500 views today!

I just want to thank everyone, again for all your help. I hit 500 views at 3PM today, which is an all time high (all couple weeks I’ve been up and running) for me and I’m very excited. Let’s keep it going strong!

Leslie Haasch Featured Blogs

I just want to thank everyone for their support (in the form of pageviews). I’ve been the Featured blog for a good portion of my blog tags, and I plan on keeping it that way. Keep up the good work, visitors!

On a less upbeat note, due to the economic crunch that is abundant in Vermont, just as it is all over the United States, Dave and I find ourselves to be a one income household. This isn’t going to keep us afloat unless we find more work, so if anyone knows of someone who needs a graphic designer for full-time or freelance work, shoot me an e-mail (lesliehaasch@gmail.com) that I can pass on to Dave. And if anyone needs freelance website work done, or any kind of work that can be done at night or on weekends, let me know about that, too. I appreciate everyone’s concern and thank you in advance for any help you can give. (And as much as I hate being a begger, if you can donate even $1 to us, it would make a world of a difference – the donate button is on the right sidebar)

You have to be kidding me.

Residents in Charlotte, Vermont are protesting these beautifully decorated pillars at Charlotte Central School because they believe it portrays a religious affiliation.

GET OVER IT. They were decorated like candy canes by a man and his fourth-grade daughter that attends the school to brighten it up for the holiday season. It’s not a mural of Jesus Christ. People seriously need to find a more productive way to spend their time rather than bitch about candy cane-striped pillars.  Are they all offended by the Christmas tree on Church Street, too?

Shark suicide by way of waterslide

This makes me sad, ’cause my fish Taz (who was a GIANT tiny shark – figure that one out) used to jump out of his tank onto the stairs. But, it never killed him – unlike this poor shark in the Bahamas. Reported by TMZ:

But it was all too real when hotel staff saw that one of the sharks from the famous resort aquarium had somehow jumped out of its tank and onto a nearby water slide — where it managed to slide down into the pool. 

It all went down before the pool opened Tuesday — so nobody was in the water — but here’s where it gets tragic: A rep for the Atlantis tells TMZ the shark died a short time after swimming in the chlorinated water. Here’s the heartbreaking statement: 

“Yesterday morning at around 9:30 AM, prior to the resort’s waterscape opening to guests, a 12+ year old female reef shark jumped over an 18 inch wide and 1 foot high sustaining structure into the resort’s Leap of Faith water slide. 

The Atlantis Aquarists believe the shark was startled by an unusual circumstance that we have no way of defining completely. In the over ten years guests have experienced the Leap of Faith, the reef shark itself, harmless to humans as it is fed regularly by our staff, had shown no previous incidences of leaping out of the water in the marine habitat …

… The habitat itself is part of the resort’s open system which filters water from the Atlantic Ocean and is completely separated from the chlorinated water system on the slides. Once the shark fell onto the slide and into the chlorinated water, it was in significant distress. 

The Marine Aquarium Operations team responded immediately and was able to retrieve the animal at the bottom of the slide and return the animal to the main marine habitat in an attempt to resuscitate her. Despite the team’s best efforts to recover the animal, it died shortly after the occurrence. 

There was no danger to our guests or staff, both of whom interact with these sharks daily in our various interactive programs (we have guests enter the shark habitat to swim and interact with the sharks in bathing attire only). 

In fact, our concern was for the animal itself who defied nature to take this leap. The entire team at Atlantis is truly saddened by the loss of this animal who had resided in the Atlantis marine habitat for over ten years.”

It’s too bad that it had to suffer for that short period of time due to the chlorinated water. I’m sure it lived a good life, and hopefully now it’s eating all the fish it wants in shark heaven.