#39 - MORE RANDOM SHITE

Hello everyone,

Thanks so much for all of the positive feedback I have been receiving. I also appreciate any negative comments, especially if they are in the form of constructive criticism. Those who are following the blog are part of my team and I welcome your help and ideas as it moves forward.

As you know I've started a new career and my time has become more limited. However, I am dedicated to this project and will make the time to keep the blog entries coming with regularity. In fact, working a full-time job, plus my full-time work as tarantula breeder and keeper with a couple thousand mouths to feed hasn't slowed me down at all. I'm an early riser and a fast typer so I can churn out my blog with my morning coffee. I have the Blogger app on my iPad and iPhone so I can even work at it while on lunch or breaks at work. However, I type much faster on my MacBook Pro and try to do most of the writing first thing in the morning.

I had a bit of a scare this morning. I opened Blogger on my iPad while I was on the throne (I know, TMI) and saw a typo correction that needed to be made in last night's #38 on Pokie breeding. I made the fix and published and then - to my HORROR - I realized that what was on the iPad was only the first few paragraphs of the lengthy Pokie breeding tutorial. I had just overwritten the entire blog with just the first 20% or so of it. Doh! There was a bit of panic and I rushed to my laptop to see if I could access the full version. My laptop had shut down and restarted during the night. Panic increased. Then I remembered Feedly. This is the app that was recommended to me and I recommended to you. It is a great way to follow blogs. I opened Feedly on the iPad and thankfully it showed the full entry from last night because I didn't refresh the feed. I copied and pasted it back into the Blogger app and then re-published the blog in its entirety. Problem solved. Re-writing what I spent an hour or more on last night would have sucked monkey ass.

Since you are following my Blog I just wanted to give a quick reminder of how to follow me elsewhere. Any reader who has read all of my entries (this is #39 since June 3, but there were a few part B posts to bring the total to 46 entries!) knows of my disdain for Faffbook so we'll just forget about that. I am accepting few friend requests these days and haven't been posting much on any of my pages. I am an admin for the BTS Facebook group so I do keep an eye on that so I can delete handling pics and advertisements and any other rule violations, but really the only FB thing I want to promote is my KMBHS page. If you aren't using Feedly or Blogger or something similar to follow this blog you should keep an eye on my announcements on the KMBHS FB page. Of course, you could also just bookmark and revisit KMBHS every day or two. But I will again plug Feedly as I am now following some firearm and photograph blogs there, and it saved my ass this morning.

The social media I enjoy is Instagram. It's just about sharing pix or 15 sec vid clips. I share images and videos. People like, sometimes comment. No nonsense, no Facebook Fuckery (see Blog #24). Just like on Twitter and YouTube my username is @exoticfauna. I will warn you that on Instagram I do sometimes post non-arachnid related images. Most are tarantula pix, but there are also plenty of tattoos, guns, travel, Starbucks in exotic locales, friends, etc. However, the majority of posts are arachnid related. (BTW, for any of you that are into handguns (which I promised wouldn't become a KMBHS topic) I have just started a new Instagram for handgun pix called @dailyhandgun. This will make my @exoticfauna Instagram mostly spiders with the occasional tattoo, people and travel pix and such.

I also wanted to remind everyone that I have canceled the lecture I was going to do on the genus Poecilotheria at the late August NARBC show outside of Dallas, Texas. With the new career I simply cannot take the time off. I apologize to anyone who was looking forward to attending. I also canceled my vendor booth at the October Tinley Park, IL NARBC, both for time off reasons and the fact that my retail sales have mostly ceased.

For those of you waiting for my "clearance" retail list I am working on it as I find the time. I have been inventorying my spiders as I feed them and will send out a list this week. So make sure you are subscribed to my mailing list if you are interested. Now that the e-commerce site has closed I have returned the SPIDERSHOPPE page to my main ExoticFauna site and made it even easier to subscribe with a signup form embedded in the page itself. I will be doing my offers privately via the mailing list moving forward. If you are a re-seller and wish to receive a wholesale list you can email me at spidershoppe@icloud.com and I'll add you manually to that mailing list. I currently have some spiders that need to be sold in bulk and will be offering very generous pricing.

Finally, I'd like to say that this Blog has become like a book or may just be a book disguised as a Blog. I have been writing "essays" to become part of a comprehensive book on tarantula care and breeding. I have considered that instead of just a book that incorporates the basic material and beginner information that my Animal Planet "Tarantulas" already provides quite well, and then continuing on to advanced keeping and breeding, I would instead write a book of assorted topical essays and feature my photography along with that of my friends Chad Campbell and Jason Newland. However, books don't sell and the publishing industry has taken a hit with the economy. Self-publishing options have increased, but the quality of printing (especially with regards to photo reproduction) aren't great and to make a book I'd be happy with would be cost-prohibitive. You are getting these "essays" for free in the form of a blog. I think this is the medium I wish to use. I just need to spread the word and reach as wide of an audience as possible.

Thanks for reading these random thoughts. The next blog entry will return to the Makandawa Rain Forest Reserve for Day 2 of our hunt for Poecilotheria ornata. That will be #6 in the ongoing Tales from the Field series. Casa de Tarantula is at #2 and Breeding Tarantulas is at #1. I look forward to continuing these series and doing a few more "rants". The next rant will be titled "Popularity Contests".

All the best, Michael Jacobi