Tinley 2008

[Russell]

Well I'm back from Tinley! And I can't believe how FAST it went! Seemed such a blip in the whole scale of time that makes up a year. Yet it's one of those events I look forward to all year. Where I've worked a whole year trying to produce something exciting out of my stock and raising them up to be well started babies that others can be proud of and not have a lot of difficulty in getting started.

Anyhow...we got up around five in the morning on Wed and hit the road. Our first stop was to see my mother and grandmother who was in town. Menomonie, Wisconsin to be exact. Also got together with Cat Eyed Lady and Mysterry for a wee bit to buy the last of their normal corns to take to Tinley with me.

Note to self, ALWAYS bring extra deli cups! Thankfully Kathy Love had some extras so I could put the babies into and sell. Thursday morning found us up somewhat later. Had a nice home cooked breakfast at my Mom's.

We then headed down to Chuck and Connie's home in Southern Wisconsin. And I thought what a perfect new location for them! It was great being to talk in person about snakes. We decided at that time that Connie was to stay with the Aussie pups till Sat. morning when the sitter came. So we were going to take two vehicles on Friday and have Scott get into one or the other. Funny how the best laid plans... Well Scott was unable to come. So we waited till Saturday morning to get up early and drive on down for the show. Rebecca certainly LOVED getting to play with the pups.

[Russell]

We arrived at Tinley with a couple hours to set up our table, get checked into our room, and get all set for the rush of people. I brought along a very small pile of corns this year and was heavy on the Pinesnakes. Brought ten Pinesnakes to the show and only left the show with three. And just my luck, it seems around half of all the babies decided it was a great time for a shed...gah! Can't win! But overall it was a great first day.

After the first day of the show, a bunch of us got together and at at the hotel's restaurant.


And back of this table from left to right is...Connie, then Chuck, then Dan aka CrotalusCo. Then it's Kitty aka Nancy. Her husband Mike. Across the table on this side from right to left, in the blue with part of her head not showing is Kathy Love. Then coming down the roal right to left is her husband Bill in the green shirt. And the gentleman beside Bill is Alain. Then to the far left of this front of the table is the back of my wife's head.

[Russell]

and some more shots of the same

[Russell]

many hours later we FINALLY were allowed to have some food and just as a certain few got started on their desert... a nasty sounding alarm goes off and oops...the fire alarm systems are flashing on the walls!!!!

A bit of confusion but we knew the the drill. We picked up our bills and our stuff and were told to evacuate the building and out into the parking lot. Word was there was something going on second floor. The fire trucks came a LOT faster than our food did that evening. And they seemed to keep on coming, one after another! My wife tried to take some shots but only one wasn't too blurry.... She did later attend Bills talk on photography...and I hope it sank in a little...

Anyhow, no flames were ever seen but during the hour or so we were standing outside we chatted nervously about the worst case scenarios...About what stuff was left in our rooms up on sixth floor if the place did go up in flames out of control!

But thankfully there was in fact no fire at all. But an alarm was kicked off when someone broke the glass on one of the fire extinguishers cases, then took it out and sprayed the hallway with the contents of it and then bailed down the stairs thinking he was being funny... Not knowing that they caught it all on the security cameras he apparently didn't know were there! So they were waiting for this individual when he came back to the hotel at five in the morning...!!!

Just think, we work hard to keep the reptile community in good standing with the general population. It's hard enough they don't like our animals, and then someone in the group goes and pulls this stunt and makes the reptile community as a whole look bad! What kind of image do we portray to the general public that uses the hotel at the same time, or happens to come to the event just to see what it's like? Plenty of food for thought! Yes the majority of reptile enthusiasts are good people. But it only takes one bad apple....

[Russell]

Well anyhow, other than that unneeded excitement of the fear of fire in the hotel...it was a great time had by our group. I didn't have to work too hard to get Mike, Kitty aka Nancy's husband to buy a pair of Northern Pines from me. They attract attention all on their own!

I was rather surprised at how some corns didn't move at all. I didn't sell a SINGLE bloodred and I was only selling at 50 each! Only brought two Okeetees and didn't sell them either! I sold a few of Cat Eyed Lady's normal corns that went to good first time homes. Naturally I sold the only two Candy Canes I brought but they didn't go fast. Didn't sell a single Amber retail either! Had the prettiest pink snow there and he also didn't sell at retail for me!

Clearly for me, it was my Northern Pines that pulled through for me. Brought ten along for the show and sold seven at retail prices. Some of the jani also sold for me. My black pine, not surprisingly, didn't make it through half the first day and he got snatched up. So if it wasn't for my Pines, I really would have done poorly this year!

It put into perspective that hey, wow, am sure glad I did NOT bring more than what I brought along for corns. Kathy was nice enough to let me wholesale my colored corns to her. The normals went to my other wholesaler who also bought the remaining Pituophis at wholesale prices. So overall it was a good weekend where hey, I do this for fun, not for a living! And I feel so badly for those who ARE trying to make a living from this! Ouch!

Anyhow, I did pick up a few snakes. funny how they all came from the table right next door... Kathy and Alain did a good job of letting me look again and again and again till I just couldn't resist... And Kathy at the end of the show so slyly said, Hey Russ, don't you want a male goldust to go with your female?

*sigh* Yes Kathy...LOL!

It was great getting to meet Alain this weekend and talking with him about snakes. And he had this hypo stripe het caramel that kept calling my name every time I looked his direction...*sigh* I have NO ability to hold back!

There were corns on other tables that I liked too. But the one sunkissed yearling female had sold before the end of the show when I made my last pass. And the Strawberry corns were so badly overpriced for what I was willing to pay for them. I am sure Chuck can cut me a nice deal and throw the Motley gene in for free...

I see the ball python prices and some boa prices continue to fall but still out of my willingness to spend that kind of money on them. I know...I'm cheap......

But seriously...I like the look of Caramel ball pythons...I can actually ADMIT to liking a ball python morph! So when they are selling for ten bucks...

Here's a bunch of pics that I took. I SHOULD have been out taking more but I wanted to be at the table just in case. And at other times I was out walking around with my daughter and keeping a CLOSE eye on her. She had her moments at the show but otherwise was pretty well behaved considering her age. She kept pointing out the bearded dragons over and over again. Remembering the dragon we used to have. Well, I broke down when I saw some gorgeous babies going for a mere 50 dollars and got one for her. So for a while she was happily walking around the show with her dragon in his container. She's still a very happy girl about her dragon!

[Russell]

And some more...

[Russell]

And now...last but not least, the additions to my collection!

First up, Draco the second! LOL! Rebecca won't call him anything else! So it's another Draco! He's some sort of Sandfire yellow something or other crossed to something else purty sounding...frankly he's just a pet as I have NO intentions of getting into breeding bearded dragons! He's just a pet! And a nice looking one at that!

I saw some Red Sandfires that made me drool but at 200 a crack... Well, the price tag cooled my jets totally! I wasn't making a killing when my corns weren't selling! So I couldn't justify hauling over the cash for such a pricey dragon when concern about having enough to get my family back HOME on was priority number one!

So seeing Draco's parents over at another table caught my eye. I walked over and a gentleman had Draco in his hands. And the breeder was talking about all the grand points of this gorgeous baby... And then the guy put him back down in the tub while he went over to another tub the breeder was pointing out when the customer asked some other question...

I wasted no time in fishing Draco back out and nodded to the breeders wife with my fifty dollar bill stretched out to her. My daughter and I made our quick get away with our prize. Me grinning ear to ear cause I was proud I found a great looking dragon at a great price. Rebecca grinning ear to ear cause, well, to her, she didn't care what color he is, she got her dragon!

[Russell]

It wasn't long after the start of the first day of the show that I saw Kathy had some Golddust corns on her table. And all through the day I kept looking at them over and over again... And in the mean time this Caramel caught my eye also. *sigh* oh why oh why do I need yet MORE snakes? LOL! But eventually I got wore down and a bit scared when people kept picking up the deli of the one female golddust I liked. I kept thinking, oh, she's gone! Kathy's got her sold! Well, my heart couldn't take much more of that and I had to have her! At the end of the show the male I also liked joined her when Kathy bought some of my remaining corns and offered to take a bit off his price if I'd take him in turn of cutting down her bill to me for the corns she was buying from me at wholesale price. I couldn't refuse! Here they are. Female first.

And third is the Caramel I also bought at the same time I got the female Golddust. She's such a dark thing with high yellow...and I like her markings...She just had so much going for her and I was curious what kind of caramel she'd turn into. As I've seen many that are simply ugly...but every now and then I see a Caramel that makes me go...oh wow...that turned out nice... Am sure hoping this is one of them!

[Russell]

Alain was also sharing the table though the second day he put his on Kathy's as she had room. He took some serious kidding from Chuck about his taste in corns but I'm with Alain on this one, stripe corns can be beautiful too! And this little hypo stripe is het caramel. And his girlfriend, an Amber het stripe is a perfect route for me to make some Amber stripes when they get old enough to make some babies.

Isn't the hypo stripe the purtiest thing? I couldn't fork out the cash early on not knowing how sales would go and knowing my sales were NOT going that hot the first day, except for the Northern Pines. And no, having more of them would NOT have helped. I still left the show with three! I figure next year I won't be able to move many at all. Since the people who wanted them are now satisfied. And unless there is a HUGE influx i