MOTW - Sept 2 - Sept 8 2012 - KingCam

[Jenste]

Congratulations to this weeks Member of the Week - KingCam!

Can't wait to get to know about you tomorrow!

Don't forget to nominate on the main page - I need more nominations for the upcoming weeks!

[Pluke]

Congrats Cam!

[Heatheranne]

Yay! Congrats!

[Jenste]

Monday, tell us all about you! We know you obviously like amphibians, but we want to know about the rest of your life. Details about you, your life, hobbies, families, past times, favorite colors, poems you have written etc etc....just use this post to brag/boast/bore us how you please.

[KingCam]

Congrats Cam!

Yay! Congrats!

Thanks guys, and thank you Jenste for selecting me. I also wanna give a big thanks to the kind folks who nominated me. I am honored *blushes* haha

Okay, on with the show.

Monday, tell us all about you! We know you obviously like amphibians, but we want to know about the rest of your life. Details about you, your life, hobbies, families, past times, favorite colors, poems you have written etc etc....just use this post to brag/boast/bore us how you please.

Hello, I'm Cameron All my friends & family call me Cam. I am 23 and born on Halloween. I have 2 younger sisters and a younger brother, I'm the oldest of 4.

I was born is Southern Missouri, and lived there until age 9. I spent a lot of time in the woods, at Table Rock Lake, and on family farms during these early years in my life. My dad was always the athletic type, and of course had the same hopes for me. Unfortunately for him I had ideas of my own. He put me in soccer at a young age where he discovered I'd rather stop, mid play, to catch an insect in the grass XD Lucky for me I have very cool parents. My dad encouraged my interest in nature, and my mom was also instrumental in helping me get closer to nature. Both of them helped me put bug collections together, bought me field guides for bugs, reptiles, amphibians, etc. One example of this: I caught a green anole in Florida on vacation when I was very small (it's one of my first memories). My parents let me keep it, I named him George. I had George for 7 years!

At age 9 my dad's work moved us up to the Kansas City, Missouri area. Talk about a strange place for a nature kid to be! I missed the rolling hills of the Ozarks and the clear spring water in all of the rivers. Something about moving and not having any friends in your new town tends to lead to rebellion, at least it did for me. I was a bit of a trouble maker in middle school & high school. Nothing serious, just lots of visits to the principals office for skipping class and things like that :P

In middle school I started dressing a little "dark" and listened to metal & rock music exclusively (these days I listen to everything from folk, to rap, to 70's country, lol). I also played a lot of Diablo II & Starcraft on the PC. PC games had been an interest to me since the first time I can remember seeing a Windows 95 way back when (of course then I was consumed with Commander Keen series, Duke Nukem, Billy The Kid, and others.)

I was in middle school during the early 2000's, which is when xanga.com was getting popular as one of the first social networking sites. Xanga had this "custom html" section where you could add special effects and formatting to your page. This is where I first started experimenting with web design, and later managed to land myself a free homestead hosting account to experiment with. That early experience with code made it much easier for me to take programming classes in high school, and now I am a Web Developer / Systems Admin for a private hunting club here in the Midwest.

I ran track & cross country when I was in 8th grade. I wrestled my freshman year of high school, but quit during my sophomore year after I had to have surgery on my left knee (I had a bone spur, a torn medial meniscus, and cartilage damage under the knee cap).

My junior year of high school (age 17) I started partying and drinking way more beer than I should have :-\ I ate poorly also and put on a lot of weight. I had always been a thicker kid, but I found myself ballooning up at an incredible rate (of course I ignored the problem for some time). I mention this only because I recently lost a lot of weight, more on that later

17 is also when I started hunting deer with my dad. It was his first time hunting deer, too. Our first morning out in the field a small buck stepped out of the woods. Being new to the game, young, and so excited I was shaking, I took the shot. The buck dropped and that was it! Ever since I have been enjoying venison (deer meat) instead of beef. In years past I have always tried to put at least 6 deer in the freezer to last me the year, but this year my goal is 12. I process the meat myself, every step of the way. I gut the animal in the field, age it in my garage for a week, butcher, package, freeze, thaw, and cook :P I am mostly a meat hunter these days. For two reasons really, 1) I'm too lazy to stalk that monster buck 2) doe meat tastes much better than buck, and I don't kill anything I don't intend to eat. I love cooking, and if I do say so myself, I'm pretty good on the grill Some photos of venison (deer) I have grilled on Wednesday

I got hired on at that private hunting club I mentioned earlier during the latter half of my senior year in high school (2007). More than 5.5 years later I am still here, working for the same company. When I started here I was responsible for making maps for each property we leased, but when I was done with that I was kinda out of a job unless I could find something else to do. I told the owner if he'd let me try I could build him a better website than the one he had. He agreed, and I did just that. Now I don't even handle map making, someone else does that. I am responsible for maintaining, updating, and changing the websites. I also manage the online advertising, train new employees on the computers, etc. It is a small company, and I am the only computer literate person here, so I do pretty much anything and everything technology related that needs to get done :P

After high school I went to a community college to work on my Associates of Arts Degree (general education, basically). A year into it I decided to change my degree to Associates in Computer Sciences with an Emphasis on Web Development.

When I was 20 I got a bunch of free-lance side jobs building websites for people. I managed to make a quick $10K, which I immediately put down on a house. I moved out of my parents' house June 2009 at age 20. My parents had always let me keep animals, but there were a lot of limitations. I wasn't allowed to get anything that would get really big or eat too much food. I wasn't allowed to culture crickets or roaches, etc. Owning your own home changes this

After buying a house I didn't really have the time or money to go to school. I have been on "break" from my education since the summer of 2009. Maybe one of these days I will go back.

Within a couple months of buying my house I found my first room mate, she didn't last long XD She was replaced by a friend from high school, overall he was a great roomie and lived with me for some time. This friend of mine used to be overweight like me, I was astonished to learn that he had lost all of the weight and literally looked like a completely different person! The summer of 2009, when I bought my house, I weighed 245 lbs (I'm 6'0" tall). This was the heaviest I had ever been!

My friend moved in November 2009, and I decided I needed to lose the weight in December of 2009, thanks to inspiration from his story. I had already quit drinking earlier in the year and was down 10 lbs to 235lbs when I started counting calories. Over the course of 3 months I lost 62lbs. In March of 2010 I was down to 173lbs, and feeling MUCH better about myself!

I took on a second room mate, another old friend from high school. It was us 3 guys living in a 3-bedroom 1-bath house. I have an unfinished basement, so you can imagine the parties we had

I stopped counting calories in summer of 2010 and slowly the weight started to come back. On November 1, 2010, I made it official with a gorgeous gal I had been seeing Her name is Kristin, and I love her face off! Fall of 2010 is also when one of my room mates moved out, leaving me with only 1 room mate and an empty room. This empty room became ground-zero for my newly rekindled hobby of keeping cold blooded critters More on that Tuesday!

When Kristin and I got together she was kinda scared of snakes, but our first spring in 2011 I took her into the woods looking for snakes. We found a tiny Western Worm Snake (Carphophis vermis), and after about 10 minutes of convincing her, she agreed to hold it. The rest is history, she likes hiking for snakes now almost as much as I do! My younger brother also really enjoys nature and field herping with us, too!

By the time April 2012 rolled around I had put 27lbs back on, tipping the scales at exactly 200lbs.
I decided then I needed to do something about my diet that I could make more permanent. Counting calories simply wasn't an option. It involves obsessing over numbers, eating tiny portion sizes, you have to weigh your meat, measure out everything. No thanks, not again. It was in April that I discovered the "Paleo Diet" or the "caveman diet." Basically you eat only foods that were available to us in the Paleolithic (caveman) era, foods that our bodies evolved on. So no grains (bread, pasta, corn, rice), no legumes (soy, beans, peanuts, peas), no dairy (except real butter), no processed foods, no preservatives, no sugar. Basically all I can eat is Meat, Vegetables, Fruit, Nuts, and Seeds. If you're interested in this way of eating check out Paleo Diet Lifestyle | paleo diet tips and recipes Let me tell you, this diet is AMAZING! I have lost all the weight I gained back and then some on this diet, plus I feel great. Currently, and for the past 1.5 months, I have weighed less than I ever have, 167lbs and holding steady That means from the summer of 2009, when I weighed 245, to now I have lost a total of 78 lbs! Some recent before and after pictures on Wednesday!

Let's see here. I bet I can come up with some other random facts about myself to tell you. I like to grow things, I just planted my first garden this past spring. It started out really strong, but then we had the hottest & dryest summer Missouri has seen in like 100+ years or something like that. My favorite color is lime green, but I like to decorate my house with browns, black, and burgundy. I drive a big dodge ram 1500, 4x4, silver, long bed, extended cab. I like to burn incense, drink tea or coffee (unsweetened), listen to all kinds of music, and sit in my animal room observing things. I enjoy mushroom hunting and like the idea of hunting & foraging my own food items. I'm an introvert, I'd rather stay at home and hangout with a couple of friends than go out to a bar. I have good reading comprehension skills, but I do not read books very often. I don't watch the news anymore because I believe it's nothing more than a tool to scare society into submission. In fact I don't even subscribe to cable anymore, I watch TV and movies using Netflix & HuluPlus on my extremely awesome roku player & 50" plasma I'm a bit of a clean freak, most people see my house and assume a woman must live there (although it's been a bit of a disaster for the past month, I go through spells of extreme laziness at times XD). I grew up in a Christian household, but totally abandonded those beliefs after high school. I have been reading a bit of Buddhist material lately I think I might be interested in commiting to it one day. My mother has been stuggling with a severe case of multiple sclerosis since the year 2000, every day is a stuggle for her just to get out of bed, it makes me appreciate my health. After watching her stuggles I do not take my ability to walk for granted, and I am focusing on improving my health in any way I can to prevent diseases of all kinds in my future. I think if more people grew up with a very sick parent, if people saw what it was like to lose their health, they would take their health a little more seriously. I believe all people are essentially the same, and we should all make a better effort to get along. People who litter absolutely make me furious, nothing will put me in a bad mood faster than walking a shoreline and having to step over trash every 2 feet. I like rollercoasters, but only if they stay relatively close to the ground. I am deathly afraid of heights, and overall I'm a very cautious person. I won't get on a motorcylce, and the idea of white water rafting makes me uneasy. I'd much prefer to float down a gentle stream in a canoe, looking for snakes & turtles to dive in after :P

Well, that's really all I can think to tell you about myself! I hope you enjoyed my long-winded biography, check back tomorrow for the stuff you actually care about: THE AMPHIBIANS! (and other ectotherms)

[GrifTheGreat]

GREAT!!! to learn more about you Cam!!

Remember to keep it PG Lol!!

[Pluke]

That was quite a read Cam, you sure you didn't miss anything?

Nice to learn more about you, as Grif stated. Honestly, I can't wait until tomorrow to see your WHOLE collection.

[Kristen]

Great to learn more about you!
And I like your girlfriends name

[KingCam]

Thanks guys. I guess that'll teach you to ask me about myself XD Won't be doing that again anytime soon, will you? hahahaha

[Heatheranne]

Ha ha! It's really great to learn more about you.

We have similar likes & personalities (except I presume I talk a lot more, lol). You seem like a great guy!

Can't wait to see your pictures!

[Jenste]

Tuesday, tell us about your amphibians. How you came to keep them, mistakes/learning curves, species kept, breedings, how you found Frog Forum etc....we heard enough about you on Monday, let us hear about them frogs!

[KingCam]

Tuesday, tell us about your amphibians. How you came to keep them, mistakes/learning curves, species kept, breedings, how you found Frog Forum etc....we heard enough about you on Monday, let us hear about them frogs!

So I have always been into reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, and even small mammals at times. The first pet I can remember was a green anole, George. I mentioned him in my Monday post.

I kept various common Missouri snakes, frogs, turtles, and lizards over the years. Growing up I can remember going to my Aunt's house out in the country and chasing baby five lined skinks (the ones with the bright blue tails) around the foundation of her house. They also had lots of snakes out there in their fields and barn. I've also kept several captive bred species like white tree frog, ball python, water dragon, jackson's chamelion, fire belly newts, clawed frogs and more.

I remember one 4th of July, I was probably 8, I caught this very large black rat snake on my great uncle's dairy farm. My grandma told me to be gentle and respect black snakes, don't be mean to them or they can develop the ability to be venomous. This was apparently a common misconception amongst some farmers in the area. I believed that wives tale for the longest time :P Always being sure to be extra gentle with black snakes in fear of them spontaneously turning venomous, hahahaha!

I've also bred rabbits (accidentally, and then later intentionally :P ), kept gerbils, mice, and rats. My final thoughts on rodents? Mice are disgusting, rats are awesome, gerbils are only tolerable becuase they're cute, and if I had the money I would probably breed rabbits again, but this time for food.

In middle school I moved out of my room upstairs into the unfinished basement of my parent's house. This is where I set up my first animal room, tanks all around, with a big work table in the middle for various childhood experiments (you know, melting crayons with a lighter, taking apart broken toasters, etc etc).

These days I like to keep a few wild caught species because they are easy to care for and I don't have to provide anything special as far as temps & humidity goes. All of my critters live in the semi-finished half of my basement, where it stays quite cool all year. Even this summer, where we had almost a full month in the triple digits (105 F avg) my basement never got above 73 or 74F.

My grey tree frogs are my pride and joy :P I have 6 of them (technically my girlfriend "owns" 5, I "own" 1. In Missouri residents are only allowed to legally keep up to 5 wild specimens). They are all adjusted to tong feeding and act like they are starving every time I walk in front of their enclosure.

I keep a wild caught prairie kingsnake, Hercules. Hercules was spotted by my girlfriend's little brother Spring of 2011. She grabbed him, yelled for me, and together we managed to gently free him from the hole he was trying to escape into. We found him in an empty neighborhood lot that is currently being bulldozed and destroyed, no doubt we saved him from a grim fate. He now happily lounges in his custom built cage all day, eating freshly prekilled mice. I used to give them to him live, but he tends to let them bite him, so now I give them a good thump behind the head before dropping them in his cage.

My two tiger salamanders, Bertha & Ernie, were rescued from a local bait shop by my little brother and gifted to me last year on my birthday. They were still aquatic when I got them, but morphed within 2 months of being in my possession. Just last week I bought my first three axolotls!! Two of them are melanoids (black) and one is a wildtype (brownish). They are still juveniles, only about 3 inches long.

I also recently acquired two baby Amazon Milk Frogs They are gorgeous little things When I bought them from the seller on craigslist they were in very dirty conditions. I got them home, put them in a more appropriately sized tank with fresh substrate, live clean plants, and a freshly cleaned water bowl with spring water. I misted down the tank heavily with distilled water to knock all of the coco fiber off the walls, plants, and decorations. The froglets were a bit skinny in my opinion, but have been eating well and putting weight on. I feed them the very smallest of my dubia roaches, and small lobster roach nymphs. Because I was worried about their weight I always keep a bowl in their tank with dubias in it, and when I'm down there I attempt to tong feed with lobster roach nymphs. They don't quite get tong feeding yet, but they'll figure it out :P

I have juvenile cane toad, also. I bought her with two males Spring 2012. The males were sold to another keeper, I only kept the female. She is still quite small, and not so sure about humans. I am hoping to get her tamed down with age.

As far as invertibrates go I currently have a large nursery web spider I caught in my wood pile this summer, a tiger centipede (named Tigger) that I've had for a year and a half now, and a baby chinese mantid.

Aside from Hercules, who I have to buy mice for, and the axolots who get pellets and worms, all of my other animals eat for free. Well, kinda. I breed roaches, lots and LOTS of them. The frogs, salamanders, toad, spider, and centipede all eat the roaches. My roaches are raised on high quality puppy food, fruits, vegetables, water gel, and high temperatures. I also breed guppies, springtails, and freshwater gammarus (scuds).

What pets do I see for myself in the future? Well I've never had a dog before, and until a year or so ago I really didn't care for dogs, at all. My girlfriend's little dog changed my mind. Now I've decided that I do want a dog at some point in my future, when my financial situation is a little more comfortable. I've even settled on a breed already! I won't settle for anything other than a Vizsla puppy, also known as a hungarian pointer.

Mistakes and learning curves? Well, I won't hesistate to say that many of the animals I kept throughout my childhood could still be with me today if I had been more informed. I've made lots of mistakes and I'm sure I'll continue to make them here and there. The internet is the best tool in the world, and now that I have resources like this forum I can make sure all of my animals live healthy happy lives

I've tried breeding various food items for my animals over the years. I bred crickets for 6 months one year; never again. Crickets are the most vile disgusting insects anyone could ever keep in their home. Their tub smells like death after 1 week of not being cleaned, they chirp and make noises all hours of the day and night, they bite and attack reptiles & amphibians when they can get away with it, and they won't live through much. I have also bred mice; never again. Filthy smelly animals! Then one day I decided to breed roaches. Roaches, it turned out, were MUCH cleaner than crickets. Their tubs can go 6 months at a time without needing to be cleaned, and there is virtually no smell! Just provide them with a water source, high protein dry food, fruits & veggies a couple times a week, some cardboard to hide in, and heat. If you have all of the elements your roaches will breed effortlessly. Mine reproduce WAY faster than I can feed them to my animals. I frequently have to give them away by the thousands. Also, it's worth mentioning that compared to crickets roaches are much higher in protein, lower in fat, have less shell, more meat, and are easier to digest.

I breed Lobster Roaches, Dubia Roaches, Red Runners, Surinams, Blaberus Hybrids, Madagascar Hissers, P.femapterus, and Pallid Roaches. If you're looking for a guide on how to breed feeder roaches check out this one (the focus is lobster roaches, but most others can be kept in the same way outlined in my guide): http://www.frogforum.net/food-feeder...r-roaches.html

Lots of photos of my little beasties tomorrow!! Stay tuned

[Pluke]

Sounds like you got your hands full, Cam.

Centipedes give me the willies.. you ever been bit by one? It hurts quite a bit.. and that's only the little ones. They're still cool in their own little way I suppose.

[KingCam]

Sounds like you got your hands full, Cam.

Centipedes give me the willies.. you ever been bit by one? It hurts quite a bit.. and that's only the little ones. They're still cool in their own little way I suppose.

So far *fingers crossed* I haven't been bitten by one.

The tiger centipede I keep got away in my house once. Was gone for well over a month, I assumed he crawled into a corner and dried up somewhere. Turns out, he made his way to the basement and had been living around the leaky water heater. One day Kristin is doing the laundry, and that centipede came running out of the clothes right over the top of her hand. She freaked out! Weird thing was, where it ran over her hand she got a rash. I guess they even have venom on their feet?! I dunno how else to explain the rash.

[Pluke]

I bet she was just thrilled when that happened, haha. I just read on wiki that they do have some type of paralytic venom that runs through their front appendages.. so maybe that's what gave her the rash? I'm not too clear though if it's part of where they bite or not though. Regardless, it barely touched her and she got a rash. That's enough for me to avoid them.

[Jenste]

Am running very late so this is all you will see of me for the next few days -

Wednesday, show and tell. Wow us with your pictures/videos/sound clips.

[KingCam]

Wednesday, show and tell. Wow us with your pictures/videos/sound clips.

So first, some photos to go with my Bio from Monday's post:

This is me at (what I believe is) my 13th birthday party in October 2001:


Me in 2004 after my knee surgery. I was in this room for a month playing "Legends of Legia" on PlayStation 1 (Think cheap Final Fantasy VII knockoff game)


November 2005, at age 17 is when I started deer hunting with my dad. This was my very first deer:


Here I am the next year (2006, age 18) with the only buck I've ever shot that was worth taking pictures of :P


...and of course the mandatory bloody post-butcher photo.


Here is what my kitchen typically looks like in the fall


mmm venison hot off the grill!






Here I am, feeling and looking rather miserable September 2009 (approx 245lbs):


Here I am in May 2010 looking and feeling much better (approx 175lbs)!


Kristin (my gf) holding her first ever snake, the snake that started it all XD


Here are a few pictures of me, my little brother, and my girlfriend in 2011.













And finally, some before/after pictures to go with my ever fluctuating weight battle:
(Did I mention how AWESOME the paleo diet is?!)


Now some photos to go with Tuesday's post about my animals:

The Grey Tree Frogs



































The Baby Amazon Milk Frogs













My tiger salamanders!

























My Axolotls!























Hercules, the Prairie Kingsnake!






The above photos were of Hercules in 2011 in his old tank. He now resides here:



















My young cane toad















My Centipede & Wolf Spider







My Lobster Roach Colony












Two of my female Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches





And here is the whole animal room, zoomed out:



Okay, and now just some random photos I've taken! yay!





































Well, I guess that's all for now! I could post photos all day, so I'll just stop now XD

I hope you enjoyed I am honored to have been chosen as member of the week, thanks again to those of you who nominated me

[Pluke]

That was quite the photo dump, haha. All your animals have a real nice setup, I'm still jealous of you finding those Milk Frogs. I check craigslist quite consitantly since I started getting into frogs and never find anything worth while in my area. One of these days...

Seeing all of these pictures of your hikes make me feel like going out and doing some searching, I think I will wait for fall though.. this time of year doesn't seem to be so great. Good job on the weight loss, that paleo diet actually sounds like it wouldn't be a complete nightmare, lol. Good post man. Oh and venison is delicious.. I love me some venison Jerky, haven't had it in years, but it's usually really good.

[KingCam]

That was quite the photo dump, haha.

What did you expect? You saw the walls of text I typed up for Monday & Tuesday didn't you? haha XD

All your animals have a real nice setup, I'm still jealous of you finding those Milk Frogs. I check craigslist quite consitantly since I started getting into frogs and never find anything worth while in my area. One of these days...

Thank you I put a lot of effort into those enclosures. I don't know how I got so lucky with the milk frogs. Definitely the find of the year!

Seeing all of these pictures of your hikes make me feel like going out and doing some searching, I think I will wait for fall though.. this time of year doesn't seem to be so great.

Yeah, this time of year isn't great for field herping.

Good job on the weight loss, that paleo diet actually sounds like it wouldn't be a complete nightmare, lol.

Thank you I seriously do love this diet. I don't need to lose weight anymore, but I stick with the diet because I feel better on it.

Good post man. Oh and venison is delicious.. I love me some venison Jerky, haven't had it in years, but it's usually really good.

Appreciate it, thanks Yeah, venison is awesome! I eat it at least once a week, if not more. I rely heavily on fall deer season for food for the year.

[Faith]

I don't know how I missed this but congrats Cam! You definitely deserved it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading everything here and all the pics (yes, I read it all and looked at it all ) So many things you've said that hit home with me, it's great to learn more about everyone and realize we have so many things in common. Congrats on all the weight loss, that is beyond awesome. I've been battling it all my life (and sadly losing right now) but you're definitely an inspiration that it can be done!