#46 - SUNDAY, FUNDAY #3

It's random morning. I'll off to work for Day #7 in a string of 9 in a row. Six day week last week, six day week this week. I am officially a working stiff. And I'm loving every minute of it. Change can be good, very good. I am enjoying a fresh start. I've been dieting and already lost about 15 pounds. I think I'm getting out of the depressing rut that started with my mother's sudden death 2 1/2 years ago, my return to Chicagoland, and was then exacerbated by the passing of my precious pooch Taylor this past December just days after I returned from Sri Lanka.

My "liquidation sale" has gone extremely well and I've already spent some of the money on a couple of new firearms. I promised Tom this wouldn't become a gun blog, but he's drinking Coors light in Tucson at the "Bringing the Hobby Together" conference that Ken "the bug buy" and his wife Georgi put together as a placeholder for this year's cancelled ATS conference. My earlier reference to "beer and bacon" was a reference to Tom, who commented to me that he would keep reading as long as Kiss My Big Hairy Spider continued as arachnocentric reading and didn't venture into my other passions or hobbies. I promised him that I might mention beer and bacon - two things that I know he is passionate about. Give Tom a Coors Light, a plate of bacon and some Taco Bell and he is a happy boy. Surround it by some cool New World tarantulas and various true spiders and he is in complete bliss.

The "Bringing the Hobby Together" con reminds me of something I wanted to discuss. And the random shite of "Sunday, Funday" is the perfect time to do it. I've received numerous private emails asking me about the future of my ArachnoGathering, which is held in conjunction with the March NARBC event in Tinley Park, Illinois. I've held two so far and was looking forward to a third in March 2016. My answer as to whether that will occur is that I simply do not know. I was scheduled to lecture at the NARBC event in Arlington, Texas in about one month. I receive a free vendor booth for speaking and it was going to be my first visit to that NARBC stop outside of Dallas. Due to my new career I was forced to cancel that trip, which was mostly disappointing because I had intended to spend some time afterward hunting and photographing southwestern Texas with my bud Chad Campbell. Due to the closing of SPIDERSHOPPE I also cancelled my vendor booth for the October NARBC Tinley Park. I don't know if these cancellations have pissed off Brian Potter and Bob & Sheri Ashley who run NARBC. I doubt it. However, I still am unsure whether the termination of my participation in their events will mean that they will be less willing to provide me with the facility for ArachnoGathering #3. I suppose only time will tell. I'll have to wait until fall or early winter and see how motivated I am myself to run a third AG. If I am I certainly will contact them and if they cannot provide me with what they have in the past I will just look for another site. Perhaps if I offer to do a public lecture for free they'll still provide the facility for ArachnoGathering #3.