_For me, Zoo Keeping is wonderfully rewarding, fun, and a heck of a lot of work.  It doesn't help that I work with poop machines. Thankfully they are herbivore poop machines and so it really doesn't smell that bad.  You want foul smelling feces - look to the carnivores, anything that eats meat (especially fowl) has some nasty poop.  Though they tend to eat less in poundage, and so poop less.

Huh, I really didn't meant to turn this into an excrement discussion.  I do help pick up about 1,200lbs of poop, leftover hay and dirt, a day, so it is kind of pertinent. And it is also the reason I don't currently need a gym membership.  I can wield a pitchfork with the best of them!

Never the less,  cleaning is a hefty part of the day, and we do clean every enclosure for our guys every day.  We compost the poop in the back and then use the fertilizer in the park.

We also feed them -  mostly hay, some grain and the Black rhinos really love their fruits and vegetables.  We go though about 8-10 bales of hay a day and 80lbs of grain overall. 

Each rhino has their own personality and it is so much fun to get to know them.  They also get to know you, a little, and they respond differently to the different keepers.  They enjoy rubs under the chin or on their backs and a good mud hole is no to be missed.  They are virtual mud puppies (it's how they cool off, since they can't swim. It's also sunscreen, bug repellant and moisturizer all rolled into one wet, sloppy package.)  We use positive reinforcement training to train mostly husbandry behaviors - behaviors that facilitate our care and maintenance of them. They come to their names, line up so we can inspect them for injuries or draw blood or do ultrasounds (all without sedation - though you do need a bucket of tasty treats or alfalfa, a sweet hay, as a focus for their attention.)

The day usually goes - arrive, check on everybody, shift, clean and feed. Training sessions can happen during the shifts (where we move them from one yard to another.  Rhinos tend to have pretty mellow personalities, but they are still 1,000s of pounds and we do not go in with them. It's a safety thing.  I'm down with it.) Weighing and any planned medical procedures usually happen in conjunction with shifting.  You look every animal over, making sure they are moving right, are injury free, their poop looks normal, their food consumption is normal, and their inter-rhino interactions are normal. Once out, and on display, we clean some more and have our guest interactions. Whether it is on the pathways or during behind the scenes tours it is fun to share our animal knowledge and spread the message of conservation.  I've had some great conversations with fellow animal enthusiasts.

Days can start early (before dawn) or end late (practically into the next day.) And if something special, like a birth, is expected, we might even work overnights.  The zoo is definitely different, and a little spooky at night, when everyone has gone home.

I will end on this - it is such an amazing experience to be standing out in an open plain, interesting animals I've helped have a better life grazing near by with lions roaring in the distance (or, even better, Hyena's whooping into the early morning haze.) Animals are noisy, and their vocalizations can be heard all over the zoo. So, while I may work with just rhinos, I am immersed in the wildlife from all corners of this amazing world.

And that makes my world, just a little more amazing.

So, I have already written my congressmen about this.  What about you? yes, you there reading this on the INTERNET...which these bills are wanting to limit and restrict.  I'm just saying, read up on the issue and make your own decisions - and that decision should be to speak up! Want help getting your voice heard? Go HERE.

Am I a hippie? yeah, sort of; Am I an activist? not unless you happen to have horns, hindgut fermentation and an odd number of toes.  But I do believe in this...

"Recently, two bills have been introduced into Congress that – if passed – will do irreparable damage to the Internet, entrepreneurship, free speech, and job creation as a result of the continued entrepreneurial activity around the Internet.

Fred Wilson has a strong post up titled Protecting The Safe Harbors Of The DMCA And Protecting Jobs that explains the situation. Go read the post now – it’s an outstanding summary in plain English of what is going on.

If you don’t want to read the bills, watch the following four minute video for another excellent summary of what they are about, especially how the bills will be used by existing large companies."

In the long running soap opera of my cooking for myself I have a new chapter where Eduardo finally reveals he's Anita's secret half father...or...as I have also come to know it- when Okra, Sausage and Onion collide.

Ingredients: 1 Vidalia Onion, 1 Bag of Frozen Okra, 1 package Turkey Smoked Sausage (from Hillshire farms – same ones that make kielbasa, which also happens to be sitting in my fridge waiting for the searing attention of a hot pan.)

1. Mix together microwave heated Okra and sliced onions and sausage pieces that you just seared in a pan on medium heat.  Done.

The tasting - The onions are sweet and the meat savory. The Okra is…slimy, also a tad sour and rounds out the flavor. The meat has a little bit of spice, that dances on the tongue. Now I must explain, my love of spices is like my introversion.  The spice politely walks up and says "good day" to my tongue and my taste buds run screaming for the safety of my esophagus.  Yeah, I don’t do spicy (hot); however, spicy (flavor) is just fine.

Dessert will be Reese’s Puffs cereal surrounded comfortably in skim milk. 

Just finished watching Matrix: Revolutions and enjoyed it a little more than I have in the past. Maybe I'm just accepting it for what it is, instead of riding that hope that it was going to be something different.  I think one of the problems with the second two Matrix movies is that the first one ended so definitively.  I know Neo hadn't actually freed anyone yet, but the potential had already exploded in our brains the second after he flew off screen. 

I'm talking about that idea that the human mind will fill in far more details when given the chance than when everything is described exactly in a story or all possible scenes are shown in a movie.  If I were writing "Marybell climbs the stairs," your brain is going to fill in what the stairs look like, feel like, smell like, if there's wallpaper or the color of the paint.  Obviously stories can't be devoid of detail, but it's about chosing the right ones and letting the reader fill in the rest.  Maybe you had played on the stairs a lot growing up and so have vivid sensory info that you will now subconsciously plug into the story. 

What I'm getting at here, is that the first Matrix movie was mind bending; a feast for the eyes that left us with an end where we could imagine Neo saving humanity in whatever way we chose.  Then...the writers filled in the blanks, and maybe it wasn't as we saw it, or wanted it to be.  Maybe they set so much up with the second one that any end, however inevitable, was going to be a let down from our own power of imagination.  We'd already completed the story, or at least the surety that there was one.  Pinning down their idea meant that ours wasn't real. Or, maybe it went from being our personal special idea to the mass of everyone who didn't write the movie's personal special ideas. 

Just a thought. Enjoyed the movies. Wonderfully creative.


p.s. I will give Lucas a small pass on the prequels based on this line of reasoning, but that still doesn't explain the dialogue. 

OK, before he was on Tosh.0, a few days before New Years Eve of 2003/2004, I watched the Daniel Tosh Comedy Central special.  I enjoyed it and took a liking to this bit in particular.  Then I went to my friends New Year Eve party, where, as had never happened before and probably will never happen again, I used the bit well.  The tone, the timing and the motions- all perfect.  I nailed it, to the amusement of all. It was a glorious moment.  I still relish it.

Yes, I was, for one shining moment, the life of the party. 


Did I mention I am a pretty deep introvert?
I watch the world from afar and pray, dear gods, that no one notices me.


It was Glorious I tell you!