The spider in the photo is a jumping spider, a salticid. They stalk their prey and pounce on them. They can make very impressive leaps. They are amusing and rather cute little critters.

Anybody seen one of these babies before? I found two in my bedroom last year, then another one this year in my shower. Had a heck of a time identifying it. (This is just a photo off the internet.)



Turns out they're pseudo scorpions, which are neither scorpion or spider. They're ten-legged, and like spiders they are insect predators. For an idea of scale, this bugger is about 3/16" from pincer-tip to pincer-tip. Harmless to humans. there are supposedly 29 species that are native to Michigan.

How does one train a gecko, I wonder....

Posers.

A bag of gecko treats and a lot of patience.

The tape measure was purchased in Australia, but virtually identical ones can be found in Canada too. What do you use to measure things in the US?

Seen a few in my house, here in Ohio. Biggest one I've seen was maybe a 1/16 of an inch.

Yeah, but it's not like you encounter dangerous wildlife every day or anything. The last time I saw a redback was 2 or 3 weeks ago, walking down the sidewalk.

I measure tire rollout with a inch/foot tape measure and convert to mm if need be. I do have a meter/yardstick and rulers with cm and inch and a metric/inch caliper. Tape measures with metric only or metric/foot are very rare in stores around here. If I really needed/wanted one, I could order one online, of course. Could probably find one in a store somewhere in metro Indianapolis.

They are also quite tame and gentle.

Whereas here, we can get metric/imperial tape measures, but rulers with imperial are a little harder to find. Most things are metric.

That was GREAT!

Funny thing.....I'm a big ol' guy at 6'-3" and about 260 lbs, with a 54" chest, a 38" waist, 24+ inches across the shoulders, and size 14 feet, and I'm not afraid of too much, including spiders. But I've gotta confess: For some reason, Grandaddy Longlegs absolutely creep me out!

Here's a couple of spider stories, though:

When my wife and I were first married we were given a set of sheets and pillowcases that had a kind of leaf-print pattern on them. One night we were in bed and I guess I kind of half woke up, and I was laying on my stomach. I must have half opened my eyes, and on the pillowcase right in front of my eye, too close to focus, was one of those leaf-print things, and honest to God it looked like a spider. It surprised me I guess, and I kind of exclaimed something, which caused my wife to wake up and ask what was wrong. All I could gasp was "Spider!".

That was when it got exciting.

She threw those sheets and pillowcases away.

Another time we had gone to bed, and I was laying there almost asleep, and I felt the pitter-patter of 8 little legs across my back. I calmly explained to my wife that a spider just ran across my back. (I figured she would want to know, you know?) Well, she probably thought back to the pillowcase incident, and told me that I was full of cr@p! I told her "Whatever you say, but it was running your way!"

Well, it got exciting again. She jumped up, turned on the lights, and ripped all of the sheets and blankets off of the bed, and sure enough found a big wolf spider in the bed. She beat it to death with a slipper!

I've got a couple of black snake stories, too, if anyone's interested.

Later.

OK, i found a 26ft/8m tape measure at Menards, a large suburban home improvement center. Out of about 30 tape measure models on display, all except this one were strictly imperial. I used it yesterday to figure out what length brake cable (in mm) I will need for the rear of our new 'bent tandem. Didn't have to calculate inches to mm.

It's funny ... I don't think I've ever seen a strictly imperial tape measure. I do recall yardsticks that were strictly imperial, but the last time I saw one of those, I would have been about 10 years old.