(upbeat music)
- Hey, good morning everybody,
and welcome to the blog.
I hope to start your day is absolutely incredible.
Every vision starts with a dream,
but that dream takes action to turn it into reality.
And that's been my life model,
literally since I was a teenager,
starting with BHB and such amazing snakes
like this pastel pink Albino Hognose snake.
As a matter of fact, we ended up buying
the second ever sold pastel pink Albino Hognose
that was ever offered from a guy named Rich Evans.
And I'm going to be honest with you.
It was a lot of money for a kid to spend,
and they weren't really that great of animals.
It took several years of outbreeding
to turn them into really strong animals.
But I was willing to put the action in
because I believed in projects.
I wanted to be a snake breeder.
I wanted to raise animals and work with animals every day.
And BHB was the only thing on my mind all the time.
I was willing to work so hard to achieve that goal,
to be able to do this full time every day,
working with animals.
And over 25 years,
that's basically was my main focus.
And there were so many projects
over the course of that 25 years
that really defined BHB and allowed those actions
and working hard to actually become
a reality so that I could bread snakes full time
and spent every day of my life.
You know, this Albino Arizona Mountain Kings
were one of them.
I actually was offered him from a guy down in Missouri
and he had literally went to a pet shop years before,
bought an Arizona Mountain King snake from one pet shop,
bought one from another pet shop
when he brought them together,
popped out the first Albino Arizona Mountain King snakes.
And I'm going to be honest with you guys.
I paid $50,000 for their first group of animals.
That's right, 50 grand.
I remember literally stripping every penny together.
I think I might even borrowed some money to buy the project.
But I just believed in that, I thought it was cool.
And I knew that it was going to kind of make a mark.
You know, people would talk about it like,
"Okay, BHB has the only Albino Arizona Mountain King snake."
And it worked out great all these years later,
we're still producing them.
People still love them.
They're still absolutely amazing animals.
But again, you know,
it all started with kind of that vision and the dream like,
Oh my gosh, this could happen.
And to work towards it.
And there's been so many projects that have kind of defined
that entire path that I've been on.
Certainly this project was the project that defined
my really future in the ball python world in particular.
And of course that was the Pinstripe Ball Python.
When I bought the first Pinstripe Ball Python,
it was an enormous risk.
I mean, like literally everything I had,
I was crazy to do it.
And I had no idea even what the animal even looked like
when I bought it.
I literally bought it sight unseen.
It came in, I was blown away.
And a couple of years later,
we proved it out to be incomplete dominant,
and literally that skyrocketed BHB.
And listen, when you're following your dreams,
when you're trying to make that vision into reality
with all the actions, it's not easy.
There's going to be a lot of resistance.
There's going to be a lot of hardship.
You gonna work harder than other people.
And there are times you gonna want to give up and say,
"Just get a 9 to 5 job and have a normal life
because this is way too much."
But the truth is if you can persevere through that
and get to that point where you want to be,
it is such a beautiful thing.
And I'm encouraging you guys to continue to do that
because it is truly amazing.
Over the last two years,
I've talked about the Reptarium ad nauseam.
So we won't go back and repeat that.
But you guys know all the action
that I've done to make this one a reality.
Certainly the latest and next vision that I had,
the dream I had was actually to add a sloth
to the Reptarium.
I've talked a lot about you guys may be getting sick of it,
but you know, it came with quite a bit of resistance
when it came to Lori.
And once we get the permits and we do all our homework,
you're going to be on board with the sloth.
- No that's not what I said at all.
I said, - Yeah I think that's what-
- Do your homework first and show it to me.
- Right.
- And then we can talk about it. That is well-
- But we're pretty set that we're good.
- No, we are not.
I know you are. I am not.
- It's going to be okay Lori, seriously.
I'm gonna send these off to- - No.
- About seven months ago after a year or so researching it.
I really brought it up to Lori and she was completely
opposed to it for a number of reasonable reasons.
But I had to continue to work on showing her that those
reasons could be overcame. And finally,
after a lot of action going on to get things going,
Lori bought into it and we ended up,
started looking for a sloth.
Then looking into getting a sloth, as you guys know,
applying for permits, doing all our due diligence.
And now today,
Lori is actually down in Florida and she's about to meet
our sloth Drogo for the very first time.
- So I am here.
(camel grunts) (women laugh)
Okay. This cutie is happy to see me.
(all laugh)
I'm here to meet a sloth, but I've also met this guy,
which I think I might take home too.
So let's go see if we can meet Drogo.
He's so cute.
- [Lady 1] He came in at two pounds.
He's a tiny little thing.
- Oh my goodness, he's a gentle,
is that always how they are when they're here?
- [Lady 1] No.
- So, not gonna lie.
This little guy is cuter than I thought he was gonna be.
He's actually smaller. I thought he was gonna be bigger,
which is actually cooler.
It's a little bit less intimidating. Cause I don't know
when you think face to face with a sloth.
I just don't know what I was thinking.
But he's super cool and clearly super chilled.
(woman laughs)
And I think that,
I think that he is going to be a pretty good addition
to The Reptarium sloth area? (laughs)
So I think he is super cool.
Brian is going to die when he meets him.
I know that for sure.
This is pretty good.
(Lori laughs)
- [ Lady 1] Let me go see what they're doing.
The dogs are the biggest pain.
(Lori laughs) (dogs barking)
(Lori laughs)
- That's hilarious. (laughing)
All right. Well, you're such a sweetheart.
I'm so glad that I got to meet him and I think,
I think he's gonna fit him really perfect.
Honestly.
All right.
So maybe he was right and maybe I will fall in love with him
a little bit, but how could you not?
Do you see that little cute little face?
(Lori laughs)
He's adorable.
Alright, well, we'll see you again soon, buddy.
We gotta go. Now.
He's like a- (indistinct)
(laughing)
- [Lady 2] We just have another (indistinct)
- Too cute.
- How awesome was that? I mean,
I literally almost teared up seeing Lori interact with
Drogo and I could just see it in her eyes.
She didn't want to admit how much he loves that animal,
but I know she fell in love immediately.
And that is amazing because, you know,
listen for me wanting to do something. That's awesome.
But having her on board is a whole nother story.
It's very important for Lori to be involved in this
because I know it'll be done even better
than what I could do myself. Now, listen,
we still have a lot of action to do in this sloth room.
So there's a lot of work to be done to get to
our final goal. But again,
a vision with a dream action added to it turns into a
reality and I'm telling you what, it's not going to be long.
I'm going to be standing in this room right now.
And Drogo is going to be in this room and it's going to be
absolutely incredible.
As I've been telling you the last few days,
we have our new merger, we've got Salt and Pepper,
Diddy and Dixie. We got different color shirts.
We have hoodies, we have coffee mugs.
We have stickers. So if you loved this design,
I hope that you guys will check out the link
in the description.
It's only going to be available for a limited time.
Please get you some merge. I really do appreciate it.
I love them. They're super comfy.
I think you'll love them too.
So thank you as always for letting my dreams become reality.
And you guys know how passionate I am about podcasting.
I've been talking about it forever,
and I really hope that you guys will join me on this journey
because to me it's awesome because you know,
blogging is great, but it's still condensed.
You know, podcasting is this long, you know,
hour and a half,
two plus hour typing work and really explain my ideas a lot
more in depth and just like everything. I've,
I'm all in guys. I mean, obviously I've spent a ton of time,
money, effort, everything to do this.
And I believe wholeheartedly that podcasting is going to be
a huge part of my future.
Of course we have our Wednesday night podcasts
with the family.
It's Lori, Noah and myself.
And then Noah does his own on Friday called Choices.
A little bit raw, you know.
If you guys liked the kind of a darker comedy,
you'll love that podcast.
Definitely not for kids.
And then Saturday,
I started one that is myself and a guest.
And that guest could be all kinds of things.
Could be animals, people, could be all kinds of things.
Here in October we actually have an NFL Superbowl champion.
We have a crypto zoologist coming out to talk about
cryptids, which of course is mythical animals.
We actually have Will Nace,
the venomous guy down from Florida.
Brian Cosco is going to be on.
As well as on Halloween.
We're going to end this whole month off with a bang.
We have the two founders of the
Motor City Paranormal Society,
which is the oldest paranormal investigative group
here in Michigan,
are coming on to talk about ghosts and stuff like that.
So it's cool.
And I love podcasting. I think it's amazing.
And I really hope that you guys join me.
I know I talk about it a lot,
but I'm not sure how many of you guys understand
what we're really trying to do here.
So definitely do me a favor link in the description,
check it out.
I think you'll like it.
And I'd love your feedback down in the comments.
Let me know what you guys think and what we can do better.
Because I think in the next year it's going to be a much
larger part of my life.
And speaking of actions,
I've got to make this pile of wood turn into shelves,
for this area of the camera room over here, control room.
So let's go ahead and jump in and do some work.
You guys know,
I love building stuff and we have a lot of stuff to work on.
So I want to put the first cabinet together and we're going
to get an idea of what this wall is going to look like here
in the next couple of days.
(electric saw humming) (upbeat music)
(electric saw humming)
(upbeat music continues)
(electric saw humming)
(electric screw driver ratcheting)
(upbeat music continues)
(electric screw driver ratcheting)
(upbeat music continues)
All right. So after a little bit of work,
it really wasn't that bad.
To be honest with you, we have the shelf sense.
So basically what happened is the same color as the floor
will be stripped right here.
We'll have shelves that are adjustable
so that these bozos here can put off all
their camera gear and stuff like that in here.
So it will, when it's done,
it's going to really look trimmed out.
It's going to look really beautiful and kind of match the
whole good core of everything. So, alright again,
keep moving forward.
So one of my dreams is about to come reality that sloth.
And I think now Lori is a 100% on board,
which is absolutely amazing.
I cannot be more excited about it.
We have a lot of work to do.
We have a lot of action to still do, to make it a reality,
but we're going to get there. I promise you, we will.
It's going to be absolutely amazing.
If you enjoyed this video,
here's a playlist of a bunch of other animals
I've gotten over the years.
You can also do me a favor.
Remember that podcast I was talking about?
Subscribe to it right up here.
It's called Checking In.
On this side, subscribe to this vlog channel.
Please turn your post notifications on.
Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember be kind to somebody and I promise,
I'll see you tomorrow.