I really do have hobbies other than firearms...

…related hobbies. Yes I do. For instance, I have quite the collection of animals. Note I did not say pets. Sure I have some pets, including a cat and three dogs among others; but I also have a collection of animals that are not pets in the sense that I play with them, or love them, or have joined PETA because of them (perish the thought, I just about puked just writing that).

What I have is an interest in herpetology and hepetoculture (a made up word maybe, but not made up by me). In other words I keep reptiles and amphibians. I have done so since I was about 4 or 5 I guess, when my uncle Ken (Unkie - back in the day) bought me a Red Eared Slider, a turtle, from a pet shop on Broadway in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Yes I lived in the hood. Ever since then it has caught onto me like a cactus that I just sat on. I have been keeping herps of one sort or another on and off, more on than off mind you - by a long shot, for about 45 or 46 years now. Man I am getting old, but later for that.

It was earlier tonight - after I had gotten done cleaning animal enclosures, after I had gone to my local herpetological society's monthly meeting (LIHS), after I had stopped at the pet shop to buy some things like guppies and a couple of tadpoles, after I had stopped at Home Depot to buy bird seeds (and I do not have any birds) to feed my rodents (and to feed the local wild bird population), after I did some more cage cleaning, after I fed the menagerie, after I watched them all for a while - that I realized I have one heck of a collection of animals; and more so I realized that I have one heck on an interest in animals.

I have kept hundreds of different species/subspecies of reptiles and amphibians over the years. I have bred a fair number of them, nothing grand but quite a few. I have also collected them from the wild, observed them in the wild, and even made a meal or two of them while camping out. Did I mention that groups like PETA and I do not see eye to eye. Yes I hunt, fish, and have bred animals for food (both the type for human consumption and the type for consumption by my herp collection). I used to dream of becoming a veterinarian, or a game warden, or a biologist, but those dreams fell through and I wound up doing something else for a career. Yet I keep in touch with that side of me on a regular basis through, at least in part, the animals I keep, the animals I observe in nature, the animals for which I hunt and fish, and so on.

As for the animals I keep, right now I figure I have about:

1 frog

2 tadpoles

2 turtles

2 tortoises

2 lizards

20 snakes

Besides the slimy and scaly animals, I also have some furry ones. These include about:

50 Guppies

12 adult mice

25 baby mice

5 Dwarf hamsters

In addition to these I have the aforementioned 3 dogs and 1 cat.

I also have a number of plants that I keep in with my herps, I figured I would add these in since they too are a form of living thing I keep.

That first red eared slider surely led me to a life long interest in animals; a fun one and a practical one, as to the practical one I remind you of the hunting and fishing.

There is only one person in my life to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude for helping me to develop this interest - that is my uncle Ken. If he ever reads this I hope he realizes how much that little turtle, so many years ago, wound up meaning to me. Well, I guess there is one other person to whom I owe a debt of gratitude if only for allowing me to further my interests, thanks mom. Without her okay, I would not have kept many of the critters that crossed my path over the years. Uncle ken, is her brother, but she in no way shares his or my love of animals. She was usually terrified by most of them, but she let me keep them just the same.

So why am I bringing all of this up here in my rant. Certainly, it would have been enough just to share the these thoughts with my readers; but I guess there is another reason too, one that could make this read more worthwhile to you. You all know, if you have read my other blogs, that I am into guns and shooting. I am into hunting. I recently took my son on his first big game hunt, and he bagged a black bear. That is another animal we have at home right now, what is left of it anyway, and that is in the freezer. Well, while my son is into shooting, and hunting and fishing, he is also into animals.

For many years, Brendan accompanied me to meetings of the LIHS. Lately he has been working on Sundays, which are the meeting days. He works for a veterinary hospital. He is a kennel worker, the guy at the bottom of the totem pole. Yet, he has ambition. He thinks he might like to become a veterinarian; and who knows maybe he will be a bit luckier than me in keeping true to his dreams, or maybe he will just choose something else. The thing is, and this is important, he has this interest in animals, sort of the same as me. Heck, he is 16 years old, will be 17 before the year is out, and he still likes to do things with his dad. You may have read my earlier rant on this, or may have seen my writing on it in a forum somewhere or another; but here it is again in case you missed it, or it did not sink in the first time around!

What is it that to which I refer when I say I say 'here it is'? It is the fact that if you want to have good times with your children, if you want to establish and keep a lasting bond of camaraderie between you and them, if you want to be your kid's friend, if you truly want to enjoy yourself more than you can in any other pursuit, then you had best enjoy doing things together with your kids; and you had best start developing that mutual enjoyment when your child is young.

I have shared my hobbies with both of my children. I used to take my daughter Celina hiking, camping, fishing, and shooting. She went out with me to catch frogs and snakes. Then we also brought her brother along. Celina kind of drifted away from the enjoyment of those things once she discovered boys. Oh well. I keep trying to get her interested in something that I understand, but it is more difficult now that she is 21 so to be 22. Hopefully I will get her interested in shooting again. I may just have to invite her latest boyfriend for a day at the range; I would bet that would do it if he says yes, and he seems the type to go for it. Of course, my daughter still also has an interest in animals, but pretty much just the dogs, but that is okay by me. I figure when she is out on her own or married someday, one of her first acquisitions will be a puppy of some sort. That is good, better than drugs for sure because if you overdose on puppy all it means is you get licked to death.

I guess it is not only me who owes a debt of gratitude to my mom and to Unkie; it is my kids too, because they got that love of animals from him through me. Of course they also have to thank their mom Linda for her putting up with all the critters. She has little love for any pet except the dogs, and a past bird or three we had. Of course I had best thank her too, because she puts up with me and the whole menagerie. Thanks dear, love you all the more for it. (She will never read

this, but it is nice to hope she might.)

Oh well, you get the idea, its a family thing these animals, and a lot of fun, interesting, and educational too.

All the best,

Glenn B

A little bit of help from the readers...

...would be nice. No I do not mean financial help, I am not about to ask for money for me to buy a new gun, or a used pick up truck, or to by myself a new camera, or a new pet, or for an operation, or for a trip fund, or anything like that. Heck I work for a living and make decent money - although I will admit I may start begging if I ever get more than about 9 readers a day, and at least one of them is rich.

The help I am seeking is one of product recognition. Again nothing to benefit me financially, allow me to explain. I am trying to find out if anyone recognizes the product I am about to describe, because I sure would like to be able to find it again. Many years ago, I am guessing at least 15 or so, my brother who is not at all into firearms bought me some gun cleaning products. The product consisted of a boxed set of three bottles, all plastic. Each bottle was the same size, about 8 to 10 ounces would be my guess this many years, and far fewer little gray cells, later.

One bottle contained a gun cleaning solvent, it was crystal clear, like water. It had a nice lemony aroma to it. It cleaned a firearm better than any other product I have ever used. I would pout one wet patch through a barrel, and then one dry patch. Then second which usually came out either clean or almost clean. It hardly ever took more than three dry patches to come out clean, and I mean really clean.

The second bottle contained a gun oil. It was a run of the mill gun oil as far as I recall.

The third bottle contained an oil to clean and treat wood stocks. It did nice work, and when rubbed in with plenty of rubbing gave a lasting finish to oil finished or unfinished stocks.

The box, if I remember right was open fronted, at least partially so you could see the bottles. There was no cellophane. I think the box was a dark red, almost like a garnet; with black printing.

The product was manufactured in Vermont.

My guess is my brother got it from a catalogue sale. I do not know for sure, and he does not remember.

Hopefully those are enough clues, if the product is still around, to have someone point me in the right direction.

All help is appreciated; and by the way, if you want to send money because you have nothing better to do with it, I have a mortgage and a college bill that need paying. LOL

All the best,
Glenn B

Yet Another Monster Among Us, but...

...this one may be the judge instead of the convicted child molester. See this article Convicted Sex Offender Chooses Canadian Exile Over Jail, found at FoxNews.com. You see, if the judge gets his way, and that would also be what the convicted man wants in this case, then the man who apparently was convicted of a sexual offense after having sex with a 15 year old will get out of jail Scott free if he agrees to stay in Canada for 3 years. This is to say the least, an unusual sentence.

I see some major problems with this agreement, and it is not just that it is unusual and therefore probably unconstitutional, not that I would make a stink about it on those grounds regarding a pedophile. The things that bother me about this decision are as follow:

1. This guy, who was a teacher by profession, is a apparently child molester who was arrested for having sex with a 15 year old child, a student. He seems to have broken one of the most sacred trusts. If he was convicted of any kind of sexual abuse in relation to this case, and he had to have been convicted of something in order to be sentenced by the court, then he deserves at the very least to be in jail for a long time. Instead he is not getting any jail time at all, not even the measly 2 weeks that ultra-liberal judge in Vermont sentenced a pedophile to last year. This is absolutely outrageous. The judge, in my opinion, should be removed from power, fired without chance of collecting a pension, and never be allowed to practice law anywhere. In fact he should not be allowed to work with children either.

2. Why on earth would Canada be expected to take this guy? He is quite possibly now a convicted felon, on sexual abuse charges. Why would canada want the chance of him now going after its children? I tend to doubt they would want him even though he was reportedly already living there with his wife and children.

3. How could a judge in the USA, say that this guy is fit to return to his own family in Canada, a family in which there are children? Of course his wife may not let him anywhere near the children again, but who knows.

4. The whole thing in the article about a judge having no authority to banish a U.S. Citizen is so much window dressing. The guy is not being banished, he is agreeing to stay in Canada otherwise he goes to jail. So I want to know, how does a town judge get off allowing a monster like this guy, yes that is how I see him - as monstrous, to make a choice between relative freedom to molest again and jail?

I think the pedophile is not the only monster here, I think the judge is worse than him. As I see it this judge is a disgrace, and I can only hope that Bill O'Reilly grabs hold of this story as he did the similar one in Vermont last year. In that one, mostly due to O'Reilly's hammering of that travesty of justice, the sentence on the Vermont pedophile went from 2 weeks to much more. Maybe this time around, he can get it boosted up to 20 years on the current offender.

I will be attempting to get in touch with Bill O'Reilly on this either by phone or email. If we all do likewise, maybe he will pick up the story and get this one fixed up a bit. I'll also be contacting some of my elected officials to have them put some pressure on this judge as well. This kind of thing has got to stop before we can even think of stopping the pedophiles; I mean how will we ever stop them if judges keep handing out sentences to them that in essence set them free to offend again!

All the best,

Glenn B