Archive for the ‘Reptiles’ Category

Alligators? In my retention pond?

Friday, April 3rd, 2015

It’s more likely than you think.

(I know the linked article refers to a singular alligator, but there are other articles behind the Statesman pay wall that state there’s evidence of at least two gators.)

(That reminds me: did you know you can get “Gator” on blu-ray? You do now. You can also get “Operation C.I.A.” on DVD, but it’s one of those “produced on demand” DVDs.)

Random notes: March 20, 2014.

Thursday, March 20th, 2014

The B-2, the B-2, the B-2 is on fire!

(We don’t need no water. Let the mother—-er fly!)

Exxon denies the allegations and defies the alligators.

I went back to Ohio, but my city was gone.

Monday, July 15th, 2013

Well, not really “gone”. I hadn’t been back to Ohio for nine years, and it amazed me somewhat both how much and how little has changed.

For example, there’s an entire grocery chain that I don’t remember from my last trip…that takes the Discover card and cash. No Visa/AmEx/MasterCard/Diner’s Club, not even debt cards with a PIN, just cash and Discover. Who came up with this idea?

On the other hand, the tractor tire store that was a landmark on the way to Grandma’s place is still there, after 40 something years. And Grandma’s place still feels remote from everything, even though there’s major strip centers at the end of her road, and even though much of the land was sold off over the past few years (and now has houses sitting on it).

And the old NASA hanger is still visible from the airport. That was another landmark for us kids. (My dad worked there, back when it was still the Lewis Research Center, before it was renamed “NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field“. Which is a mouthful. Not that I’m bitter or anything over the renaming; by gosh, if anyone deserved to have a NASA facility named after him, it was John Glenn.)

This is shaping up to be a long post, and sort of “stream of consciousness”, so I’m going to put the rest of it behind a jump. Before I do, here’s Grandma’s obituary, just for the record.

(more…)

Here. Have another lizard.

Friday, July 12th, 2013

Or, technically, another view of the same lizard.

lizard2

What can I say? I like lizards.

What’s the point of having a lizards tag if you can’t abuse it?

Sunday, July 7th, 2013

lizard

Winking Lizard, Macedonia, Ohio.

Administrative note.

Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013

I’m going through a little bit of personal agita right now. The next few days leading up to, and during, the holiday, are shaping up to be kind of busy. Mostly the fun kind of busy (some of us are trying to plan a range trip; plus, fireworks), but with some work involved.

This coming Saturday, I will be flying out to Cleveland. My maternal grandmother passed away on Saturday, and her funeral is scheduled for a week from today. I plan to take a laptop with me and blog as much as I can from the road, but be prepared for a bit of a slowdown.

(I know there’s been a bit of a slowdown already. Mostly, that’s because there hasn’t been a lot going on that I’ve found worthy of blogging. I think we’re into the summer slowdown season; things are so hot that everyone is acting like giant lizards, conserving energy as much as they possibly can. Which is great for keeping cool, but not so great for providing blog fodder.)

(Is it just me, or is Houston experiencing a rash of motel fires?)

I have no joke here, I just like saying…

Saturday, March 16th, 2013

there are snakes in Ireland.

During the Celtic Tiger boom, snakes became a popular pet among the Irish nouveaux riches, status symbols in a country famous for its lack of indigenous serpents. But after the bubble burst, many snake owners could no longer afford the cost of food, heating and shelter, or they left the country for work elsewhere. Some left their snakes behind or turned them loose in the countryside, leading to some startling encounters.

Random notes: January 11, 2013.

Friday, January 11th, 2013

Not much going on, but I rarely get a chance to use the “Snakes” and “Reptiles” tags. So:

Snake on a plane.

Caiman on a stash.

Obit watch: Evan S. Connell, Jr., noted novelist and historian. (Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn may be his best known work.). LAT. NYT.

For Lawrence.

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

A 6-foot-long, 25 pound “Nile monitor lizard” is on the loose in a small town near Colorado Springs.

Sheriff Mike Ensminger said that the lizard has not been reported to have bitten anyone, but that it could become aggressive, and those with pets and children should be cautious.

Carry your damn guns, people.

(What gun for lizard?)

Followup roundup.

Friday, June 1st, 2012

Looking at site stats this morning, I noticed that my ThinkPenguin endorsement seems to be getting some traffic. I thought I’d bop over to their site and check: yes, they have the new dual-band wireless N USB adapters available. And to tell the truth, I like the design of this adapter better than the one I have.

Earlier this week, I commented on the death of Mack Wolford. Lauren Pond, a photojournalist, had been working with Rev. Wolford for the past year as part of a documentary project on the Pentecostal snake-handling religion. Ms. Pond was at the service where Rev. Wolford was bitten, and sat with him and his family as he died. Some of her photos, and her thoughts about what happened and her obligations, are in the WP.

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

I don’t want to mock the death of Mack Wolford. I was not raised in the Pentecostal snake-handling tradition, nor does it fit in with my personal religious beliefs. (As I recall, there is a Bible verse that says something to the effect of “Don’t test God.”) But I do respect folks who have those beliefs and act on them; I don’t think they are crazy, but are trying to relate to God in their own way, and more power to them.

However, I do think his death is worth noting, not just for the odd factor, but also because it gives me a chance to talk about Jeremy Seal’s The Snakebite Survivors’ Club: Travels Among Serpents.

This had the potential to be an interesting book, and about half of it is. The chapters on snake hunting and snake bite survivor hunting in Africa and Australia are quite good. Unfortunately, his chapters set in India seem oddly disengaged from the rest of the book; I’m not sure why, but they don’t seem to fit.

And while he has an interesting story to tell as his through line through the chapters in America (backsliding snake-handling minister decides to end his marriage through rattlesnake; unfortunately, his wife survived her bites, and he’s doing time), he has a typically British condescending attitude towards America (and especially the American South) that I found annoying.

If you find a copy of this for $3 or less, I think you might get that much entertainment out of it. Otherwise, I’d suggest skipping it. I haven’t read it, but this Whit Gibbons book looks more entertaining and less dripping with scorn.

Edited to add: Added a link to a review of Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia which a) sounds like a better book about the snake-handling tradition, and b) summarizes the Glenn Summerford story.

The snakes try to get there around 3:30 in the afternoon…

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

People having too much fun with headlines:

1. “Burmese pythons turn Everglades into a buffet”. There’s also an interesting FARK thread based on a similar article from another source.

(As everyone who has a senior citizen in the family knows, you try to get to the buffet around 3:30 so you can pay the lunch price, but still get the stuff they put out for dinner starting around 4 PM.)

Edited to add: In the same vein, this Reason “Hit and Run” entry, which links to this Jonah Goldberg piece:

We nearly wiped out the buffalo in this country because a bunch of guys made money off of buffalo hides. Thousands of years before that, mankind eradicated the woolly mammoth with spears. Spears! Give me five thousand Ted Nugent fans and all the weapons they can carry and the waters of the everglades will run red with Burmese snake blood.

2. “USAF’s Big Penetrator Needs to Be Harder”. (Hattip: Shall Not Be Questioned.)

A series of recent tests found that the Air Force’s 30,000-pound tool for penetrating 32 stories of reinforced concrete might not have enough penetrating power to take out Iran’s most heavily protected nuclear facilities, reports the WSJ.

Making it harder sounds like a good thing, but perhaps they also need to add more thrust. Maybe a rocket assist?