It's good to hear you're meeting up with your friend. I think going to the Valpo show would be a great way to catch up, especially given your common interests.
Actually, going to Lee's was the last time I was down there. About a month ago maybe. I had never been there, and heard it was pretty 'interesting'. I was glad to see a bunch of people that I knew, but it was SO crowded and there were little children running around everywhere. I didn't stay too long, and didn't buy anything either. I almost picked up a male albino bullsnake to go with my female, but changed my mind.
Not to pick on Lee's or anything, but I can see why baby turtles have such a bad rep when it comes to children and salmonella. I saw these two kids walking around eating cheetos, and then picking up baby turtles, and then putting their hand right back into the cheeto bag. NOT cool. I had never seen so many aquatic turtles before, especially babies, and I don't have anything against the vendors when it comes to that matter... it's the PARENTS of those children that had smoke coming out my ears.
And no, it's not for the reputation of the reptile industry as much as it is for the health of the kids. I HAD salmonella once, and it came pretty close to killing me, so to see kids exposed to the same potential source because their parents were so careless spoiled the experience for me. (by the way it was confirmed that I didn't get salmonella from any of my herps - it came from a restaurant I ate at the day before I got sick).
I hope to make it down to Lee's again some day, but I'm honestly still a little burned by what I encountered last time.
My plan with the albino pied project (or caramel albino pieds maybe) Is to pick up a male pied, a het pied female and 1 or 2 albino females. If I could find a piebald that was 100% het for albino (or vice versa) that would help, but I'm pretty skittish about shipping anything that costs more than $1k so I'll probably hope to get something locally from Garrick or Jim Stelpflug. I got a LOT of my first adult corn breeders from Jim, and he has helped me out immensley. I even picked up a few poss het fat tails from him at the Monona show last month. We'll see though. It kinda comes down to the $ because I don't want to even guess how much I have already wrapped up in my current reptiles and boaphile cages/racks, but I would like to see future purchases paid for by what I produce this year.
Good luck with your albino piebald projects, even if it is in EXTREME infancy. Maybe we'll have to do a little trading in future years to help each other out.
