Swamp Creature vs River Monster

Sometimes I really wish this was not a 'G' rated blog. Things happen from time to time and all you really want to do is spit and swear and cuss and break shit!

Owning your own business has its ups and downs; that is no secret. Let us consider one or two:

• You don't answer to anyone....................errrrr................except your Clients and the Tax office
• You have greater flexibility to.....ummm.......manipulate your home life to facilitate more work
• You are in control............right up until that point when the global economic market reminds you that you actually have no control at all, over anything whatsoever.

But I can deal with whatever is coming my way. I make my own bed and I am happy to lie in it, whether it is fully of petals or pricks. What I can't deal with is making decisions that have a deleterious effect on my staff. These are the people who have spilled the same blood in the same mud as me since this business journey began 7 years ago. It makes my head hurt and my heart pound when I have to give them the worst news.

Yesterday was one of those days and the office was a place where I just simply did not want to be, so I skipped out and went to my happy place; a couple of acres of nothing, situated nowhere and populated by nobody.

I quietly wandered among the saplings that I had recently planted. I was grinning like a village idiot because, weeks on, we still had a 100% survival rate. I don't consider myself a green thumb; I normally couldn't grow Patterson's Curse. The black cloud was lifting as I chatted to my little giants (River Gums). .

To my surprise some old friends popped by, which is a little peculiar as I don't live at the block? Guess they were just playing the odds that I might be there: either that or they were just scoping the joint out for anything they might come back and steal under the cover of darkness. As previously mention, that global economic crisis is a bastard and you 'gotta do what you gotta do' to get by. These guys are exploration drillers so they are probably worse off than us in the environmental game.

So a patchy sun/cloud day and a few old friends to chew the fat with. My day could not really get better or could it? Click to find out how it ended.

Cracking the Glass Ceiling in the Shark Tank

I've never watched it, but apparently there is a show called Shark Tank; the premise of which is to give entrepreneur-contestants one chance to pitch their business idea to a panel of Australian entrepreneurial success stories who are genuinely looking to invest their own money in Shark Tank's minnows. I am not big on TV but I guess it must be entertaining? Recently, one contestant pitched the idea of edible crickets. This is hardly a novel concept! Herpers have known of the nutritional value of crickets for generations. 

To be frank, we herpers don't give a solid stool about how good they taste ; we just want to know how to catch the bloody things en mass so we can manage the voracious appetites of our little squamate buddies.

You see, the problem with all reptile keepers is that they are incapable of stopping at just one animal. If you have one Bearded Dragon it will need a mate. If you have one Egernia skink, you need a half dozen as they are gregarious and love hanging out in small groups. It is far more entertaining to watch a bevy of V. brevicauda than it is to stare at one solitary individual in the hope that it will do something interesting.

When you are a 'herper' feeding time at the zoo can be an expensive exercise and we all know times are tough. Ironically, reptiles were promoted as the ultimate FIFO pet because they gave you all the love you needed and they required a lot less love in return than a dog or a cat. Now so many FIFisters are without work and the poor buggers are struggling just to feed their own families, let alone their scaly mates.

If you find yourself in this situation then please don't despair. You don't need to pay $7.50 for a container of 50 half dead Indian House Crickets. Just fashion yourself a bloody big net, hang it out of the side of your car and drive across the nearest paddock. That is what I do.

In fact, I would consider patenting my own design of drag net, which comprises a pool scoop handle, some polypipe and a double bed sheet clipped at the end with glove clips (the FIFisters know what these are). 

Maybe I should raise some CapEx via crowd funding and produce a limited production run of what a friend of mine has affectionately dubbed the Bag of Mitch. I'll just have to make sure the idea does not get leaked out on YouTube by some unscrupulous bastard with an iPhone.

Swan Lake Smells of Two Stroke

If you wake up today and you are feeling a little 'edgy' then I would like to suggest an activity that will test your dexterity, poise and resolve. 

If you have children, just pop out to the garage and grab one of their bicycles. If you don't have children, or a bicycle of your own, just steal one - kids often leave them lying around in playgrounds.

Grab your outdoor table, or if you don't have one of those then drag your dining room table out onto the lawn.

Now extricate your ladder from the bowels of the garden shed and lean it up against your gutter. 

Climb (with your bicycle) up onto the roof of your house. 

With caution, make your way to the edge of the roof - be careful. Can you see the table? Good. 

Dial 000 and state your name and address.

Now straddle the bike, jump off the roof, land on the table remaining upright and balanced with both feet still on the pedals.

How did you go? Did it hurt? Much? 

If you lack the resolve to try such a feat, but you would still like some perspective, see image below. Now, imagine doing a very similar feat on a motorbike. It may be a struggle to comprehend but people actually do this!!!! They did it last night and they will be doing again tonight at Barbagallo Baseball Park in Thornlie.

The fact that anyone can do what is basically PARKOUR on a motorbike simply staggers me. The fact that pro-athletes in extreme sports crash hard, get up and keep riding (often with what would normally be considered debilitating injuries) baffles my brain. Neil Price did both last night.

Riding what they call the Titan Tyres (about a dozen mine machinery sized tyres layed sideways and upright), Neil lost the front end of his bike into the centre of a tyre and went over the handlebars, planting the front end of his body into the turf. He got up, got his s%%t back in one sock and was the first and only rider to tackle an insane set of concrete columns without one foot coming off the bike.Watch it - . Australian XTrials - it makes bits of my brain dribble out of my ears.

And if that is not crazy enough check out the Nolan Brothers - Nolan Bros Circus

The capacity of the human mind and body is beyond reckoning and I was witness to that last night.