Axl and His Daddy (me) – Look What We Did!

 

I know what you’re thinking: “More pictures of the dog?”  Well, yes.  You may also be thinking, “Oh, come ON!  Yes, he’s a very cute dog, but enough already!”  My answer to that is “this is my blog, so nah nah-nah nah nah!”

 Anyway, a few days ago, Axl and the Myrtle Beach Website Designer, aka Axl’s daddy, aka me, went to the courtyard inside my condo building and played around while Bingles took pictures.

So without further ado:

 

 

 Here, I’m trying to get Axl to jump at me by moving my arms around and going “bwaaaaah!!!” at him.  Without going into much detail, it worked.

 

 

I love when he just looks up and stares at me.  He’s learned that when he sits, he gets treats or I put his leash on to take him out.  So now, he just constantly sits to try to get rewards.  I guess that’s a good thing; at least he’s not running the streets and smoking the pot. 

 

 

Daddy and Axl, sittin’ in a tree…. 

 

 

“Daddy, when’s she going to stop taking pictures?” 

 

 

 

“As soon as I take my glasses off for one last shot, buddy.”

 

I want to end this post by encouraging people to get a pet before having any children.  Simply put, if you don’t do well with the pet, you shouldn’t have any kids.

Axl at the Harbor with Bingles – Look What They Did!

 

A few days ago, Bingles took Axl to the Marina next to my condo, and he loved it.  It had all his favorite things: sunny weather, shaky ground and low-tide smells.

Of course, we have pictures.  Plenty of them:

 

 

As you can see, Axl is a very stoic dog.  Here he is, apparently meditating.

 

 

It looks like he’s eyeing up whether or not he can jump over to that marsh barrier.  He has an amazing long jump.  Thankfully for all of us, he declined to take the leap.

 

 

Next, Axl gets on the raised observatory next to the Marina, because that’s where all the birds poop the best views are.

 

 

Back down at the edge of the Harbor, Axl scares off the birds for Bingles.  She’s not a fan of birds, and apparently neither is he.  Either that, or he could sense her fear and decided to play the hero.  Either way, it works out real well.

 

 

We are learning that Axl is a big fan of water.  This marina is on the Intracoastal Waterway, and he just can’t get enough of it.

 

 

Before going home, Axl spends some time checking out the boats.  He seemed to fancy the one on the right.  He has good taste.

 

 

For those who want to see more pictures of Axl Cohen, stay tuned.  There are PLENTLY more to come.

Salsa Bootcamp and Salsa Party – Look What We Did!

 

Those who follow our blog will remember the site we made for Salsa Queen Productions, who does Latin Dance Classes and Events in the Myrtle Beach area!

Well, Bingles and I can hardly resist an opportunity to break loose and dance all night long!So we’ve been swept up in Salsa fever (and Merengue fever, and also Bachata….um, bronchitis).

On the Salsa Queen site, they list upcoming Latin Dance Events in the Myrtle Beach area. The most recent was the Latin Dance Bootcamp, followed later that night by the Salsa Party at the Caribbean Bar & Grill in Myrtle Beach.

Because we were busy, well, dancing, we didn’t get a lot of pictures, but here’s one that Adalia, the Salsa Queen herself, took of us during the bootcamp:

I believe we are doing the Bachata in this one.  Bachata is Bingles’ favorite dance.

The Salsa bootcamp is basically a 5-hour salsa class, where you are taught everything from the basics all the way to some higher-level intermediate stuff. It’s really a great way to learn how to salsa quickly!

We’ve been taking her classes on a somewhat-regular basis, so we weren’t exactly starting from scratch, but it’s always good to get a solid refresher course.

Then later on that same night, we went over to the Caribbean Bar & Grill and got down at the Salsa Party!

Here’s a picture I took of Bingles dancing with Ernie, one of the other dance students:

Unfortunately, the batteries died after taking one picture (don’t buy a camera that uses AA’s) so this is the only one I got.

BUT, if you go over to the Salsa Queen Productions Picture Gallery, you can see some more pictures of both the Bootcamp and the Party.

We will be doing more of these parties and bootcamps in the future, and hopefully we’ll bring a camera with a full battery next time.

Introducing Axl George Cohen – Look What I Adopted!

Let's Welcome Axl Cohen to the Myrtle Beach Website Designer Family!

 

Well, it was bound to happen.   I volunteer at the North Myrtle Beach Humane Society, and what I do when I’m there is walk the dogs.  Besides freeing up the paid staff to do the more crucial work, it also provides sorely-need one-on-one time between the dogs and a human.  This helps keep them from getting the “kennel mentality” and becoming scared of (and aggressive toward) potential adopters.

Anyway, when I started walking the dogs, I promised myself I wouldn’t fall in love and adopt any of them.  After all, I’m an incredibly busy person, and it would be terribly difficult to fit a dog into my life.

And then I met Axl.  And that all went out the window.

Axl Cohen is what is colloquially known as a gator-mouth pit bull.  The official name is American Straffordshire Terrier, but they’re known as pit bulls.  The “gator-mouth” part is apparently a term for pit bulls with wide jaws. 

 He’s somewhere around 4 years old, about 60 lbs. (he’s underweight due to tapeworm and several bacterial infections) and has some really cool coloring. 

He’s mostly black, with a stripe of white in the middle of his face, lots of white on his torso, a little white on his two front paws and a tiny speck of white at the end of his tail.

I’ve had him for just over a week now.  Thankfully, the beautiful Bingles came down to help me get him used to his new home. 

Here are some pics she took of him in bed with Daddy (me).  She actually took about 100 pictures of him in different settings so this is going to be the first in quite a few volumes:

 

 

Look at that face.  That’s the face of a doggy who’s taking a lot of medication.

 

 

As I said before, he’s getting over several infections and infestations, besides just being underweight from low-grade food.

 

 

Rest assured, he’s getting the best treatment, lots of walks (if only because I’m scared of him going to the bathroom in my home) and the finest in dog food.

 

 

Axl and his Mommy (Bingles) both know that he’s not supposed to be on the bed.  But he’s sick right now, so rules schmules.

 

 

This is the point where Daddy discovers that he’s on the bed.  And wait til you see just how outraged he gets…

 

 

That’s right, Daddy’s pissed.  I’m obviously outraged and mortified by this blatant violation of the househould laws.  I’m shocked…SHOCKED that this is happening in my home!

 

 

Oh yeah, there’s going to be some severe punishment for this.  Better call Amnesty International, because I know a doggy that’s going to be waterboarded.

 

Anyway, for those who are wondering, the reason Axl’s middle name is “George” is because I adopted him on the anniversary of my Grandfather George’s death.  This was not intentional, mind you.

Once this was brought to my attention, I decided to change his middle name from “Mobutu” to “George”.

Also, if you are considering getting a dog, PLEASE adopt one from an animal shelter!  These are great dogs, full-breeds as well as mutts, who are there for no fault of their own.  They want nothing but a loving home.

Besides, where else can you get a full-breed pit bull for $80?  And that includes neutering, all the required shots, testing for illness and even micro-chipping.  For $80!

Or you can go to a breeder and spend thousands…

Shoveling Snow in Canada – Look What We Do for Love!

As I mentioned earlier, I just got back from beautiful, sunny cold, miserable Toronto.  And boy, is my throat tired (from coughing).

And no, it wasn’t all fun and lizard games either.  The wonderful thing about being slowly encased in snow is that you have to regularly shovel your way out.  This accomplishes very little, other than making you feel like you have some control, when in reality God is toying with you.

Bitter?  No.  But this is an excellent time to mention that Myrtle Beach is beautiful and sunny right now.  I walked around wearing shorts today.

So in case you are interested in looking at purchasing homes in a beautiful resort town where people wear shorts year-round, go to CohenMyrtleBeach.com!

Anyway, here are the pics:

 

Here I am, starting off on my trek to clear off the driveway and sidewalk.  I am wearing: 2 jackets, 2 pairs of pants, oversized boots, 2 pairs of socks, gloves and a hat. 

 

 

At the beginning, I felt like I was wasting my time.  Oddly enough, I felt the same way two hours later, when I looked outside and saw that everything was covered in snow again.

 

 

You’ll notice that Bingles’ neighbor is selling his house and moving away.  I wonder why….

 

 

Here I am, pissing in the wind shoveling more snow.  Bingles had fun telling her neighbors that this was my first time shoveling snow.

 

 

As you can see, I had no idea what I was doing.  At all.

 

 

At this point, the driveway was “done”, which means that it was safe to drive over for about 30-40 minutes.  Good job, Myrtle Beach Website Designer!

 

 

Next comes the salting.  Did you know they use actual salt?  I thought the term “salting” came from how you sprinkled it on the ground.  I had no idea it was real salt.

Amazing.

 

 

Bingles felt that I could be trusted with an ice scraper, even though I had never used one before.  I’m glad to report that no one got hurt.  Unfortunately, no ice was scraped either.  Again, I had no idea what I was doing.

So anyway, that was fun.  Once again, any person who is living in Canada, take some time to come down to Myrtle Beach.  Spend a week here, and then seriously tell me you want to leave.

Oh, and our gas is a lot cheaper too…

Hanging with the Critters at Reptilia in Toronto – Look What We Did!

I don’t know if any of you have been following the weather in Canada.  If you haven’t, let me sum it up:

It’s freaking cold!  It is freeze-your-ass-off COLD!  It is several degrees below ZERO. 

FAHRENHEIT.

It’s not cold like “oh hey, it’s a bit nippy outside” cold. 

It’s more like “oh hey, my arm just fell off, but thankfully I’m too numb to feel it and I’m too frozen to bleed” cold!

So I did what any smart person would do, and I left beautiful, warm, sunny Myrtle Beach (where people are wearing shorts right now) and flew to Toronto see my beautiful Bingles.

Why, you might ask, would an otherwise smart person fly from a gorgeous resort town to a frozen wasteland?

THIS is why.

Ah yes, the beautiful Bingles.  Gorgeous inside and out.  So beautiful, so loving, so caring, so brilliant, so perfect in every way, that I knowingly flew to Coldtopia to spend a week experiencing what it’s like to freeze internally. 

So anyway, while I was up there, we decided to fulfill our addiction to critters (and pretend we weren’t in the Arctic) by going to Reptilia in Toronto.

Reptilia is a really cool place!  It’s kind of like a smaller version of Ripley’s Aquarium, except with reptiles instead of fishies.

Here are some pics that Bingles took of me cavorting with the swamp monsters.  There were a lot more creatures there, but here are the highlights:

 

We start off by meeting my new BFF, whom I’ve named Bert.  Bert was the patriarch of this particular clan of iguanas, so he kept a close eye on me at all times.

 

 

Here is Bert yawning.  He would also move his head up and down while puffing his little turkey-neck thingy (you gotta appreciate my scientific lingo).  I think this was meant to be some kind of alpha-male “step off my turf” display.  Anyway, I just did it back to him, not to threaten him but because I thought it was funny-looking, and I wanted him to see how silly it looked.

 

 

I named this iguana Ernie.  He slept the whole two hours we were there.  Watching him sleep made me tired, so we took a little nap together.

 

 

Feeling rested and refreshed, I decided to show my appreciation of nature by poking at angry snakes.  Incidentally, I have a pair of snakeskin shoes that are almost exactly the same color as this guy.  I didn’t tell him though.

 

 

Feeling somewhat amorous, I started to kiss every scaly thing in sight, starting with this snake.

 

 

This Gila Monster was one of the few things that actually was eager to kiss me  back.

And don’t think I didn’t appreciate it either.  It’s nice to feel loved.

 

 

It’s true what they say; kissing a bunch of strangers is tiring.  So I went back and napped a bit with Ernie.

 

 

Not wanting to do the stereotypical “toad kissing”, I chose to mock them by puffing my face out at them.

Unfortunately, amphibians are well-known for their lack of appreciation for physical comedy.

 

 

Reptilia is chock full of gators and crocs.  In fact, they have the largest crocodile in captivity, or the largest crocodile in Canada, or whatever.  Something like that.  They have a very big crocodile, so big that it has the distinction of being the largest something-or-other.

But he/she was hiding in the corner, so I decided to party with this guy, who in my humble opinion is the most friendly crocodile/alligator in all of the Greater Toronto Area.  Friendly, or maybe just hungry.

 

 

And yes, I kissed him too.

 

 

These guys were *ahem* busy.  I did not kiss them, as Bingles informed me that doing so would be a violation of several Canadian laws.

 

 

 

This angered me very much, and led me to have a temper tantrum, followed of course by another nap.

 

Unfortunately, we did not get any pictures of the feeding we got to watch up close and personal.  We were about 3 feet away while one of the employees took out some kind of fairly large lizard (a Ruta?  Guta?  something like that) and fed him/her a bunch of dead rats.  Sweet.

 

We also didn’t get any good pics of their King Cobra.  Apparently, it is Canada’s Largest Venomous Snake, which is amazing because Canada is well-known for their tropical snakes.

 

Anyway, Reptilia is a great place for critter-lovers in or around Toronto.  Lots of fun, and they keep it nice and warm in there (which was much-appreciated).

And the price is pretty fair too.  It was less than $30 (even after Canada’s consumer-raping sales taxes) and their staff is very courteous and knowledgeable.

So, for any people in Canada who are still thawed enough to read this, head on over to Reptilia, and tell them Myrtle Beach Website Designer sent you!

Even though they don’t know who I am…

Riverbanks Zoo Revisited – Look What We Did!

On one of our first posts, I showed some pictures of Bingles and I visiting the Silverback Gorillas at the Riverbanks Zoo.  On that post, I said that we would talk more about our visit in a future post.

Well, at Myrtle Beach Website Designer, we keep our promises!  So, without further ado, here they are:

 

 Whether it’s dogs, giant cats, sea monsters or goats, I love to feed them.  Whenever I go to a zoo, I tend to make a beeline for the petting zoo.

 

 

 This is a baboon.  I can’t really come up with anything to add about this.  Other than maybe to say that I wish we hadn’t been separated by a moat, because then I could’ve fed him.

Come to think of it, that’s probably why the moat is there.

 

 

 Here is the lovely Bingles posing in front of her favorite creature, the noble Lion.  This particular noble Lion is sleeping with his mouth wide open, which makes him appear all the more noble.

 

 

 Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to feed the giraffes.  There were a bunch of schoolkids in front of us, and by the time they were finished, they were wrapping up the giraffe feeding for the day.  Oh well, we’ll be back…

 

 

 These zebras look antisocial in the picture, but they were actually pretty friendly.  They liked trotting by the visitors and showing off their coats.

 

 

The elephant on the left was quite the diva (or divo).  She (or he) made a point of being in all the pictures. 

 

 

 See?  A few minutes after that first pic, Bingles started posing for this one.  All of a sudden, Diva started charging over to be behind her in time for the shot.  As you can see, she made it.

 

 

 There’s Joe Cool (who’s actually me) in front of the Flamingos.  These guys were a lot of fun to look at.  Hey kids, here’s an interesting fact: did you know that Flamingos get their pinkish/red coloring from eating shrimp?  Apparently the chemical that makes shrimp pinkish/red also makes anything that eats it pinkish/red.

So, you know…be careful with that.

 

 

Beautiful Bingles in front of the Flamingos.  What’s funny is, right after this pic was taken, they started losing their minds and got into this huge Flamingo riot.  I think they were fighting over Bingles, but it could’ve also been shrimp-related. 

 

 

 Bingles in front of one of the Bears.  I’ve seen Bears at other zoos before, but these guys were far more animated than I’ve ever seen before.  In fact….

 

 

 …once it was my turn to have my pic taken in front of them (and look how great my smile is) they started wrestling.  This, too, could’ve been shrimp-related.

 

Well, that’s about it for the pics.  We took hundreds of shots, but most of them were blurry, I think because we were shaking with excitement as we took them.

We’re hoping to get back to Riverbanks sometime in January, so we may very well have to re-revisit this topic.

Ripley’s Aquarium – Look What We Did!

As we’ve talked about in an earlier post, Bingles and I are members of Ripley’s Aquarium, which is at Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach.

It is an amazing, almost surreal experience to walk through an OCEAN, and have sharks, fish, turtles, eels and rays swim over you!  We will sometimes spend hours there, just watching all the fish.

One of our favorite things is when the sea creatures actually swim up to you and look at you.  Ever have a tiger shark check you out?  If not, go to Ripley’s Aquarium!

To give you an idea of the “layout” of the aquarium, here is a promotional pic:

 

This picture is obviously at least a little silly, and no they don’t swim out at you.  But it is an accurate layout of how you are actually walking under Ripley’s Aquarium.

In reality, though, no picture can truly show what it is like to experience the Aquarium.

That said, here are a bunch of pictures:

 

We start our gallery on our best foot, with a picture of the beautiful and exquisite Bingles, posing with some of our seaborne friends.

 

This is (I believe) a Leopard shark swimming over us.  Take a minute to think about that sentence.

 

We kept trying to get a picture of Bingles with a shark swimming behind her, but the slow shutter speed of the camera wasn’t cooperating.  The best part of the pic was preserved though.

 

This is a tiger shark looking at us as it begins to swim above us.  In the top right corner, you’ll notice the nose of a sawfish.

 

Success!  Bingles is seen here with what I believe is a sawfish, which is a type of shark.  I think.

 

Ever had a shark swim up to you?  THIS EXPERIENCE IS MORE THAN WORTH THE $20 ADMISSION!

 

Here’s that same shark swimming over us.  Keep in mind, I am not zooming the camera; the shark is that close to us!

 

Here’s Bingles posing with…who cares.  Look how hot she is!

 

Two tiger sharks palling around.  On a side note, I’m not sure why the pictures are so dark.  In reality, the Aquarium is incredibly well-lit.

 

Now one of them is swimming over us.  There are about 5 tiger sharks in the Aquarium, and a few dozen sharks in total.

 

Sawfish and leopard sharks tend to lay around a lot, which seems to debunk the whole theory that sharks don’t sleep.

 

Here’s a sawfish swimming over us.

 

Here’s the turtle (or tortoise).  I don’t know what kind of turtle (or tortoise) it is.  I only know that he (or she) spends most of his (or her) time trying to eat the fake vegetation in the Aquarium, which is further validation that we are smarter than sea animals.

 

Beauty and the Beast.

 

Beauty and the Beast II.  This time it’s personal.

 

Finally, a picture of me.  This picture took almost an hour to get right, but it was well worth it. 

 

Hey baby, is that a shark behind you, or am I just happy to see you?

 

Here are a few of our swimming buddies.

 

Oddly enough, the eels are one of the most fascinating critters in the Aquarium.  Fascinating and ugly.

 

Bingles with a horseshoe crab.  What’s funny about this exhibit, the attendants spend a bunch of time explaining how much the crabs hate being taken out of the water, and then they encourage you to take them out of the water.  They have virtually no meat in their legs, so I was not terribly interested in them.  But any hands-on experience with a wild sea creature is fun.

 

Being a Myrtle Beach native, I’ve seen a lot of jellyfish.  But they’ve always been dead and washed up on the beach.  Here you can actually see them alive and swimming around.  They also shine some kind of neon light on them that makes them glow.  It’s really neat to get up close and watch these things pulsate around.  It reminds me of the Nintendo game Metroid.

 

We end our picture tour with a shot of the happy couple.  I will post more pictures as we take them, and I assure you there will be more.  We’ll get some pics of the Giant Grouper (biggest fish in the Aquarium, and very shy) as well as their Octopus (or Squid, I always forget which it is).

For now, I’ll just say that if you are in Myrtle Beach and are not deathly afraid of walking under millions of gallons of water filled with giant sea monsters that want to eat you, go to Ripley’s Aquarium!

Freezing in Canada – Look What We Did!

Sorry I haven’t posted here in a few days.  I spent the last week in Canada with my wonderful Bingles, and I didn’t have time to make updates.

I also didn’t have time to take many pictures of what we’ve done up there, which include:

* The CN Tower

* Casa Loma

* Riding the Toronto Subway (I think it’s called the Go Train)

* Giving change to street performers

* and much much more

Fortunately, I do have a picture of me spending some quality time with my favorite dog in all of Canada, Gemma!

Gemma is my little sweetie. My little 100 lb. sweetie.

Who likes snuggles? Does Gemma like snuggles? Yes she does! Yes she does!

She’s a great girl.  She’s very attached to Bingles, but when I’m in town she stays around me, mostly because I spoil her.

Anyway, I’m back now and I’ll be putting some new stuff on the blog, so you can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Alligator Adventure – Look What We Did!

Have an affinity for reptile monsters that would love to eat you? Of course you do! Go to Alligator Adventure!

 

If it involves wild animals, warm weather and more wild animals, Bingles and I are there!  Especially if it’s in Myrtle Beach, although this is technically in North Myrtle Beach.  Yes, it’s a separate city…

Today’s feature is Alligator Adventure, which is part of Barefoot Landing.  We go there all the time, and for good reason.  Here is just a partial list of the creatures they have there:

• Alligators by the hundreds.
• Crocodiles, also by the hundreds.
• Utan, King of the Crocodiles (assumably because he’s so big, not because any actual royal lineage).
• Dozens of turtles, including giant Galapagoses (Galapagosii?).
• Dozens of exotic birds, including macaw parrots and these pinkish things that look like ostriches but are, in fact, not ostriches.
• Hundreds of reptiles, including iguanas and weird frogs of all types (yes I know they’re amphibians).
• Hundreds of snakes (yes I know they’re also reptiles) including a king cobra and some anacondas.
• River Otters (I love River Otters).
• Bison (I love River Otters).
• An extended family of Lemurs, which I tried to join.
• Two Tigers, which we watched fight over a duck one of them had killed.

The facility at Alligator Adventure is pretty big, with raised wooden walkways that take you throughout the man-made animal kingdom.  Of course, there are always fences around the walkways, because apparently alligators are excellent jumpers.

For the sake of brevity (and laziness) I only included about a dozen pics, and these do not do the place justice.  Literally everywhere you look, there are several exotic wild creatures staring back at you, with that “I want to eat you, but this fence is too high to jump” look on their faces.

What’s cool is, they have the gators (and crocs) in the water with fish, turtles, lizards, birds and everything else that would naturally be with them.  Because they are kept VERY well-fed, they don’t try to eat their neighbors. 

Although they do sometimes chase the turtles around, which is funny.

Anyway, here are some pics, as always:

Gators, gators, and more gators...

 

...or maybe they're crocodiles.

  

It's fun to watch Galapagos tortoises eat salad. That salad looked good too.

 

We sat on the floor and watched the lemurs for almost an hour. Towards the end, the started walking up to the glass, sitting down and staring back at us. It was hilarious!

 

They have two Albino alligators, which there are only a few of on the whole planet. They cannot live in the wild, because of their sensitivity to sunlight.

 

I forget if this is the other albino, or just a close-up of the same one.

 

Who doesn't love babies?

 

Bingles posing with our new buddies.

 

Here I am, posing with Utan, King of the Crocodiles. This photo doesn't do him justice; he's H-U-G-E!

 

"I am not a crook!"

 

We like to watch the live feedings, as well as the baby gator shows.  If you’ve never pet a gator, here’s your chance.

ATTENTION JEWISH PEOPLE!  I have been informed by my Rabbi that it is against Jewish Law to touch a reptile.  So if you do, don’t tell your Rabbi.

Admission is $16.95 for adults, $14.95 for seniors, $10.95 for kids 4-12, and FREE for kids under 4!

And keep your tickets, because they’re good for another FREE visit within 7 days of your first visit!

So come on down to (North) Myrtle Beach and visit Alligator Adventure!