A Snapping Success

The turtle above is celebrating with his arms in the air because all 32 of his snapping turtle family members successfully hatched and were released...3, then 6, then 20, then the final three today. (Well, maybe he is just terrified of the huge person hovering over him to take this pic). I'm surprised that they all made it and suffered many bug bites transporting them all out to their new home in the marsh. When there were just a few, I thought they were pretty cute, but as they grew in numbers, the prehistoric features started to creep me out a little. Here are a few more pics to check out..

Turtle Birthday!

The first snapping turtle started hatching on Monday night and climbed out of his shell this afternoon. He is a little camera shy and I figured it would be mean of me to go all paparazzi on him and try to get a better shot by making him pose or yelling his name (which he doesn't have yet). So for now, you get this shot of his back turned to me. Of course, you also get to see turtle #2 hatching...it seems to take about a day for them to come completely out of their shells. I'll release these two in a few days together and then continue to pair them and release them as they hatch. Stay tuned for more pics of the rest of the bunch.

The Kidz Bop Slaying

I don't like the sound of children singing. Call me a cold and heartless person, but unless they are in a prestigious choir or they are a cute little button of a three year old trying to eke out The Itsy Bitsy Spider, I simply tune them out.

I can trace my disdain all the way back to elementary school music class. When it wasn't 'instrument day,' I would sit on the bleachers with the other kids and literally SUFFER through the sound of us all singing together. I always hated participating in holiday music festivals. I never owned a kid music tape or record (except for the Alvin and the Chipmunk records…but those were chipmunks singing, not kids).

And so we have the release of Kidz Bop 12, a horrific compilation of mega hit covers sang by tone deaf tweens and untalented adult leads. It debuted at number seven on the Billboard Charts this week selling 71,000 copies.

I did some iTunes research and backtracked through the Kidz Bop years. It appears that no song released after 2001 is safe from a kid friendly butchering…Snow Patrol, Rascal Flatts, Gnarls Barkley…if they've had a top twenty hit, chances are that an assault has been made on their musical integrity.

What do I really think is so wrong with kids singing top hit tunes that mostly suck anyway? Well, besides the REALLY terrible singing, let's look at the song selections…What Goes Around…Comes Around by Justin Timberlake. Seriously?! It's a song purely about infidelity and revenge! I don't think I knew many shady 12 year old hookers who was wronging the boys in my day. Ditto on Beautiful Liar…not that I even know who sings the real version of that useless garbage, but it sucks. They also attempt a hardcore 'rock out' (and hardly angry) version of Never Again by Kelly Clarkson. I had no idea that tweens were so head strong about love and loss! But wait, in addition to being 'angry' they can also be so 'sad' too, evidenced as they emotionally convey it off tune in their rendition of Boston by Augustana. And of course, they can all "stand under my umbrella, ella, ella" too. Didn't that song just come out like two months ago?

I guess I should really give some credit to my mother for protecting me from the shitty kids music trend. She managed to instill a true sense of musical appreciation in me. At a young age, our mom was making us compilations of Harry Chapin, Fleetwood Mac, and Led Zeppelin to stick in our tape players. We watched movies with great soundtracks like The Big Chill and Footloose (I saw it three time in the movie theater when I was five years old) and had a shelf full of great musicals. We decorated the Christmas tree every year while watching Billy Joel videos or collections of videos she'd record off of MTV. She'd go to concerts and come back and tell us all about them and then play the music for us (which wasn't always good…I don't know if I will ever listen to another Billy Squire or Journey song in my life because they got deathly overplayed in my house). And of course, I had THREE posters of Billy Idol on my wall in the second grade and a t-shirt that I sported to school every chance I got. My sister still has a killer collection of records (yes, records...we're getting old here) that she got from our mom.

So, here's my thought...If you want your kids to grow up with a true appreciation for music, let them listen to the real thing. Saturate them with all different genres. Rarely turn on the radio. Their (and your) reward? The singers will be in tune, the instruments won't be synthesized, and best of all, there won't be a bunch of obnoxious kids singing you the chorus.

Back to the Working World

After a long two and half months of not answering to anyone except the dogs whining in the morning to go outside, I'm heading back to work full time in community corrections.

Starting Monday, I'll be wearing the 'social service' hat again as an Intake Specialist for a non-profit in a neighboring city. My job will be to assess inmates for suitability in community intermediate sanctions...basically, I will be helping to reduce the inmate population by moving suitable inmates to other programs like residential facilities and house arrest. Some positives to this job:

1) No caseload...I just get to screen, test, and interview and then move them on to an assigned caseworker. 2) The company I'll be working for has saved the state something like $40 million by keeping people out of jail and by reducing reoffending. 3) My ego can become re-intact now that I will have a job title other than 'house manager' and 'full time dog mom'...not that I think staying home full time is bad...it's just not for me at this time in my life. 4) This will be my shortest commute ever at 17 miles.

Hopefully, I'll have some updates for you next week on what I think.

In the meantime, go listen to Jailhouse by Sublime. A fitting choice for the new gig and one of the few Sublime songs I never got sick of after our freshman year of college when everyone played the self titled disc over and over and over and over and...

32 Future Yertles

Warning: This post is exclusively about turtle eggs, so you may want to skip it if that bores you to death. My nephew Cedar just asked me over the phone today if I "could maybe send the turtle eggs in the mail to him for a few days." That I can't do, so I thought that posting this pic instead might make him happy.

We have been working on leveling our backyard, and unknowingly hit this clutch with a shovel last week. Three eggs were sacrificed, so I decided that the best thing to do would be to move them to a safer place until they hatch (mother turtles are DONE with the babies after they have laid the eggs). So I did some research online, created this nest, placed all the eggs in the same direction that I pulled them out in, and check them every few days to see if they are hatching. A snapping turtle had been in our yard a couple months ago while I was home in Oregon, so it can be assumed that these guys are due to hatch between now and the end of the month. Once they are hatched and done digesting their yolks (eww), I will take them out and release them in the swamp behind our house. I don't expect them all to hatch (some were very light compared to others), but will take some pics of the babies before I let them go and post those. Justin asked if we could keep one as a pet (but I think he is joking). We could, but I think that the chance of a monstrous snapping turtle chomp on a dog's nose or person's finger weed out that option.