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Short Scale StingRay

Wanna see my lizard?

Mobay45

Mobay45

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Apr 3, 2004
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Home of the Bongo Birthday Bash '06
Just got back from Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We had a great time but I'm glad to be back home with my Bongos.

I thought you might like to see a couple of pics from the week down there.

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Hasta la vista, baby.
 
LisaIs

LisaIs

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Sep 25, 2005
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Larry is cooler than the rest of us put together!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love those photos man.
 
Aussie Mark

Aussie Mark

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Nice to know there is someone whiter than me on the planet. You've dropped some pounds Larry, great work!

I see your lizard and raise you two pythons .....

DSCF0065.JPG
 
bovinehost

bovinehost

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I used to buy those iguanas for 10 bucks from kids on the side of the road in Central America. They were selling them as food items....I'd take them home, nurse them back to health and let them go in the jungle.

I'm sure I bought the same one more than once.
 
SteveB

SteveB

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I once had my wife take a photo of me sitting on some Mayan ruins, among what had to be 200 or more iguanas. I couldn't wait to see it! The photo development place ruined the entire roll and it was lost! I'm still mad about that!

Jack, I know what you mean. One of the restuarants in Cancun has iguana on the menu as part of the daily breakfast buffet. (I didn't try it...)
 
bovinehost

bovinehost

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Oh, I've eaten iguana. Never doubt it, when you're hungry, meat is meat.

Monkey, too. Other things I don't want to think about.

When I lived in Panama, my house was actually on a Panamanian infantry base, so the gate guards were locals. The guardhouse was on this long, straight road through the jungle, so any large constrictors crossing the road were fair game for dinner. The guards would rush down, capture the snake and keep it at the gate house until quitting time.

So I'd see them with these huge snakes, tied around the neck, anchored to a piece of concrete, sitting there like guard dogs or something. The 3rd or 4th time, I stopped and said, "What the hell are you guys doing with that snake?"

"Eating it for dinner" was the response.

So I'd offer them five bucks, ten bucks, which was much better for them than having to kill and clean an ornery python, and they'd go buy a week's worth of groceries and I'd go home with an extremely angry and stressed out reptile.

I'd pull the ticks off of 'em (yes, ticks can get between the scales) and have my neighbor, a vet, check them out. And eventually, the snakes would be returned to the jungle.

Just because I'm thinking about snakes, not that this has anything to do with Larry's vacation, but by God you can't spell 'hijack' without "jack", right?

Anyway. When the Panama invasion was imminent (Operation Just Because, I call it), we were on high alert all the damned time. God help the coatimundi that traipsed across a trip wire in those days! Marines, armed to the teeth and convinced that we were under attack, would rush out to see what poor creature had tripped the wire.

How many poor jungle animals were ventilated during those days? I don't know. I'd say this - a lot. 19 year old Marines don't like to 'react' and then come home without a pelt. Something needed to die! I tried talking to them, but they were young and had a lot of ammo.

So one afternoon I showed up at work and the Marines had captured this giant python. They were thinking hard about what to do with it, but being Marine Security Guards, their brains were not exactly working overtime.

So I said, "Look, let's pull the parasites off and then we'll let it go." They were apparently in a good mood and of course were sensitive to the fact that I outranked even their most holy of corporals.

While we're yanking the ticks off the poor thing, which was as angry as a snake can possibly be, and you do NOT want to be bitten by a python even if they're not venemous, the ALERT SIGNAL goes off and we have no choice but to react.

But what do we do with the snake? "Let's put it in the Captain's office!" This makes sense to me because it's basically a prison cell. No windows, one door, easily secured and the snake will by God be there when we finish dealing with the emergency, right? So we toss it in the Captain's office and the Marines go kill a monkey or something while I assure the United States that we are not being overrun by forces loyal to Manuel Noriega.

An hour later, weapons secured and reports written, invasion not yet imminent, we return to the office to retrieve our reptile.

Except he/she is NOT THERE.

Now the Marines live in the basement, completely unclassified spaces, but above us is way effin' super secret business. So I look up in the office and realize that the ceiling tiles are not exactly what you might call nailed down.

And all I can think is, "That snake does not have the proper clearance to be up there."

Also, I am thinking, "I am in deep kimshi here." No one expects Guard Force Marines to be making good decisions beyond the tactical ones, but me? I'm supposed to be smarter and stuff.

I'm in charge of the whole building and that snake is not there where it should be.

I'm imagining the report I'm going to have to compose when one of the Marines tilts back the little sofa in the office. There, completely coiled around each and every spring, is our pal, the python.

It took five Marines and yours truly to get that extremely vicious snake out of that couch, but I figured that was easy work compared to explaining why I'd approved the insertion of a deadly jungle reptile into the building.

The only other thing I can think of is that the snake went back into the jungle with nary a tick.

Here endeth the hijack.

Jack
 
bovinehost

bovinehost

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Big Poppa said:
I am absolutely 10000000percent terrified of snakes
Click to expand...

Because I am apparently in Story Mode, when I was working in San Antonio, we were absolutely overrun with two types of animals:

1. scorpions
2. rattlesnakes

Scorpions would sometimes just fall out of the lights in the ceiling. Seriously. They can't kill you, but they can sure as hell get your undivided attention when falling out of the sky.

I was at work one early evening. Someone comes running in, "There's a snake by the snack bar!" Questions, questions. "It's a rattlesnake!" Immediately, because it's a military environment, the mob forms, much like villagers advancing on Castle Frankenstein. Weapons brandished, etc etc etc.

I position myself so as to block the mob. "Do any of you know anything about snakes?" mumble mumble mumble.

"No?" I stare them down. (They hate that.)

I tell our ranking officer that I know a lot about snakes and that I will take care of it, but to keep the riled-up crowd at bay. Off we go.

It turns out to be an actual rattler, but it's a little guy and it's cold outside, so he's very tranquil. I pin his head down with a little dust scooper thing (like the thing you use with a broom, I can't think of what it's called now) and grab him. I'm surrounded by blood-lust-crazed military until I brandish the little feller.

I say, "I've got him!" and there's like one Marine, carefully keeping about 20 yards between us.

"Okay!" he says. "Good!" he says.

I am alone with my rattlesnake, really.

I toss the little guy over the fence. Later, the senior guy says, "We can't do that anymore." I ask why not. He says, "I appreciate that you want to save the poor things, but what if it bit you? Think of the paperwork I'd have to fill out."

This is always a consideration in the military.

(But I still saved three or four more rattlesnakes in San Antonio, dammit.)

Jack
 
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