robbie is here feeding..........it is snowing here.............it doesn't look like it will accumulate though?................first thing today I separated all my breeding pairs for some rest.......we'll try to do some feeding tomorrow on the adults...............I have quite a few females ovulating and building up to ovulate right now.............it never fails when I want to get all the pairs separated I always have a few pairs locked up that day............and its usually the pairs that had not been doing a damn thing through the week???................LOL..............we are slowly switching everything here over onto newspaper..........and now that we are using newspaper I'm going to feed all the small rat eaters "pre-killed"..............feeding live on paper is messy.............the rats shred up the paper and make a mess that otherwise would be fine................so this is a big step for us to do..............I haven't used newspaper for a very long time..............but I know its the cleanest substrate.........it just takes some getting used to when you have 500 plus snakes!!...........feeding live rat pups and chubs is no problem..............but the larger rats have a field day with the nice neat paper..............if the snakes don't take the pre-killed rat off the tongs we will just lay the rat in the cage and "hope" they eat..........surprising enough most ball pythons will eat pre-killed laying in the cage................especially when they know its feeding day and they can smell the rats, they just need to be "trained"...............so we shall see how it goes?...............I really want to make it work................I finally got the Freedom Breeder racks "tweaked" so that I'm not getting bad dry sheds anymore...........88 degrees on the tape seems to work well........and spraying the paper down slightly with water on cleaning day..............I must be crazy!!!...........its something I wanted to do last year and didn't.............we got all the 02's and 03's on paper............and we are doing a few rows a week on the adult racks..........it's slow work on the adult racks..........taking the cages outside.............dumping the mulch out ( in the pig pen )........washing and disinfecting..............then drying the tub out and setting it back up again..............I'll be glad when its all done!!...........and no more damn dust from fiber bedding......;)........clean will be "CLEAN"...........

I answered a ton of emails today and issued a bunch of new passwords...........we are well over a hundred people now in the RDR Fourm................I posted on the RDR forum that I was looking for "Moe"........aka Barry Morrison............Moe has been a long time member here at RDR and is also a friend to many of us...............well Moe seems to be in some trouble right now?..............he asked me several months ago to loan him $4,000.00...............and against Lou's wishes and some other friends I did send Moe the money..............he was to pay me back $500.00 a month starting on January 1st of 2004............well he missed that payment and assured me that he would get back on track............so I just let it go..............well now his emails "bounce" and his phone is disconnected??...............I hear that he has a bad "rap sheet" over on the BOI.........I knew Moe was in some kind of trouble............I just didn't know what?.............all he told me was that he had to pay some people back over "bad snake deals"...............he said he didn't want a "bad name" in the BIZ and my money would help...............well Moe brother!!..........it looks like I was too late.............if your reading this I hope you would call me or shoot me an email and let me know that your OK.................all I want is for you to communicate something to me..................ANYTHING!!..........ya BIG SASQUATCH!!

Big Lou is back from another trip to Thialand..................yep..........that is his home away from home now........;)............Robbie has been taking care of Lou's place while he is gone...........its still snowing............its been snowing all day..............but its not sticking................GOOD!!...........Rick finished painting the powder room ......it looks terrific!!............I worked on paper-work the rest of the day until it was time to get Brookie from church.......:).................I did get my 2004 Boa Constrictor Potential Offspring page done today...............now all I gotta do is produce some boas......;).........hehehe.............I haven't really been paying close attention to them..............but they are breeding well, and their temps are right ( I think ).............I really hope my Paradox Snow female produces this season............she is plenty big.............and a pain in the ass!!............I started the ball python PO page................I'll work on it more as I see what's happening with the female ball pythons..................

I separated the last of the pairs this morning.......yepper...........some thought they needed the "extra day"..............then I went and met George and Mel for a BIG breakfast at Bob Evan's.............after that I ran around and picked up some supplies we needed for the snakes and at the rat barn.............Rick is painting in the kitchen today..........T has all his work lined up and scheduled for him......;)..............no wonder he is calling in "sick"............HA!!.........Robbie and I fed the rest of the adults today..........we fed a bunch of the smaller adults yesterday.............the ones that did not take the pre-killed rat from the tongs just had the rat left in the cage...............and sure enough the majority of them ate DEAD over night............some that haven't had meals in months ate DEAD.............man does this bring back some old memories.............this is the way I used to do it way back when..........it was just so time consuming............but now I have ROBOT helping me...............so its back to newspaper and pre-killed rodents...................AKA "neat and clean".............I was very pleased to see how many ate over night............after we got everyone fed, Robbie started cleaning..............I have a big paper cutter here like we had in school when we were kids............ we just cut the paper for the smaller boxes in advance, so that we have a nice pile of it before we start................its working great!!............its so much easier to just take the damn paper out and put new in..............rather than spot cleaning fiber bedding......;)..........I'm diggin' it..................it was the damn "dryness" issue that steered me away from newspaper in the first place................but I got that beat now......;).........not to mention that a 600 gallon turtle pond in the basement is great for humidity......;)

I got every bit of my paper-work done today................pay-roll too!!........even the month's end stuff...............I would like to not have to work in the office on Friday.............the place that I bought my four boat trailer called and said that I could pick it up tomorrow..........and I would like to make all the adjustments and get my boats on it Friday................so we'll see how the week goes?.................so far so good...............I can't wait to see the new trailer tomorrow.........:)............I have the kiddies today................we will be meeting my Mom and Dad for some dinner and then we will be going to Church for Ash Wednesday.................yepper..............gotta go get my ashes and say some prayers....:)................

Robot is here cleaning........I ran out for awhile to do some shopping...........then I went up to the rat barn and checked the place out...............I like to make sure Robot is doing a good job and that I can totally rely on him if I'm away...........hes a good kid.....;)..............I came back home and worked in the office until Brooke got home from school..............then her and I went out to do some more shopping....;)..............she wanted to stop by the local pet shop and hold the baby ferrets...............yepper.................Brooke thinks she is gonna con her pop into buying her a ferret and a "ferret condo"...............I'm not against it.............but she is going to have to show T and I that she deserves it.............she needs to be listening to her Mom and Grandmothers better........and most of all start cleaning up her bedroom and playroom..........so I told her that I would be watching her and we "shall see?"...........I had plenty of ferrets growing up................they really are cool little pets............but they STINK!!.............and Brooke is too lazy sometimes to feed her fish...............LOL............so right now we are "thinking" about it...........so anyway Brooke got to hold the baby ferrets for awhile ...............giving me "those eyes" the whole time...........damn I hate that!!................why do they do that?..................:).............then we went to Lowes to get a new pump and hosing for my turtle pond..............I keep three pumps running in the pond circulating the water and running the water falls...............well one of the pumps crapped out on me this morning...............so we got the pump and the hosing.............then we went to BK to get a late lunch...............Brooke could eat at BK every single day............I gotta say I do love a Whopper with cheese.......:)........hehehe............

I called Mr. John from BK and told him that Brooke and I were on our way to come pick him up.............he wanted to come with me to get the new trailer...............so we picked him up and drove right up to the PA line to get my trailer.................and boy is it a nice one!!............it's perfect!!..............it needs to be adjusted to hold my boats.............other than that its ready to go.............so I paid for it and hooked it up.................and down the road we went...............the trailer is 28' long............its a BEAST!!!...............and its gonna be haulin' BEASTS!!!!..............so we got it back to the farm and parked it................Mr. John and I will work on getting it fitted for my Sea Doos tomorrow...............why?...............because I'm done all my work and the JOURNAL will be done too!!........DAMN RIGHT!!!......:P.....Brooke and I came home, she went upstairs with her Mom and Gump...............I got the new pond pump all set up and working again....................Robot is still cleaning...............he is working later than usual today?..................Fat Ass has worked all week.............he says his balls are sore, but he can handle it..............I remember when I had it done...............I was black and blue for weeks!!............it sucked!!.

We played wally-ball tonight................Big Lou had to work late.............Fatty's balls were hurtin' and Phil is on his way to California to see Mojo................we still had six guys play........;)...............its 12:43 am right now................I'm pretty much done all I'm gonna do this week with the snakes or the web-site...............I'm gonna go hit the sheets so I can get up early and work on the trailer.................hell, Mr. John gets up at 4:30 am.................NO WAY!!.............hold ALL calls!!............

Since I had all my work done this week, I decided to get up early and go get my new trailer tags at DMV.........I figured getting an early start and being there when the place first opens would be a good idea?.................well I got there and there was a line of people around the place!!.............I guess they all had the same idea as me?........HA!!........so I waited in line and finally got a "number"............I was there about 45 minutes .............probably the same amount of time if I would have walked in during the day?..............at least it was DONE...........I hate going to the DMV...............zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So I took my new tags up to the barn to put on the trailer.........Mr. John was there fartin' around.............I told him that I felt like working on the new trailer........it has to be "tweaked" to hold the four Sea Doos............it comes "as is"...........all the adjustments are up to the customer............plus there really is no way for the dealer to adjust it for my boats.........they would have to know exactly what boats I was running and blah blah blah..............so Mr. John and I decided to work on it today.............the trailer is 28' long..............it has three sets of bunks down each side.............the bunks are the carpeted "runners" that the boats rest on.............they all have to be adjusted to fit the bottom of the boats so that the boats can slide all the way to the front position with ease................it took us awhile..............but we got it done, it was a lot of wrench turning!!...........we took my two boats off of my two boat trailer with John's tractor................then we placed them on the dollies that Phil made me.................and then we winched them onto the new trailer.............we had to spray lube all over the carpet on the bunks so that the boats would slide................it SUCKED!!...............but we got it done and the boats fit on the trailer nicely ............I seen that there were a few changes I would like to make in the future ( maybe tomorrow?).................so then we backed the big sucker into the barn.............it fits in there like the barn was built for it.......:)..............we decided to take it for a ride and see how the braking system worked?.................my truck is so damn big that I couldn't even feel the trailer................so all is good!!..............we stopped at a local equipment shop and bought a diamond plate storage box for the front of the trailer..............this is where I can store gas cans and supplies.........we came back and installed it, and called it a day......;)...........Mr. John was scaring the hell out of me doing all that pushin' and pullin' on the heavy boats..............he broke his ribs a short while ago...............I kept tellin' him to take it easy............he didn't want to hear it..............he's a tuff old dude..........:)

Fatty stopped by the house on his way home from work...............he was there before I got home talking with T...............he came outside when I pulled in to show me his new toy.............he bought a satellite radio system called Sirius...............and it is awesome...........he can listen to 80's hair bands all day if he wants to!!..........he has it installed in his work truck and he also has a boom box............and it all works off of a satellite.........they have every type of music or talk radio you could want to hear............I think that will be a good present for Ralphie this year..................hint, hint......;P.............so we BS'd awhile and then we went down to the snake room where all my surgical equipment is................YEPPER...........that's right folks!!..............Fatty asked me to remove his stitches from the vasectomy!!..............what are friends for right?...............he knew that I took my own out when I had it done............I'm pretty handy with injections and minor surgery.......hehehe,,,,,,,,,,,( I should have taken out my own damn wisdom teeth )...............HA!!...............yes the tongue is still NUMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So Fatty drops his drawers and there it is!!.............LMAO!!..........I had sterilized my suture scissors and my suture pullers...............I was "going in"................I had a light shining right on that sucker!!...........it sure was easier taking Fatty's stitches out compared to mine...........I could see what I was doing with him at least!!..........so Fatty is all done now.............all he has to do is make sure he ain't "loaded" anymore and he is good to go..............no more " little fatty's"................ahhhhhhhh....................I may need some therapy after all this???.................:)

T made dinner tonight.............things are changing around here.............it's almost like "Little House on the Prairie"...............LOL..................Dinner at home!!........after dinner Brooke and I played UNO...........I watched my Survivor tape while we were playing UNO...........my man Hatch got voted off............oh well...........now I'm hoping Boston Rob will win it.............but for some reason I "feel" an "all girl" alliance starting up........GIRL POWER!!!,,,,,,,,........hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Brooke finally let me win a game tonight........LOL.............after the tape was over we all hit the sheets early..............those boats kicked my ass good!!.............and then I had to look at Fatty's nuts................Damn it man!!............

Chad stopped by after getting some rodents to buy some of my surplus 2" and 3" water crocks...........he had already been up at the rat barn getting his feeder rodents.............I think I'm going to be letting Chad go in the rat room on Saturday's and help himself to his order. In return he can check for floods, top off food and water buckets while he is there.....;).........after we finished our business, I went to the dump...........then I did some shopping for supplies and more stuff I needed for the trailer ...............yesterday we discovered that two of the bunks were broken............they are made of pressure treated 2" x 4"s covered with carpet.............two were totally snapped in half..............and you couldn't tell until pressure was applied to them..........not to mention I didn't like the length of the two front sets of bunks..........sooooooo............I stopped by LOWES and picked up lumber to replace the two broken bunks and to replace the four front bunks.........I also bought a roll of carpet to cover the new bunks with..............Mr. John will be so happy....;).................

I got to the barn and told Mr. John that I was gonna be working on the trailer again today.............I had to take 20 minutes to feed and water the rat room..........while I was doing that, John went over to "the shop"..............that's what we call the place I cleaned out for the new trailer now............anyway............he unloaded all the supplies I bought and got us all set up to work while I was getting the rats done.............gotta love the guy.....;)..............he even went and got his air ratchet set...........I have an air compressor in the shop now for my air nailers..............he brought his air set in and I asked him "where was that set yesterday?"............we sure could have used "air" yesterday with all the adjusting we did on the tariler"..............he laughed.........he said "I just wanted to watch you work your ass off".................LOL...............well now I know he has air ratchets...........and I'm gonna keep em'..................hehehe...........so we started off by removing the broken bunks and making new ones.................I cut new boards and covered them with carpet..............then we re-installed them...............they were the middle set of bunks............they had to be fixed first in order to move the boats back to replace the front bunks.............( you gettin' all this?)...........LOL...............who cares!!!!..........so we moved the boats back off the front bunks and totally replaced them...............I added 14" to them...............I just didn't think they were long enough and it was buggin' me...............so that's what we did............the trailer is finally done!!...............is it Spring Time yet??............while John and I were working on the trailer I was waiting for a guy and his wife to come up to the barn to buy some frozen medium rats.............there is a story about this "guy" though...........

His name is Jim..........all the kids in the neighborhood knew him as "Snake".........he and my friend Ronnie were best freinds.............they were older than the rest of us kids...........I'm talking way back when I was ten years old back in my old neighborhood in Baltimore..........all the kids did the same things...........we rode our BMX bikes and looked for herps...........running around in the woods turning logs over looking for salamanders, toads, snakes..........what ever we could catch.......;)...............well "Snake" was like a "GOD".............he was older than the rest of the kids..............he had worked in a pet shop part time ( I ended up working there too )..........his Mom would let him bring home and keep cool exotic stuff........like savannah monitors, and large pythons,,,,,,,,,,he always came home with some kind of cool critter when he went herping in the woods...........he was way cool!!............I hung out with him sometimes..........but I was just a "little kid".............LOL......he and Ronnie had better things to do than to hang out with the "kids"............we all idolized those two.........I did a lot of cool trades with "Snake" as a kid...........the best thing I remember trading was my pair of flying squirrels for a huge adult male water dragon..............I loved that thing!!...........it had the run of my bedroom as a kid...........I would take him outside to bask and swim in the pool...........well times changed and I moved away from that neighborhood........Ronnie and Snake moved too............we never kept in touch during the move............but I always thought about them and how fun it was to be involved with all the cool reptiles they kept.........I guess you could say that Snake inspired me..........

Well a week or so ago Snake emailed me out of the clear blue and asked me if I remembered him?..............he said he was surfing the net and seen my website.............he couldn't believe that it was me and how well I was doing...........he said that he was still into herps and stuff.............but not at the level I was at...............he said that was his dream............he wanted to breed high end boa mutations ............I couldn't believe it when I got his email...........it was like a ghost from the past..........so I emailed him back and we ended up talking on the phone about "old times"..............hell it's been over twenty years..........he said he was totally impressed at what I had done with the snakes and if I could help him get started with a pair of albino boas and a good price..............I told him that would be the least I could do,,,,,,,,,I told him that he was a major inspiration to me when I was younger...............he couldn't believe what I was telling him............so we talked and he said that he didn't make much money with his job.............not enough to support his family and to buy snakes too.............he said he was still keeping all kinds of stuff..............but nothing "high-end"..............I told him that I would GIVE him a pair of albino boa babies this year when I produced them..............he was on CLOUD NINE!!...........he couldn't believe that I would do that for him.............I told him old friends have to stick together, and I would be glad to do it for him..........I did it in memory of Ronnie...........see Ronnie ended up moving to the country the same time I did ( but we didn't know it )............we basically left the old neighborhood together............we didn't know we were going to still be close to each other............but it ended up that way..........we even went to the same school after we moved.............it was really nice because we were in a whole new world moving from the city to the country...........it was nice having somebody "you knew" around...........so Ronnie and I stayed friends and went to school together............Snake just disappeared??................Ronnie ended up marrying a girl that he got pregnant in school.............then he enlisted in the Army right out of high school..........he took his wife with him............so he was gone............I did my thing at home with work and school and he went off to the Army..............we stayed in contact the best we could..............but we drifted apart as we both got busier and busier.........Ronnie made a friend in the Army and they started making short films.............that's when video was starting to catch on............they would do short films about " shoot outs" and "gun stuff"..............they had pistols that they would put blanks in and use them in the films.........well one day Ronnie and his friend got together at Ronnie's place.............and the wives were there too..........his friend's wife saw that Ronnie had one of the pistols laying on a table.............she figured that it was one of their props and that it was either not loaded or it had blanks in it...............she picked the pistol up and pointed it at Ronnie's head................she pulled the trigger and Ronnie went down............the pistol was loaded..........it was a 22............Ronnie lived a day at the hospital and died from the bullet going into his brain.............the girl was never charged with a crime..........it was considered an accident...........so Ronnie was dead............his funeral was back home where I was.........it was a total mess to say the least............I took it extremely hard............I grew up with Ronnie and did so many things with him...............seeing him dead " that young" was devastating........Snake never knew about the incident until many years later..........so giving Snake a pair of albino boas to get started is like a tribute to Ronnie from me..........If Ronnie were still alive I bet he would be involved with what I'm doing right now............it's in our blood.............

So Snake came up and met me at the barn while I was working on the boats.............he still looked the same except he didn't have the long hair anymore..............LOL.............other than that, he was the same dude.............he said I had not changed a bit............it was really cool to see him again, especially how he found me...............surfing on the net looking for snakes and he comes to my site..............and he says "nahhhhhhh......it can't be little Ralphie"..........LOL................Rock On Snake!!!

Mr. John and I got the boat trailer done and packed up the tools............I came home and got a shower..........we met my parents for dinner later...........I came home and seen that the movie "Show Girls" was on...............I had never watched it............HOLY SHIT was that a sexy movie!!.............I remember that girl from "saved by the bell"..................LOL............she was half naked the entire movie?....................did she ever do a movie after that?..........SWEET!!!.............hehehe........:P.........

Brooke is over at Fatty's house..........Fatty's daughter Autumn is having a "sleep over" Birthday party..........her party was yesterday.................so I'm sure Fatty enjoyed a house full of screaming little girls..........Fatty was funny last night............he would hit me or T up on the Nextel and say "Calgon Take Me Away"..........LOL.............the girls were driving him nuts!!.............poor Gump was upset that it was a "girls only" party...........LOL..........it was weird just having Gump with us last night at dinner and not Brooke.............but Gump didn't miss her he said...........yeah right!!...........Gump worships the ground Brooke walks on............that's his Big Sister!!.........I got up and answered a bunch of emails.............then I went into the snake room and palpated for follicles ..........I'm just trying to get a "feel" for what I have coming this season...........that way I can get started on the 2004 PO page for the ball pythons..................I wasn't in the mood to mess with too many females, so I just palpated the "important ones"...........LOL............things are looking fine here...........I must be a "natural".........I ain't doing much...............:)

Brooke got home from church, we decided today was a good day to clean out her fish tank that was totally over-ran with green hair algae...........her fish tank gets a lot of direct sunlight through the window............and the algae grows like mad............it started out looking very cool...........but then it started to choke up everything in the tank...........so today we are gonna break the entire tank down and bleach everything!!...............Gump's tank was in good shape............we changed his filter cartridges and did a small water change..............he has two minnows and an algae eater in his tank............Brooke caught the minnows in the stream at Big Rock last Summer...............I can't wait for Big Rock this Spring!!..............whoooooowhooooooo!!...........so we got Brooke's tank all cleaned out and set it back up again..............what a difference!!.............you can actually see her fish now...............not sure what her two algae eaters are gonna do for food though.........LOL???........

I went up to the rat barn after working with the fish tanks..............I fed and watered and had to gas a few hundred rats.............damn I hate gassing rats!!.............it is the most humane way to do it though...........it has to be...........it just SUX to do...............but it has to be done.........:(.............I came home and grabbed a shower...........the family and I went out shopping for some "home accessories"..........we ended up buying a really pretty fake flower arrangement for our formal living room..........did I just say that??.............HA!!...........I'm a damn good decorator!!..............KISS is so simple to decorate with..........LOL.............after we shopped T went out to the store to get the stuff she needed to make a home made spaghetti dinner..........I ain't sayin' a word............I love eating at home now..........we had dinner and played some UNO.............it was an early night.............I got the rats to clean tomorrow...............So there ya go folks..............another month gone.........."How long can he keep this crap up?"..............ROCK ON!!!............