Day Before Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

I know I'm a day early, but there's no way I'm going to remember to update this thing tomorrow! I hope everyone gets trashed in a responsible manner, and don't forget to scare some little kids!

And just for the record, here's my Ms. Pumpkin 2006!



That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Corona is the choice of squashes everywhere.

And in other, very exciting news I HAVE THE DAY OFF!!! So you know what this girl does to celebrate?! I took my lovely 1997 Subaru Outback Sport (aka Helen) to get her very first emissions test. The lovely girl passed (no pun intended!) with flying colors. $75 later, she now has shiny new tabs and is ready to show the world how sexy a Subaru can be.

Update of the Frogs: We have names in the house! Petri loves chilling in the warm tropical petri-dish spa in her tank, and Adama... well, you can see the similarities for yourself.



And here's the lovely Petri, enjoying her morning spa treatment:



Tomorrow we WILL be having the first of many Tuesday Nerd Nights. Heroscape, Guitar Hero, and Ninja Burger! Hope to see some of you there!

L.... O....L....

New members of the household!

The day has finally arrived! I'm now the proud parent of two poison dart frogs! I have two lovely yellow dendrobates ventrimaculatus. They're absolutely lovely- they're already showing their true colors! Very, very sassy frogs. I love it!

I have yet to get great pictures of these guys, but here's what I have so far:





My mom gave me three phenomenal plants to add to my tank. A blooming orchid and two very stunning mini african violets. Thanks Mom!





And in other news, Val and I have officially been together for two years! Let's not get too excited here- we'll be together for many, many more! <3!

Hello Jello!

So, Val and I are officially moved in (read: we're sleeping here yes, but all of our crap is still in boxes) and have decided to celebrate by having some of our buddies over for a moving in party tonight.

If you're in the area and want to share in the celebration, give me a call! Our apartment may be small, but the jello shots are fierce!



We've got lime and tequila, black cherry and Malibu, watermelon and peach (seriously tastes like a watermelon jolly rancher!), and pineapple. It just doesn't get any better than this!

Text, email, or call!

Out of the blue...

My morning routine was fairly normal today. Roll out of bed, throw stuff in the laundry, jump into the shower and then drag myself up to the computer to finish waking up. The first thing I saw- 5 messages from my Chinese Stalker(tm). For those of you who aren't familiar with him, he was a guy I met at China while I was teaching. I met him at one of the English Corners at a university. Well, soon enough he started showing up at my school and following me around. Everytime I tried to do anything without him, he'd call up the other teachers' cellphones and demand to know where I was. It was kinda scary.

I told him he had to back off because he was freaking me out. The next thing I knew he was sleeping across the street making sure I wasn't out with another guy and banging on my door at 3am in a jealous rage.

I didn't have a ride to the airport on the day I left, so I managed to stay chummy with him long enough to use his translation services to get me where I wanted to go. Once I was back in the US, I stopped talking to him completely. The last time I talked to him (on AIM) he had said "Murder will out" and logged off, since I didn't agree to meet up with him in Canada.

So... yeah. Part of me is intrigued. Why would he get back in touch with me after all this time? I'm really tempted to shoot back a message and to see what kind of drama follows.

In other news, I might be starting up Middle Eastern Dance. I've managed to get a bit plumper than I'm used to, and I could really use the toning! Classes start tomorrow.

Frog Videos!

If you haven't had enough frogs yet, take a look at these videos!

Frogs eating flies!

Male Phyllobates terribilis tries to pick up the ladies- Also, awesome commentary in the background.

Home is where the fronds are.

The vivarium is almost complete! I'd like to have something to decorate the back wall with... but I'm so happy with it. The moss will probably dry up and look like crap, but it's pretty for now!



I managed to put a gash in my thumb while working with the false gravel front. I cut two pieces of glass (7.5" x 2.5" and 3.5" x 2.5") and siliconed the same gravel I used in the pond to the fronts of the glass. This way you can see the ugly pipe and the false bottom that is holding the entirety of the land up off the bottom of the tank. Drainage = awesome. While installing the glass, I decided it be a great idea to push it into the corner... Resistance + sharp glass = blood. I can't believe how stupid I am sometimes.


I also got my package of Herptivite and Rep-Cal in the mail today. Mmmm, nothing like candy coating your fruit flies!

Turns out another local breeder is offering frogs for sale, but they are a thumbnail species. They're so incredibly tiny, but they seriously look like living opals. I might have to get a pair of those- they're supposed to be fairly easy to keep.
Behold D. ventrimaculatus:



Too many decisions!

More frogs!

It's another 3 day weekend for Julie!

I LOVE working at a bank! Hurray for Columbus!

And in other news, the dart frogging adventure is evolving! After discovering that Seattle has a TON of dart froggers, I ventured out to find a few of them. Turns out, Darren Meyer (no relation) lives in Seattle and has a very, very impressive frog collection. We got in contact and Val and I went over to his house today to check out his frogs.

I don't think I've ever been more impressed in my life.

I don't remember seeing dart frogs in person ever. Seeing such amazingly brilliant and teeny tiny creatures was just a complete trip for me. Turns out there's a show in Puyallup a couple of weeks from now, and Darren will be there with a large amount of frogs for sale. Looks like Julie is going to be a new mom to some amphibians very, very soon!

Here are the kinds I'm looking at:







All pictures have been snatched from pumilio.com. They have fantastic pictures on their site, and I strongly encourage anyone interested in darts to check it out.

I'm strongly leaning towards the last frog. They're simply amazing in person- very vivid, very bold, and watching them stalk around in their tank is a really impressive experience.

New Home, New Month

So it's finally October! It's much cause for celebration. Val and I are settled into our new home- it's tiny but we love it. When I decide to be brave enough to condo hunt again, we've decided to go with something smaller... We both love how cozy and relaxed our new apartment is. It's not as modern as our old apartment, but there's something refreshing about the leaky faucet and the 70's tile.

In 12 days, we'll celebrate our second anniversary. In honor of it, I have decided to use my vacation hours. Speaking of days off, Columbus Day is a paid holiday! I love working at a bank.

The frog project is still in full swing. After having the waterfall set up for a couple of weeks, it started leaking and I tore the thing out. I put a new false bottom in, and replanted everything. There's a little pond in the front of the tank. I'll have to buy some new gravel or buy some duckweed to make the rocks look a bit less out of place.



I have yet to pick the kind of frog that's going to live there... There's a project that's located in Peru called INIBICO that is quite phenomenal. Regardless of what frog I pick, I truly hope to be able to support this group and their cause.

Over the past 8 years, there has been an interest to farm raise dart-frogs in Peru and export these frogs the world over. The impetus for this project was experiments and data that Dr. Rainer Shulte had compiled over the last 10 years. Specifically, Rainer has shown that by providing artificial breeding sites in the natural habitat of dart-frogs that these frogs could increase their populations in the wild. Rainer felt if land owners in Peru were paid to keep their land intact and not sell the land to cattle ranchers and the timber industry, the natural habitat and the fauna and flora within could be preserved.

The vision was to provide artificial breeding sites in Dendrobatid habitats and harvest a percentage of the tadpoles. The tadpoles then would be raised in captivity in Peru. The metamorphosed frogs would then be exported around the world to institutions and hobbyists. The proceeds would pay the land owners and employee indigenous people. Overall, land would be preserved and the frogs would be "protected" while employing native people.

Click here to read more about it.

New Home, New Month

So it's finally October! It's much cause for celebration. Val and I are settled into our new home- it's tiny but we love it. When I decide to be brave enough to condo hunt again, we've decided to go with something smaller... We both love how cozy and relaxed our new apartment is. It's not as modern as our old apartment, but there's something refreshing about the leaky faucet and the 70's tile.

In 12 days, we'll celebrate our second anniversary. In honor of it, I have decided to use my vacation hours. Speaking of days off, Columbus Day is a paid holiday! I love working at a bank.

The frog project is still in full swing. After having the waterfall set up for a couple of weeks, it started leaking and I tore the thing out. I put a new false bottom in, and replanted everything. There's a little pond in the front of the tank. I'll have to buy some new gravel or buy some duckweed to make the rocks look a bit less out of place.



I have yet to pick the kind of frog that's going to live there... There's a project that's located in Peru called INIBICO that is quite phenomenal. Regardless of what frog I pick, I truly hope to be able to support this group and their cause.

Over the past 8 years, there has been an interest to farm raise dart-frogs in Peru and export these frogs the world over. The impetus for this project was experiments and data that Dr. Rainer Shulte had compiled over the last 10 years. Specifically, Rainer has shown that by providing artificial breeding sites in the natural habitat of dart-frogs that these frogs could increase their populations in the wild. Rainer felt if land owners in Peru were paid to keep their land intact and not sell the land to cattle ranchers and the timber industry, the natural habitat and the fauna and flora within could be preserved.

The vision was to provide artificial breeding sites in Dendrobatid habitats and harvest a percentage of the tadpoles. The tadpoles then would be raised in captivity in Peru. The metamorphosed frogs would then be exported around the world to institutions and hobbyists. The proceeds would pay the land owners and employee indigenous people. Overall, land would be preserved and the frogs would be "protected" while employing native people.