• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

California PG&E Customers Take Note

bcr229

bcr229

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California May Go Dark This Summer, and Most Aren't Ready

If you have eggs in the incubator or a chest freezer full of f/t reptile food (to say nothing of your own food) then having at least a backup generator to keep the food cold and the incubator at the proper temperature would be a smart purchase right about now.
 
Last fall, we had tornadoes go through and lost power for three days -- that was a long outage for us. I bought a generator (Honda EU2000), and later installed a transfer switch so we can power two chest freezers, two aquariums, my reptile room, some house lighting, the kitchen fan and fridge, the sump pump and the propane furnace. I'm really surprised how much equipment that little generator can power.

Though cutting power because a company's equipment can't deal with pretty normal weather events seems like a third world solution, at least they plan to give notice of a cut. Most people aren't going to spring for a auto-start generator; I wasn't willing to.

Anyone have any favorite UPS units?
 
Socratic Monologue said:
Most people aren't going to spring for a auto-start generator; I wasn't willing to.
Click to expand...
While they're great if you can afford one, a whole-house natural gas or propane generator really isn't needed when a $500 portable that runs on gasoline will get the job done for a few days.
 
I think a generator is a good idea. But I also feel considering a broader approach for your own food and household management, if one has the time and inclination, might also be a good idea. Learning to can, growing some food if possible, and storing a year's worth of food. I have a small hand powered washer, the Lavario, that is excellent and takes up little space. And I have taken advantage of a legal loophole to stock up on various antibiotics sold on Ebay.

I do not know whether California communities are like the communities here. Not only are the vast majority of people here completely unprepared for almost anything out of the ordinary, but some in conversations also imply that buying insurance is all one needs and that any more prep than that is weird.

Canning does significantly change the texture of meat. I have not heard of anyone trying to can a few mice in a pint jar and then offering one of them to a snake, but if these electric outages are to become commonplace I would think that the small expense of a test jar experiment might be worthwhile.
 
I have canned bone-in meat (not mice, though), and it becomes very, very tender. I do not think that a snake could deal with that -- the mouse would just fall apart.

I didn't leave the skin and fur on, though. Hmm.

bcr229 said:
While they're great if you can afford one, a whole-house natural gas or propane generator really isn't needed when a $500 portable that runs on gasoline will get the job done for a few days.
Click to expand...

I agree. I was thinking of the fact that many incubators will lose heat fairly quickly when power is lost, and many people are not home to start a generator.
 
Socratic Monologue said:
I agree. I was thinking of the fact that many incubators will lose heat fairly quickly when power is lost, and many people are not home to start a generator.
Click to expand...
From the article though, PG&E does plan to at least announce the outages in advance when possible so you could arrange to have someone available to fire up the generator. If you can't, you can at least load up the any empty space in the incubator with additional bottles filled with water for thermal mass to help slow the heat loss.

I wouldn't feed canned meat to my snakes. My adults would all survive a week or so without food should it be necessary, and in a pinch I could feeders from a big box store if I had hungry babies.
 
I've got a 20kw Onan standby generator that I bought for the reptile business years ago. Auto starts when the power goes out. At least it used to. Now it just tries to start up, and either dies, or pops the breaker in the control box and then dies within seconds. I can't see anything obviously wrong, so trying to get someone to come out here to check it out.

Came in handy during hurricane Michael as it kept the power going for the four days it was out. Connie and I had evacuated, so at least we didn't have to worry about getting back in time in order to put power to the chest freezer in the old reptile building to keep everything from thawing out and going bad.

It's a handy thing to have around, so hopefully it won't cost me too much to get it fixed. Unfortunately it doesn't run the house, only the old reptile building and mouse building. Oh yeah, I have the garage tied into that circuit too. But the freezer gets power as does our water pump. And in a pinch we can set up cots in the reptile building if needed.

BTW, if you do get any sort of UPS system, make sure you get a true sine wave output or you could wind up burning out anything you use it on. Some electronics and even motor windings don't react well to a modified square wave power source.
 
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