Friday, June 8, 2012

Attack By Shark On Giant Squid

Video caught by Al McGlashan off the Australian coast shows two of nature's wonders: a giant squid and a large shark eating it. Giant squid can grow up to 43 feet long although this one was estimated at 9-13 feet long. It had only recently been killed as it still had its red color.

The video made it on to Youtube and has had well over five million views at the time of this writing. McGlashan, who is a writer for the Daily Telegraph, saw the dead squid floating in the water and started filming it. The shark then made its appearance to start eating on the squid, even tearing a hole in the side of the squid's body as is evidenced on the video.

Adult giant squids only have one enemy in the ocean and that is the Sperm Whale. Smaller squids may be killed by Pilot Whales and sharks however. The shark in the video has been identified as a blue shark approximately eight feet long.

You can check out the video below:


Thursday, May 3, 2012

Dog Attacks Shark From Fishing Boat [VIDEO]

On April 28, three friends were shark fishing off Folly Beach in South Carolina. Eddy Greene, Rod Bustos and Gregory Nicoll had been taking this fishing trip together every year for 30 years. Greene caught a bonnethead shark and had it almost back to the boat when the captain's dog, Osa, jumped from the boat nearly landing on the shark. The shark dove and the dog paddled around for a minute before swimming safely back to the boat. You can check out the video and complete story on ninemsn.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Tornado destroys farm where "Twister" was filmed

Remember the 1996 movie Twister starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton? Portions of that movie were shot at J. Berry Harrison Sr.'s farm in Fairfax, Oklahoma. In the movie, the actors take shelter under a bridge as the tornado spins its way along the road and passes over the bridge.

Harrison lost five barns, two houses, two silos, a horse and some farm equipment but luckily no one was hurt.

"We built all this in 50 years and it blew away in 15 minutes. It was quite a wind,” he said.

Apparently the tornado's path was very similar to the one in Twister. "The path of the tornado came exactly the same way that they made it in the movie,” he said.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

King Snake in my yard!

I caught this beautiful King Snake in my backyard about a week ago as it tried to climb a tree. We frequently see lizards on this tree and I believe it may have been trying to catch a meal. I took some photos and let it go, these are good snakes to have around the house! They eat rodents like most snakes but did you know they eat other snakes? Venomous snakes too!

This snake is beautiful! If you're a snake lover like me, there's no way you can't like a King Snake!

Walking With Dinosaurs

I had the pleasure of working the Walking With Dinosaurs show last week at Thompson Boling Arena here in Knoxville. The crew and I spent nearly 8 hours preparing the floor, stage, lighting, audio and video. As we unloaded the dinosaurs from the trucks, I marvelled at how life-like they were. I had expected decent quality but this was outstanding. From Velociraptors to a flying Pterodactyl to Tyrannosaurus Rex, all dinosaurs were life-size and extremely realistic in appearance, movement and sound and I was thoroughly entertained the entire show.


There were multiple skits featuring different dinosuars. A life-size Brachiosaurus swung its neck out over the crowd, T-Rex (and even a baby T-Rex) roared ferociously and Raptors fed on a fallen dinosaur. Even the herbivore show was entertaining as the arena floor seemed to come alive with exotic flowers and trees. They have an excellent light show although it interferred with some of my picture taking at times. The entire show is narrated by an informative speaker who stands on the arena floor and in humorous fashion sometimes runs when the dinosaurs get too close.
These dinosuars have extremely realistic legs which move and give the appearance of the dinosaur walking or running. However, since I got to see the them before the show, I saw there is a long narrow capsule with wheels sitting on the ground between the dinosaur's legs. This appeared to me to be a "cage" of sorts (think dune buggy, or a stripped down race car cage) and there is actually someone (they must be VERY small) that sits in this enclosure and "drives" the dinosaur around. Of course the cage has an outer covering that hides the driver from the public view. Pretty wild, huh! From your seats you would never guess this to be the case.


If you get a chance to see this show, I recommend you do! You will be thoroughly entertained in this exciting, informative and sometimes humorous show. Here are some photos I took from the show. You may view all the photos taken by clicking the link to the album under any photo.