#57 - SUNDAY, FUNDAY #5

Damn, it's bed time and I almost forgot my weekly totally random, dear diary, day-in-the-life, off-topic SUNDAY, FUN DAY post!

I love to educate and I love to tell travel stories and I do love to rant now and again. But these off-topic Sunday posts are equally fun for me and I hope some readers enjoy them too. If not, just skip them.

For this week's SF post I will just share my weekend. I worked the 9-5 shift on Saturday at On Target Range and Tactical Training Center. I close on Friday nights so it has affected the ritual me and my bonus dad Joel had going with dinner and a movie every Friday night. We go to iPic Theaters in South Barrington where I have a membership and we sit in our power recliners with pillow and blanket and order good food and drink while we watch the flick. Sometimes we eat beforehand at the neighboring Wok 'n Fire, which has some really good sushi - my favorite food. Now that I am working on Friday evenings, Joel and I have only occasionally been able to catch a movie together, the last being Amy Schumer's excellent Trainwreck. So I messaged Joel on Friday, and asked if he might want to come visit me at work before the end of my shift for a full tour followed by some shooting. I've taken Joel shooting at On Target a number of times pre-employment, but now I could give him the full tour and I no longer pay for range time and have a wide range of company owned firearms to shoot. On all of our previous visits I had just taught Joel to fire a variety of my own handguns. He and I shot machine guns and the .50 cal Barrett sniper rifle out in Arizona during one of our trips to Vegas, but I never shot rifles with him at On Target. We have 12 lanes of 25 yard pistol range on one side of the pro shop and 12 lanes of 50 yard rifle range on the other. He was surprised when I told him that instead of firing any of my guns including the one I was wearing for my shift, we would instead be shooting three .45 ACP handguns from the rental selection that I had chosen (Springfield Operator 1911, CZ 97 BD and Springfield XDM-45 Match), and also three rifles (Smith & Wesson M&P15 AR-15 with an EOTech red dot sight, a Springfield M1A (civilian version of the old military M14) and a Remington 700 with a Leopold scope). Both of the latter rifles are chambered in the powerful .308 Winchester (7.62 x 51 mm).

Anyway, here's a vid clip of the Honorable Joel Greenblatt (he's a Judge!) sending some lead down range with the AR-15.

After our range session we visited Kumi Sushi, which is also in Crystal Lake, for some fabulous fresh, raw fish.

Dining on my favorite cuisine.
I've lost 30 pounds now, but this is an unavoidable diet cheat.

Joel and I are going to Costa Rica for ten days at the beginning of December, and during dinner we discussed our upcoming trip. This morning I booked our rental car and made inquiries for our first lodging, which will be at the same location as my 2006 Costa Rica field trip's first base camp - La Quinta Sarapiqui near La Selva Biological Station.

Then I drove to Wheaton, Illinois where an "All Animal Expo" is held twice a month. It's worth the hour drive each way for me just to get crickets for $15 or less a thousand. I don't need as many as I did a month or two ago, but with 500 ct. boxes for $10 that probably contain almost a thousand crickets you can't go wrong and I'll just grow up the unneeded smaller ones. What I always do when they start to mature is dump that excess outdoors! I don't want chirpers or females laying eggs in my terrariums!

On the way there I reached out to my best mate Mark Pennell via FaceTime. Yes, it was while driving. I set my phone horizontally by my dash gauges and mostly kept my eyes on the road. Afterward he texted me a photo of my mates Ray and Ange Hale on his computer screen as he had FaceTimed with them next. Ray and Ange have run the British Tarantula Society for decades and are dear friends who I look forward to seeing on every trip over. I miss Mark, Kim and Brandon and am glad that Mark should be staying with me for a week again during the first week of October.

Rayzor and Angela - the heart of the British Tarantula Society

Two more of the BTS' finest and my dearest mates
Kim and Mark Pennell

Mark is the originator of the "Sunday, Funday" tag as he spends his well-deserved day off chilling and, more often than not, keeping Tiger beer in business. Kim and Mark and their families and friends are members of a local social club and pub called the P.B.A. (Port of Bristol Authority) and Sunday usually sees the whole gang getting together there. So, of course, he had to text me a pic of his first round of Tiger. My only drinking during my now month-plus diet was when I visited the Campbell brothers and the other Minnverts up in Minneapolis last weekend. I gained a few pounds back that weekend, but shed them and more within the next 48 hours so it was another well-earned and necessary "cheat". Now I have to be good all week as we have an On Target company BBQ at the boss' house this coming Saturday. I'll be headed there straight from work with a bottle of Breckenridge Small Batch Bourbon and some blackberry brandy for my boss and maybe a bottle of wine for his wife.


I had to deliver one spider order and also return a male Harpactira chrysogaster to Jason Newland. I had paired one female with the male two weeks ago (that video is here), but hadn't gotten around to pairing my second mature female. Last night, even though I was extremely exhausted and full of sushi and a big bottle of Asahi, I did pair the male with the other female before I hit the hay. Both pairing went very well so I doubt I will need to borrow Jason's male again. The female's are extremely receptive and the males are eager and fearless. I love Harpactira.

Harpactira chrysogaster, adult male

Of course, the first people I greet at each All Animal Expo is Randy and Randy Martinez of Evil's Arachnids. This father and son team have become good friends and also are customers. Mark had asked me to say hi to them and I took this photo to text to Mark.

Randy Sr. and Randy Jr. Martinez of Evil's Arachnids
vendors at Wheaton, Illinois' All Animal Expo

After the show I did what Sundays are best for - feeding spiders and napping! The feeding part is becoming a less-time consuming task, but I've still got plenty more to do on my Tuesday day off, which also will see me sending out more spider orders. I've got to open tomorrow morning at On Target, so now it's time to sleep.

Auf wiedersehen, MJ