- Remember this beautiful expansion that we were
gonna be doing right here at this building?
(record scrathing)
Well guess what?
It's not happening.
- Why is it not gonna happen?
- [Brian] So I've got good news and I've got bad news.
- Okay.
- The bad news is I hope you guys don't hate me for this.
I'm not doing the expansion where I'm at.
- Oh, wow.
- So guys, I have a kind of heavy topic
that I need your help with
that I wanna talk to you about today,
but before we get into that,
I actually have a really cool clutch
of Ball Python eggs that I'm about to cut.
Which was this female Mahogany.
Which is a beautiful, incomplete, dominant animal.
The super of this is this Black Ball Python called Asuma.
It is bred to this ripper male here
which is a Super Pastel Leopard Lesser Clown.
And egg number one.
Again, there's gonna be a lot of
potential really cool combos.
The Mahogany Clown stuff is ridiculous.
These are all just gonna be Hets for that
but all kinds of different combinations.
Theoretically, everything should be Pastel
because it was a Super Pastel.
And sure enough, the first one is a Pastel.
It looks like, gosh, this is a beautiful animal.
Just trying to see exactly what it looks like.
Definitely not a Leopard, but it looks like
a Pastel Mahogany possibly even
a Lesser Het or Clown.
That is a ripper right there.
Beautiful snake.
Once it comes out we're gonna do a lot better idea.
Definitely a Pastel Mahogany
probably a Lesser, which is awesome.
So we just missed the Leopard part.
We still have a bunch of eggs.
Let's move on to egg number two.
And I'm so excited to raise these up
and breed them back and get some
really incredible Clown stuff, for sure.
It's gonna be amazing.
Let's see egg number two here,
again we have another Pastel Mahogany probable Lesser
and I think it's the exact same animal as the first.
Great combination.
Let's go back and talk about that deep topic.
And that deep topic is all about the expansion.
Like I said, for a number of reasons,
all of which I won't go into right now,
this building we really can't expand the way we want.
I mean, really there's a whole host of things.
None bigger than parking.
We can't triple the amount of people in this building
and have nowhere to park.
So this building's expansion is completely Kiboshed,
but let's go ahead and cut a couple more eggs.
Still hoping for a leopard, but I'm not complaining,
'cause we've already gotten a couple
really beautiful animals.
And this time it looks like a Pastel Lesser.
That is Het for clown, no Mahogany in this one.
Still no Leopard though, which is kind of weird.
So we've been missing the odds on that.
So let's see what we got in this egg right here.
That's always so satisfying looking into a fresh egg.
What do we have here?
Definitely a lesser, definitely a Pastel.
This one looks like it's probably a Leopard.
So this looks like the Pastel Lesser Leopard Het for Clown.
So we didn't hit the all gene.
We were just missing Mahogany, but we're getting closer.
Back to you, Brian.
But ironically enough, this building,
which is directly across street came available.
That's right.
This entire building.
So for the last couple months I have been
actually negotiating to get this building.
We are literally within days of being able
to do it and now I'm not a hundred percent sure.
- I'm gonna do it across the street
at St. Vincent de Paul's.
- Oh.
- Wow.
- [Brian] I'm sorry. (laughing)
- So we're opening up a thrift store.
- No, no, no, no.
I'm gonna explain more about this later,
but for now I can't wait to see what's in the
next couple of snake eggs.
And back to this Clown Clutch right here.
Again, I wish that this Mahogany was Het for Clown.
It would be so cool to do some clown stuff.
And I'm hoping we'll hit that all gene animal,
of course of the Pastel Mahogany Leopard Clown Ball Python.
Then let's see what we have here.
Beautiful snake, regardless of what it is.
Oh, looks like just a Pastel Lesser Het for Clown right now
but really reduced pattern on the side.
Absolutely incredible.
Let's go into the next egg.
Ugh. Let's see.
Let's see if there's any Leopard in here.
Looks like just another Pastel Lesser Het for Clown.
Back to our topic, but stay tuned
because we still have one egg to cut.
But like I said, this building actually became available.
It has all the space we want.
One floor, so we don't have two floors.
Has a tremendous amount of parking, which is a huge bonus.
Literally we're like one, maybe two days away
from signing the papers, but not so fast.
This is where I need your help guys.
And I'm not just saying it.
I really need your help down in the comments
because for the first time, I'm a little bit confused.
Up until now, I was gung-ho. We were expanding.
I was gonna spend every dime I had.
I was gonna borrow money.
I was gonna do whatever I could do to expand.
And now I'm kind of freaking out a little bit.
I'm not gonna lie to you.
And I really need to hear from you guys
what you think I should do.
As this Vlog goes on, you'll learn more about my ideas.
I really wanna know what you would do
If you were in my position.
We all know the economy is slowing down.
We all know that things are looking a little bit scary.
As a matter of fact, I talked to the contractor
that was gonna do the buildup.
And he said he lost three huge jobs just in the last week
cause people are backing out of things.
That's scary.
Is it the right time to risk everything you have
when you know that things are kind of
slowing down in the economy?
Or do you just follow your dreams and say heck with it,
it doesn't matter.
Never have I reached out to a bunch of
vendor friends of mine for things for the new gift shop.
Treasurebucketsco.com actually did these for us.
- I think it's a treasure bucket.
- Let's see what's in here.
- Just, oh, oh my goodness.
Would somebody look at this?
- And you go through.
- Oh, I know what these are.
These are fun.
Temporary tattoo, we're totally doing this.
There's more goodies.
- Look at that. It's alive.
This thing's got some weight to it, man.
- [Brian] Let me hear you smack someone with that.
- What, slime?
- They got slime.
So what's this all about dad?
- So like I had mentioned, I've been reaching out to
vendors because we're gonna have such a larger gift shop.
So you can see I'm kind of deep into this already.
Unfortunately hit a little bit of a road bump.
And to make matters worse, I don't even know
what it's gonna cost.
I have to spend the money on the architects
to get the drawings in order to know how much space I have
to know how many tanks I can get in
so I can get a quote on the tanks.
And then once I get the tanks,
I have to learn how much lighting I need,
how much sand I need, how much salt I need.
The fish alone could cost hundreds of thousand dollars.
I'm not a hundred percent sure. Nobody can tell me.
When I go to all my friends and I say
what do you think this would cost?
Everyone's like, I don't know.
So I don't know what's gonna happen.
I've gotta take the first step
in order to take the second step,
the third step, the four step.
And I can't take step number five until
I've taken the first four steps,
which means I've already committed to it
and I can't back out.
It is terrifying.
And we're back with the last egg.
Let's see what we've got.
Boy, I still wish we would've hit that all gene now
but we've only hit one Leopard in this entire clutch.
This one looks really nice though.
Look at that.
Oh, guess what we hit guys?
We hit the all gene animal.
This is the Pastel Leopard Lesser Het for Clown.
That was the animal.
Look at how beautiful it is.
Almost looks like a Highway Ball Python.
Well I tell you what, that was what I was hoping for.
And I'm not disappointed.
So there's really three options.
Option number one, we get this building and we risk it all.
And I'm not just talking about like a little risk.
I'm talking, risking everything I've worked for
my entire life in order to do this.
Don't get me wrong.
It's in my heart.
I wanna do it.
I visualize it.
I risk everything in an economy that's already
slowing down and could get pretty ugly.
The second option is just to stay the same
but of course that has some problems with it too.
Look at Salt and Pepper.
They're not gonna stay in this disclosure much longer.
Without an expansion of some sort,
I don't know what I'm gonna do with Salt and Pepper.
There's a few other animals that are gonna need
larger cages that I don't have any room for larger cages.
So staying the same is kind of not a great option.
The last option is to blow this wall out,
which happens to be the other side of this wall.
Which means moving all of this stuff out
and filling it up with more enclosures.
And then we have to figure out where
all this stuff in the offices go.
- Man, we gotta figure out how to get some more money
outta this expansion, bro
- Ice cream buffet.
- I've never heard that.
That sounds pretty good.
Thinking more of like bringing elephants
and sell elephant rides.
50 bucks a head.
- Elephant ears with ice cream.
- I guess.
- So the cons of doing this building is
basically again I risk everything I have.
The thing I'm really worried about is
what if I risk everything, get 90% done,
completely run outta money and can't finish the project?
Now I have all of it invested and it can't even be opened
and who knows what could happen?
I don't really think there's anything other than that.
Not to mention there is a tremendous amount of stress.
I've never opened a public aquarium before.
I don't even know what I'm getting myself into
but I know it would be absolutely incredible
if we could do it.
But man, am I gonna take that big of a risk
at this point in my life?
And the con of moving here and doing the expansion
in the BHB side is the fact that we're not
gonna be really adding any new experience.
We're gonna build some larger enclosures,
move some animals, have a few other things,
but really it's gonna be a little bit of the same.
There'll be a few new animals, no doubt about it.
But for the most part, the experiences that you get now
are gonna be almost exactly the same.
Just with a little bit more space.
- I got it. Palm reading.
Tell you your future is giving us your money.
- Does she have an ice cream in their palm?
- You probably have an ice cream in your palm.
- Nice.
- That's the money right there, baby.
- We have miniature ice creams for them too?
- Sure.
(gentle music)
- That's my girl.
These are the things I really need.
I've been working for 35 years.
I'm kind of comfortable, right?
Things are working out.
You know, I've got a lot of things happening.
This is like literally potentially risking it all.
If this didn't work out there wouldn't
even be this rep here.
Everybody's jobs.
I'm talking about risking my future
and starting over from scratch.
And I've never been worried in my life
about making aggressive investments.
I've always been forward, swing for the fences.
But this is the first time that
I'm a little freaked out.
I'm not gonna lie to you.
And I'm freaked out not just because
this is an enormous job.
What are the things that I won't know about? What comes up?
What do I do when I get 90% done
and I have no more money
and no more possibility to finish the project.
And that's why I'm coming to you guys.
I just want, because you know
there's a saying that says scared money don't make money.
And I'm terrified.
This building across the street won't be available.
And I won't be able to do it in that building.
Maybe another opportunity to come up a year from now,
two years from now, three years from now.
I'm not a hundred percent sure.
What would you guys do?
That's what I need to know.
I'm so lucky to be around animals all the time.
And that's what makes these decisions so hard.
Look at that little chunky monkey right there
trying to bite me, these are Black House Snakes here.
And then we actually have a
T Positive Albino Brown House Snake
and some Hypo Brown House Snakes in there.
They're just so amazing.
So like I had mentioned, you know,
I'm really struggling guys and I could use your help.
Just to tell me what I should do, what you would do.
Don't tell me what I should do.
What would you do if you were in my position?
Would you risk it all?
Would you take a step back and let things
kind of play out over the next year or two?
Just expand into the BHB side of things?
Just swing for the fences and hope things work out?
Down in the comments, do me a favor
and let me know what you think I should do
and what you would do.
I so appreciate all your support.
This video is done.
Hope you guys enjoy today's video.
If you did, there's a playlist that you can watch
all kinds of videos.
You can also hit that subscription button.
It would mean a lot to me also hit that
like button while you're down there.
Have a wonderful day Reptile Army.
Remember be kind to someone
and I promise I'll see you in the next one.
- It sounds like it's farting.
- It's.