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Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas 2007

This my friends is my second Christmas with my beautiful wife and our first Christmas with a Christmas tree. We even had Stockings and Christmas lights on our balcony. This is a big step in the Chapman home. We finally were able to find room and money to make these big purchases. We had a great Christmas and I can't think of too many things that I would change about it. Well there might be one thing. I do look kinda fat in this photo. I'll work on that one in the new year. Also you may notice that we are both wearing our new jackets in this picture. I have been without a jacket for a long time so it is good to be warm again. Well I don't have anything else to say about this photo but I am arguably the luckiest guy in the world to have been able to marry my best friend seen to my left. Man is she hot or what? Hope you had a Merry Christmas ya'll.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Thank You Elise

Well, after much encouragement and by way of request from many of my closest fans, I have now created a blog. We can all actually thank Elise for this, because she is the one that actually talked me into doing this. I hope that I too can one day be a fantastic blogger and that I will be able to capture everyones attention and have everyone of you eagerly awaiting my next entry.



As for now I do have so much to talk about, but so little time because I have to go to Johnny Machete's house. My first blog will be about a fish.



My brother Jeff and myself were in the city of Colton getting lunch on our way home from Indio. We saw a pet store next to the Hawaiian BBQ we ate at and as we are both lovers of the animal kingdom we decided to stop on in. This place for the most part a tropical fish store. I, myself am a certified Scuba Diver and do love to look at fish so I was especially interested in all that I saw.



As I was being mesmerized by this beautiful box fish my brother Jeff said, "Mike, look at this"! Not wanting to distract my attention on my little boxed friend I gave Jeff a courtesy look that was only intended to last about 2 seconds. So I did give him the look and it did last only 2 seconds, however to my surprise it was followed by a very quick double take!!! To my surprise I was laying my eyes on a remarkable 2 foot Black Tip Reef Shark that was swimming in a tank about 3 feet deep 8 feet long and possibly 3 feet wide.



My first thought was, "Is this legal?" For those of you who don't know, Black Tip Reef Sharks are indigenous to warmer water climates particularly the Caribbean. I have seen these sharks in the wild scuba diving and I can tell you from personal experience that these amazing animals get to be about 6-7 feet long. Who in the world would in the middle of Riverside, CA just happen to stroll into a pet store and buy a Black Tip Reef Shark? You would need a swimming pool converted into a salt water holding tank and have it continually heated to about 80-85 degree water.














I still don't know what to think of my experience at the pet store. Part of me wants to talk my Dad into converting his pool into an giant aquarium and part of me thinks that I should steel this shark and return it to the Caribbean. I wonder which of those is more realistic? Anyways what do you think about this?