| sealion_feeding.wmv |
[Apr. 18th, 2007|08:41 am] |
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| | | "sealion_feeding.wmv" on Google Video |  |
This is a vid I made just before leaving CL..thought id post it here for posterity ;)
Micky and bonny are visually impaired patagonian sealions who require careful feeding and limited training through audio cues and targeting. Consistency in the routine allows them to be handled with relative ease.
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| back online again!! yay! |
[Apr. 12th, 2007|08:38 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | London | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Flora's Secret - Enya | ] |
Well the world turns and times change - and being offline for a month meant I wasnt able to update as often I wanted to either - thanks to the sour old baggage called Jetta at Connyland not wanting to learn how to actually train her parrots, basically she said 'him or me' and as I dont speak german well..I was given the shove.
Not that I didnt see it coming - but it wasnt necessary for her to lie about me. I had to disprove her falsehoods before in front of the boss and I thought that was the end of it, but she saw me as a threat to her job and so made life as difficult as possible for me..changing the locks, pretending to be deaf and generally being a bitch. Anyway..that was then..
THIS is now
Who said things cant get better? Im working at Chessington World of Adventures here in merry old england now and LOVING IT!
The people are great..they all speak english and they respect my skills.
Sadly its only a seasonal job until september but so far its excellent training Lemurs, sealions, skunks,meerkats and a variety of other critters. And doing a free-flight show with Macaws twice a day too - suck on that one Jetta.
Im basically in charge of putting together a show that will be on stage in july/august and that will feature the above animals 3 times a day.
theres still the cleaning out of the sealion pool to do  
EMPTY POOL...with boris the sealion looking miffed as he is unable to go for a refreshing swim AND....the FULL pool...with Boris on his fave rock and Harley on his stand waiting for fish.
A better pic of Boris
hey Drakkor..check out the pontoons..theyre army floats and link together to make floating islands that the Sealions like to push round and sunbathe on - these are Cali sealions and so are smaller than the ones at CL and theres one baby called Andre who so far has bitten all the trainers except me lol..I got bit on the nose by one of the lemurs though so it evened things up a little.
heres a shot of the filter room
Those two tanks take care of the entire pool.
The Park is big, and theres lots to do. I still havent walked around the whole thing yet, the pay is better and so im pretty happy for now. My story has suffered though. Im still on chapter 42 and have rewritten the fight scene 3 times and am still not happy with it so folks will have to wait a little longer.
Ive made some new friends, this is Gary with one of our lemurs giving him a taste-test
And this is Sam, who is working with our 3 little stinkers, Fifi,flower and Pepe
It took us a long time to work out how to win the skunks over, but we finally cracked it..literally - the sound of a peanut shell cracking brings them running out of their den and onto our laps, theyre surprisingly friendly and non-stinky..they do have all their glands though so if we scare them too much we could end up reeking.
well thats all for now..glad to have been able to update folks a bit and hopefully will do more in a week or so
cheers |
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| big-ass update or two |
[Feb. 15th, 2007|09:19 pm] |
Hi folks!, well its another looong post this time - I' really should try and make them shorter but the days seem to run together a lot here and my free time is limited - I also seem to have overestimated the free time I have for writing my novel too. Its progressing though far slower than I would like. I thought there would be nothing to do in the evenings except write and eat. How wrong I was.
We go out to dinner..cordon-bleu, crepes, all-u-can-eats...we watch movies,tv..chat and generally have a fairly great time!
It was a surprise to me really - we have had ONE week of snow..one...and not very heavy at that so that lets us go shopping..checking out huge tech stores like Media-Markt..just as well they dont take credit cards or id be in debt up to my neck by now.
Heres a sample of the size of a dish from the crepe restaurant in germany! youll have to turn your head on the side though.
 the damn things are huge..as are the dessert ones
So..I have by now figured out how to get round the place fairly easily when I cant harass the housemates into going shopping and I traveled to Weinfelden a couple of weeks back - pretty quiet town but what caught my eye was this...driven by two little old ladies..its electric but you can charge it by pedalling while running round in it..they did their shopping and drove off..
Work is pretty much the same each day..sticking to the routine is good for the animals and helps us also to develop good habits in training and technique. though some days you just want to lie down and relax with the animals.
Im looking after charley (the large sealion) as he has a large wound on his muzzle and we have to make sure he takes his meds and gets his cream on it every day. Not easy when he randomly chews his herring looking for the icky-tasting vitamins and medicine but he has made a lot of progress and is a lot more energetic now. He does fart a lot though.
Most of the day we just clean,feed and train the animals though sometimes we have to go that little extra bit further..Just before xmas one of the main groundwater pumps failed in the sealion theatre..leading to flooding of a sub-basement and subsequently requiring the draining of the main theatre pool..Of course once the basement was drained by dropping a submersible pump inside we had to get all the stuff that had been in there out..this was about 30 cartons of glasses..most of which were ok but needed cleaning. Once we had those out we had to get the 100kg broken pump out...argh...and then the new one down the hole too..
After which the pool was emptied..and of course it needed cleaning before it could be filled up..both Luca and I managed this..though it took some time..and once we had done it..they didnt clean the filters properly..so when it was refilled it looked like the black lagoon..so they had to redrain..and clean it all over again..and yes..I did that too.
There have been a few interesting people coming through the house too, a masters student doing work on dolphin reproduction and various visitors who enjoy watching and helping with the animals - its good for the animals too as they get stimulation and exercise as well as training the humans to throw balls to them.
I get to do a little training with the dolphins now and then - under supervision of course as it is easy to screw up show and husbandry behaviours if you arent careful. I do want to make a decent vide of me working with them though.
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 15th, 2006|07:59 am] |
Wow what a month! - for those of those of you who dont know - I got the job! Yep..im now a full time animal trainer working with dolphin/sealions and parrots!
Why the last? well If all goes well Ill be working the parrots in the summer season and the dolphins/sealions in winter. Now I negotiated an open contract with these folks and hopefully they will keep their word after the winter here. But- I know the history of this place and family and am not holding my breath.They squeeze every penny until it either screams or bleeds.
http://drakkor.livejournal.com/ very kindly put me up for the 12 days or so before I could move into the accomodation here and sort myself out - I met http://tambako.livejournal.com/ and Ryu too on a nice trip the cordon bleu restaurant in zurich atop a mountain where we could look over the town. Im going to have to watch my diet here or otherwise I'll blow up like a balloon! Ive been trying out the trains and buses too on my free day (one day off a week - wheee!) which is when I have to do all my shopping too. the trains are fantastic. Fast,clean and always on time! swiss efficiency at its best - and the buses are synced so you get off the train and onto the bus - excellent -NZ needs this system!
Sorry about the ad at the top now but you should be using firefox and adblock anyway so im not too sorry lol. It means ill be able to upload pictures soon - when i get off my rump and get the vids and pics off the camera! - youtube fame here I come hehe.
The house I'm in is ok - like nearly all the houses out here in rural swiss-land its made of wood - very old wood - and very well insulated against the cold - central heating,double glazing etc. Im currently sharing with three other trainers who speak italian and ignore me. But screw them, theyre leaving soon.
Its odd living by a themepark - when i arrived it was bustling with life,people and screams of kids - now its empty, deserted and quiet except for the noisy parrots and sealions.
The owners run a circus in Zurich over the nov/dec months but this year there are two other circuses for them to compete against! This hasnt made the boss too happy and he has been seen scowling at people as he walks past. Theyre putting up a new rollercoaster soon too in a bid to get more teens in next summer.
As previously mentioned in another post the language is the big problem - Im slowly putting together baby-talk in german and thankfully the parrot lady is helping me though she is actually rumanian and would far rather teach me that instead! Most people here dont seem to speak any english and its tricky fumbling with a phrasebook while they jabber at you incomprehensibly but so far Ive managed to stumble along.
As for the novel - Ive finally started chapter 42 - sorry for the break buts been very stressful - I had to resign from my job in NZ via email and that wasnt too easy - but then I discovered Skype and have managed to get that working nicely so I have been in contact - they were sorry I had to go but promised me they would consider taking me back on if it didnt work out - Ive already decided to head to australia if this doesnt work out - NZ is too small and frankly parochial and boring (although less boring than here - shopping is entertainment here - all the movies are dubbed in german - and everyone smokes like chimneys!)
I dont plan on spending more than 2 years here in any case - this is more an experience than a money making exercise ( sheesh the prices here!) Im looking forward to learning more about training and techniques before moving somewhere warmer (had our first snowfall a few days ago)
Will try to post more often now - not much to do over winter here except write and watch stuff DL'd off the net! |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 14th, 2006|08:57 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hopeful | ] |
Well, here I am in switzerland! staying at my friends place and trying for a position at the local dolphin facility here, I think im pretty much in the running but I do have competition from holland also.
Ive finished chapter 41 of my serial and theres going to be a short break before I start on 42 - which is going to be a fairly major episode.
Im having fun trying to understand people who use german,italian and french in a single conversation and seem to be utterly ignorant of english (they are doing it on purpose im sure ;) )
thyey do have nice food though and Im learning that labels in german are kind of misleading.
The dolphins are as cute and lovely as when I last visited in 2005 and Im trying to get some photos and videos together to post in various place - im going to need a youtube account though before i shove those online
weather is odd here- the mist lasts until about midday when it slowly blows away from the stench of the manure that is spread on the fields around...but then its sunny for a few hours so it pays to enjoy it when you can.
Keeping this short as im still turning around a whole day in jet-lag time and feel quite sleepy at 9o'clock still
Cheers all |
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| busy weekend! |
[Jun. 5th, 2006|11:44 am] |
Well 38 is nearly done..Ive been hobnobbing with major authors all weekend and picking their brains. Had an excellent talk with Jim Frenkel (senior editor of TOR books) and his wife Joan Vinge (author of snow queen) who suggested I start doing short stories and submitting them to various magazines/ publications. One of the things they suggested was to take earlier events in my characters lives and work them into the mythology im building up towards. I dont know how well that would work but Faye Ringel suggested I write about dolphins ('write what you know about') so Im considering a path there too. There was an excellent session on erotic science fiction and I count myself lucky that i think ive done pretty well there. Some of the samples read were straight out of 'mills and boon' with all the bad writing and fanciful euphemisms that implies - the other thing that surprised me there was that it was almost all women! There were only about 5 guys including me. A couple of new zealand authors there wanted to read my stuff ..I dunno though it might be too off the wall for them even for current fantasy readers with open minds.
The leader of that discussion wanted to read my stuff too so...at least i got a free plug of the website -finished rewriting/reformatting up to chapter 11 now so its the sex scenes that will be tweaked next 8) |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 8th, 2006|07:08 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  aggravated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | dragon theme from horizons! | ] |
Wow, wotta couple of weeks - had my cousin from UK over last week - nice guy!. Last time i met him I was still wearing nappies so dont recall a lot about it! I showed him round town and told him about NZ and he went off feeling good about it. Our company has been taken over and while I still have a job - I dont know how long for, we have spent all week moving our crap to the new premises and setting it up - including this weekend. they are thankfully paying overtime and feeding us as well so its not too bad. Chapter 37 of the story has been delayed by this flurry of activity though so you'll just have to wait!
On the positive side Ive just got my first piece of fan art! Its a commission piece of Cill from john Pepper - but I cant recall the artists name >.< Ill put it on the fan art page of the website - ive reformatted and rewritten up to chapter 8 now so i have some serious updating to do! It might have to wait till the situation here settles down though. |
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| running a bit late |
[Mar. 6th, 2006|08:35 pm] |
Went to an awesome concert at the weekend with lasers,opera and genuine 105mm howitzers and fireworks for the 1812 overture - and overslept the next morning - as a result of this dalliance, the next chapters a wee bit late....no no ..put down the axe!..itll be up in a couple of days..I promise!
On a side note, people are leaving my work like rats leaving a sinking ship. Im starting to feel worried that ill be the only one left and am looking round for anything else. Theres no full time zoo work here in NZ though so im looking at australia or europe..and re-doing my CV as well.
Applied for a job in iraq earlier in the year (US 10k a month!) but havent heard from them at all..so if anyone knows of zoos needing staff around the planet..let me know too..
cheers |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 21st, 2006|08:17 am] |
wow, what a crap week! - the car got broken into again and I lost my tools but at least the company replaced them with new stuff so no real loss just the horrible stress of coming out and seing the window smashed and wondering if they got the laptop - which was hidden under a jacket - thankfully they didnt - didnt really feel like writing much though im up to 3500 words on chp 34 now- my home pc managed to seriously crash so im having to reinstall windoze (sends a little curse in the direction of seattle) again.
Also the tech company i do work for is being 'merged' (read takeover for that) not sure if ill have a job in a month so Ill have to prod the zoo some more to try and get more work off them.
Either that or ill head to australia or europe as america has become so immigrant unfriendly - even for highly qualified people 8P
should have the next chapter up in a day or so - been looking at publishing too - itll cost me about $1200 US though so ill need a shitload more donations to make that level! |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 11th, 2006|09:27 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
| [ | music |
| | lunus theme | ] |
Well its been an odd week, I received a certificate of appreciation and a gift voucher from my bosses - i think they must be worried im not too happy at the moment -Still Ive managed to update the forestkeep site partially - the latest chapter is up (33) even though im wondering why it managed to kill two of the buttons - seems firefox doesnt like my coding too much and complains a bit - still its progress and soon folks will be able to download the entire story in various formats including e-book - there hopefully should be some art up soon as well. Im going to add a guestbook and hit counter as well soon to see if I can justify moving this to a private server soon rather than leaving on popup/ad central yahoo - comments welcome - is the font ok? color ok? blue is supposed to be soothing - perhaps a quiet medieval-type tune in the background to set the mood?
my drawing lessons proceed apace - though ribbons still elude me I think ive got the hang of tubes and cones now...my embarassing attempts wont appear online for sometime though hehe
the person who offered to sub-edit my work flaked out on me - even after i lent him an old laptop - oh well - Ill consider what to do next - each chapter requires a minimum of an hours work of revision and its not easy to find the time and a skilled proofreader -ive also had some comments that folks dont want to read the revised work in case it changes their opinions of the story - let me just say that its an improvement and the integrity of the story has not been compromised! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 17th, 2006|01:11 pm] |
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I heard it said today that depression is rage directed inwardly. Frustration obviously does the same thing as I keep running into brick walls in my life, ive spent the last 15 years or so working around the world in various capacities. either volunteer or intern or just guy on the spot - and what have I achieved towards my goal of becoming a paid full time dolphin trainer? nothing. nada. nil. everywhere i look im blocked. if its not my looks its my skill. if it not my skill its the fact im not american. if its not that fact its because im overqualified. fuck. I spent 6 years getting my bio degree and postgrad stuff/wild animal management shit. To be told im better than some nobody who looks better than me in a wetsuit but that im not going to get the job and they are is a pain ful revelation. some of these fucks have never seen a fucking dolphin in their LIVES. Are they in for a shock. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 15th, 2006|08:34 am] |
well I did my radio interview on friday, it was interesting to have a the translators there to convert my responses into chinese and indian depending on which channel folks were listening to. You cant help but feel a little apprehensive as you dont know what they are really telling the people out there. Mostly I talked about training animals and dolphins of course. we had a keeper down in wellington who got mauled by lions this week too, he hadnt closed the slide properly on the enclosure and two young adolescent males got out while he was laying down food. He probably would have gotten away with it if he hadnt tripped over with the food buckets (shakes head) They were just playing too so he got away with a few puncture wounds from bites and claws. They would have killed him on the spot if they had wanted to. This came up in the interview and I said that no animal was ever tame, even sheep and goats can attack if they feel threatened or provoked, theres even a word for an agressive sheep here in NZ 'toey woolly'
Sat in my favourite coffee shop last night and worked on chp 30 of Forestkeep. It used to be nice and quiet, but Ive since noticed an alarming trend. there were *3* other people sitting with their laptops perched on their knees feverishly typing away. Have I started the 21st century equivalent of the bohemian artists meetings? are we all going to end up doing poetry readings over the internet and complaining bitterly about how coffee shops have gotten noisier? only time will tell |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 9th, 2006|10:01 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | contemplative | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Myst soundtrack | ] |
Woah..there are people reading my random scrawlings? oh noes!!!1 guess I have to write something in here more often. Ive put a couple of new pics up on flickr including a cute tiger cub I was able to meet at Charlie Sammuts in San jose. he runs 'wild things' a movie animals hire place. it was a bit depressing to see the old cages and tiny enclosures weve managed to get rid of here after many years but he is trying. The elephants had a nice wide open area with toys and such.
the other one is me riding a 'segway' yeah..how can such a cool device make one look so dorky? after 20 minutes of training my friend and I were racing along cannery row in monterey at a staggering 8mph ..kinda weird how you cant make them fall over even though pres bush managed it twice!
we only had one small incident where we collided after going up a hill hehe. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 9th, 2006|08:11 am] |
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well I posted chapter 29 two days ago and it still isnt up ...dunno why..halfway through chp 30 now with the work dribbling from my busy fingertips..seems to be quiet on yiffstar. Ive got a radio interview on friday here..they emailed me a bunch of question on working in zoos and stuff about dolphins ..the questions are like..dumb..I guess they really think their listeners are dumb too or else theyre going to hit me with some different ones during the interview. |
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| argh! |
[Aug. 10th, 2005|08:19 pm] |
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wow..this has already been a hard month for me, I got rear-ended by a hit and run on monday..and today I came out of the swimming pools I visit every morning to find my car had been broken into and my wallet stolen from its supposedly invisible hiding place ..funnily enough they also only took my power adapter from the cigarette lighter socket too..they ignored the rest of the stuff for lord knows what reason..they must have been interrupted and mean to come back for the rest tomorrow..fat chance ill leave it there for them, Ive a good mind to leave a laptop bag there with nothing in and a nasty note..mm..no ones commented on my pics yet..early days yet though.. |
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| first Entry! |
[Aug. 8th, 2005|08:46 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | voodoo child- the rogue traders | ] |
well, Hopefully this wont turn into a boring nonsensical blog,this being my first entry and all, heres hoping at least..not that I expect anyone to actually read it,hell who knows..I might just sell the rights to some director somewhere and hope I get paid for it. mmm well ok..there are a load of pics on the photo pages..some of which actually might strike some folks as mildly amusing or make others wildy jealous instead, sure I like have red pandas dribble chewed apple down my neck while they sit on my head, people think keepers have it easy..oh no..ever see how many wheelbarrows it takes to clean up after an elephant? dont ask..as for the cute fluffies, well..they have teeth too..not to mention dolphins..Ive worked with lions and tigers..dolphins have way more teeth and yet you dont see people clamouring to get into the cage with lions and tigers..Ive been bitten,raked,dragged,stripped,embarassed,pushed and humiliated by those damn things too many times to mention yet I still love them..go figure..anyway..go enjoy the photos..shoo..nothing else to see on here |
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dolphinguynz's journal
