Please allow myself to introduce....myself

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turtlewurx

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Greetings!

I was asked to drop by here & mention a little bit about myself, so here I am.

I guess I'll go over the basics first. My name's John David Scott, I'm 38. My friends call me either JD or “Turtle”. I'm of (mostly) Scots-Irish descent, with a little German, Choctaw, and Cajun thrown in for spice. Married to an AMAZING lady named Melanie. Majored in Fine Art & minored in English in college. I live Nacogdoches, a small college town in East Texas. I’m a massive geek, and my wife’s a nerd. (& we’re dorky enough to make that distinction.)

In direct contradiction to my geek side, I’ve been a stick fighter for about 20 years, and am president of the Clan MacRaith Motorcycle Association.

I do freelance graphic design on the side, under the moniker of TurtlewurX Productions. (Some of my work can be viewed here: http://turtlewurx.deviantart.com/gallery/ ) It definitely does not pay the bills, but it's a nice hobby & it's fun to brag about.) I specialize in the reconstruction of medieval artifacts -mostly weapons-, though I’ve worked all over the spectrum... From digital art to leather craft. I’ve actually had some of my work displayed at both the Longview Historical Museum & the Tyler Library. I’ve also designed the cover art for several CDs & DVDs.

After about 20 years in the sign industry, I finally opened up my own shop. (Highland Motorworks) Mostly we do vehicle graphics for motorcycles, but we also do signs, banners, vehicle wraps, etc.

I’ve been in the art industry, in one form or another, nearly my entire life... Mostly I’ve gravitated towards advertising since it’s the most stable way to earn a paycheck & still get to be kind of artsy. I’ve written & edited radio ads, done professional graphic design, logo design, vehicle graphics, played at some photography, had some of my poetry & short stories published in small press, & I’ve made more signs and banners than I care to think about.......... I love to try my hand at any art form I come across. Not that I’m very good at ‘em all, but I still like to give it a shot. My only real regret is that I’d LOVE to sing or play an instrument, but I can’t even carry a tune in a bucket

I also do a fair amount of historical reenactment. Everything from the S.C.A. to Early American Buckskinners. (I tend to avoid Civil War stuff though.)

I practice several forms of Western Martial Arts (mostly stave, cudgel, or sword related.)

I’ve been an animal lover all my life, and have raised all sorts; Dogs & cats (of course), but also ferrets, hedgehogs, guinea pigs, fish, frogs, lizards, a few turtles, and lots & LOTS of snakes.

In high school/early college, I had 4 Red Eared Sliders that were injured shortly after hatching when we were clearing a field next to the lake. The intention was to nurse them back to health & then release them back into the wild. I grew rather fond of them though, and kept them for several years. Their diet consisted of live food sources, so they wouldn’t have a problem hunting once released. (i.e., no reptisticks, etc.) They eventually began to outgrow their habitat (for about the third time), and I couldn’t afford a larger habitat, so I released them near the area I had found them. It wasn’t until later that I learned of the myriad other dangers involved in releasing captive turtles. I wouldn’t do that now, of course, but at the time I didn’t know better.

I have also had a few box turtles. I have maybe 2 years experience with them. I had to find new homes for James T. Skywalker & Darth Kahn though since the apartment I was living in at the time changed their pet policy.

….& that’s about it. Sorry to be so long winded, but I found it difficult to condense my whole life into a couple of paragraphs.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to talking to folks on this forum, & getting advice on what sort of tort I should adopt.
 

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Yvonne G

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Wow! Thank you for that! I love getting to know our members, and especially seeing their pictures.

Welcome to the Tortoise Forum, where you are among many, many, in fact so many nerds and geeks, that we're all quite normal!!
 

gopherhockey03

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Welcome to the Forum!!! Since you have lots of snakes you should help me on choosing a snake!!! And I'll help you with a tortoise!!! Sounds like a fair trade!!!
 

Tom

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Hello and welcome! Great intro. You sound like a pretty cool dude.

And there are no geeks OR nerds here.... BAHAHAHAAAAAA. I couldn't keep a straight face when I said that...

So many times I have given a ten minute explanation on pyramiding and my opinion on the state of all things tortoise, and after sitting there politely listening (usually with a grin) the person will look right at me when I'm all done and exclaim, "You are such a NERD!" :D
 

turtlewurx

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gopherhockey03, sounds like a deal to me.

There's a whole list o' questions to ask to determine what kind o' snake would best suit you.

Your experience level with snakes? Poisonous or non? Would kids be handling it? disposition (by which, mainly I mean aggression level)? big or little? what are you interested in feeding it? (Some folks have an aversion to feeding pinkie mice to snakes.), etc. etc.

My personal favorite is the Heterodon or hog nosed snake, or as my redneck cousins call them, "Puff adders".

They don't have fangs, so they're one of the better snakes to have around kids. For both their sakes. (I've seen a milk snake strike a child, and it's fangs sank too deep to immediately let go. The kid -maybe 10 or so-, panicked, and ripped the snake off his hand. injuring himself further and nearly killing the snake.) ANY snake will bite as a defensive measure, but the hog nose will first flare it's neck & ram (closed mouth) & then play dead before it'll bite.

Now when scared, they WILL musk. That stinks something awful, but if you handle them enough, they'll stop.

They can get as big as 4', but tend to average 1'-2'. They can come in an amazing array of colors. They're fairly easy to care for. They eat small rodents, lizards, and frogs/toads.

Here's a decent wikipedia article on them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterodon


No problem, emysemys. I'm a visual-type person myself, so I love pics when possible. Thought I might as well put a "face" to my "voice".

Thanks Tom! Looks like I'll be in good company!
 

turtlewurx

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A few newbie questions, if I may:

1) What's with the stars under everyone's name?

2) I see in the tag lines folks list their pets in a #.#.# format. Can anyone explain that to me?
 

DriveWRX

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Welcome John!

I love your box turtles' names, James T. Skywalker & Darth Kahn.
A Trekkie and a Star Wars fan! I'm more a Star Wars geek myself...


I can answer question 2:
Each number represents the number of males, females and unkowns in the collection. Add them all up and that's the total number of individuals in the collection.

So, if I had 1.2.1 Hermann's, then it would be 1 male, 2 females and 1 unsexable, for a total of 4 animals.
 

dmmj

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What's stick fighting
The star represent how many posts and level you are.
 

turtlewurx

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DriveWRX said:
Welcome John!

I love your box turtles' names, James T. Skywalker & Darth Kahn.
A Trekkie and a Star Wars fan! I'm more a Star Wars geek myself...

Thanks! I'm more of a Star Wars fan too but my wife's more of a trekkie, so we compromised on the names. 8)
 

turtlewurx

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GAAAH!!!!!! I just wrote this long explanation of stick fighting & the computer ate it!

Lets try this again.....

re: The numbers: AHHH! Got it. Thanks!

re: Stick Fighting.

Stick Fighting is actually a fairly broad subject. Short form is, Martial Arts with a stick. Longer form is like this:

Stick fighting can cover everything from European Waster combat (which entails dressing in a full suit of medieval armor & fighting with wooden swords. The swords can range from rattan -which is fairly flexible-, to hickory... depending on the group your training/sparring with.)

to Irish stick fighting (which is training to use the shillelagh)

to various Backsword/Singlestick/Cutlass/Cudgel styles that were practiced around the 1600/1700s and are now seeing a revival

to Asian stick fighting, such as Arnis, Kali, Escrima, etc. (These styles mainly use a pair of 2' long sticks.)

Stick fighting can even incorporate the English quarterstaff, or the Asian Bo Staff, again depending on what you're doing & who you're doing it with.

There's various cane styles, like Korean Hapkido, French La Canne, or British Bartitsu.

The groups themselves are as varied as the styles. On one hand you have groups like the SCA, ECS, etc., who are historical reenactors trying to recreate medieval tournaments and battles with a full contact western martial art, then you have various schools/colleges/dojos that teach stick fighting (Which is pretty much like enrolling in a karate class, only with a stick.), THEN you have the other extreme, with folks like the Dog Brothers, who pretty much just gather at a park, put on fencing masks, and beat each other to a pulp.

RE: stars: Cool! Thanks!

RE: Being a nephew look-alike: I actually get that quite a bit. I guess I just have one o' those faces that looks like it belongs to someone else. 8)
 

turtlewurx

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Momof4 said:
Yup, your a nerd:) Welcome!

No, no my wife's the nerd. I'm a just a geek. (Mel is Sooooo much smarter than me. I'm just a wealth of useless pop culture references. ) 8)
 

Zamric

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Welcome to the Forum!

1st off...James T. Skywalker & Darth Kahn... GREAT NAMES! makes me kinda wonder who I didn't come up with them:p

2nd... Stick fighting... KUDOS! I've been an avide SCA member for over 20 years. Ever go to Pennsic? If so, Ever heard of the Rogues?

3... I have a 5' Florida King Snake that is not handled much but enjoys trips into the yard or veggie Garden. And I also take care of a 4' Corn snake raised from a baby on mostly live feeding at the Montessori School I work at. She is handles ALL the time! 5-10 mins a day, 5 days a week. Feedings are Friday after school, almost always to a packed house!

...again, Welcome to the Forum!
 

pryncesssc

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Welcome!! I loved your intro , ur a great writer (hence ur college studies decision lol ) I think were all kind of nerdy/geeky in our own ways. I enjoy taking a bunch of college calc classes that I don't really need to graduate, that's pretty nerdy :p anyways welcome again !
 
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