# General Topics > Member of the Month >  MOTW - Feb 10 - Feb 16 2012 - Deranged Chipmunk!

## Jen

This weeks Member of The Week is Deranged Chipmunk!

Congratulations!!! 

I made the post a day early as we have a blizzard going on and am not sure I will have time to post / have electricity tomorrow while I am trying to get to work.

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## Heather

Yay! Congratulations, Bill!  :Smile:

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## Caspian

Congrats Bill! If this is your first time being MOTW, that'll be a shock for me  :Wink:

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## Patsy

Congrats Bill!

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## DiggenEm

Congratulations Bill!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

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## Lynn

Are you ready ............ Freddy !  :Cupcake:

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## kroberts009

congrats!  :Smile:

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## Kermitsmom

Congratulations Bill :Big Applause:  :Smile:

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## bill

thanks folks! i hadn't realized that i would be the first MOTW since Jen's hiatus!! no pressure though right?? LOL i am honored that people thought enough of me to nominate me, thank you  :Smile:

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## Lija

congrats Bill!

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## Lisa

Congrats bill!

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## NatureLady

Spill the beans BILL, LOL!!!!!
Congrats  :Smile:

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## Jen

Yes Bill, you get the honors!   
Alrighty, it's Monday -  - Time to tell us all about you! 

We know you obviously like amphibians, but we want to know about the rest of your life. Details about you, your life, hobbies, families, past times, favorite colors, poems you have written etc etc....just use this post to brag/boast/bore us how you please.

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## bill

Wow, all about me, where to begin. I'm a Philly boy, born and raised. Go flyers and take the sixers with you!! Lol i've been married 21 years to a wonderful woman who actually puts up with all my stuff....lol we have 3 great genetic experiments together, justin(my beta trial version), billy (ver. 2.0), and ashlyn (my babydoll). And then there's the true apple of my eye and my best friend, my toy fox terrier, mandy. i've been a mechanic for just about the same amount of time. I was raised strict, italian roman Catholic,  but after a lot of therapy, i believe i am recovering well from it. I live my life guided by logic and science. I like things that can be proven.  :Smile:  i'm not a person of faith, but i do have faith in mankind. I do believe, however, in karma. I like to think the universe balances itself out.

Outside of amphibians, my hobbies are fishing and my aquatic tanks. I love everything beneath the water's surface, but i cannot swim. Go figure...lol i have kept fish tanks on and off for about 30 years. I have also kept birds, rodents, reptiles of various sorts, including an african rock python. 

My favorite colors are black and.purple. i just love the color combination.  :Smile:  my musical taste ranges greatly. Everything from Adele to hardcore death metal. I am a HUGE fan of dave matthews and hardstyle, european techno. When i build, it's normally techno blasting from the computer, a huge cup of joe and a pack of smokes. I get better ideas when my adrenaline is up....lol

Poetry? Me? Hahahaha....well there is the one i like....it starts with there once was a girl from nantucket.....lol

Ok, lunch break is over. I hope that will suffice for now

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## Colleen/Jerrod

Lol! Nice to know more about you Bill!! :Smile:

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## bill

Thanks Grif  :Smile:  i did want to mention one thing about me that i don't actually mind people knowing. I am VERY patriotic. I love this country with every fiber of my being. I cry every time i hear the national anthem. I am very proud to live in the greatest country on this planet. If i had one regret in life, it would be that i didn't serve. To those who do, and have, whether it be military, police, fire. THANK YOU!! it is because of your dedication and service that people like me can sit here and bore everybody  :Smile:

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Heatheranne, tinkgirl77

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## Lija

> I live my life guided by logic and science. I like things that can be proven.  i'm not a person of faith, but i do have faith in mankind. I do believe, however, in karma. I like to think the universe balances itself out.


 i can sign under this myself!
 great to know more about you Bill. how do your family tolerate you being here all the time? do they help with  feeding/cleaning/etc or nobody is allowed to touch? lol

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## bill

my wife loves that i am on here and not bothering her.....lol she's fine with the frogs, and as long as i don't call them roaches and she never sees them, she's ok with them...lol maintenance is all me. nobody is allowed to touch my tanks. but my youngest son is becoming quite the accomplished aquarist and frogger. of course, he does have access to a wonderful inventory of plants, animals and equipment. he's now keeping fire bellied toads in a 20L viv i built, along with the 10 gallon planted tank he has.  :Smile:

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## bill

everybody had enough of me? or do i need to add more?? please tell me you're sick of reading my drabble...LOL

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## Lynn

> everybody had enough of me? or do i need to add more?? please tell me you're sick of reading my ...LOL


You're kidding ...right ? You're are allowed to 'drabble'. It's you're day !  :Smile:

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## bill

ok, i know the stuff Lynn wants to know. i got my love for plants from my mother, who spent her entire adult life as a florist. i remember being young and hanging out in the flower shop my mom used to own. i would take the 'prayer plant' into the bathroom and turn the lights on and off, hoping to see the leaves fold up. yeah, i was a dumb kid and forgot a flashlight. lesson learned. from then on, i always had a love for plants. the same basically happened with fish. we got our first family fish tank when i was about 6 or so. i spent hours in front of it, watching the fish swim. not long after that, at the church carnival, my brothers (2) and i each won a goldfish. they were superman, batman and robin. hey, we were kids!!LOL well, mom, not realizing what she was doing, displayed them proudly on the nice, big console tv. needless to say, after school i was the one to inform mom that superman, batman and robin all learned the same, new trick. how to swim upside down!! i thin that was the day i decided i needed to learn how to care for fish my own darned self!! LOL when i was 13, i asked dad if i could get my own fish tank. i was told, sure, go get a job. and i entered the working world. that paper route paid for my first tank, and the rest, as they say, is history.

i have always had hobbies that challenged my creativity. i learned how to play a little guitar, i have done woodworking, including turning my own pool cues on a lathe. i even spent many years tattooing. that was fun!! oh my, the things i got to do and see while tattooing. definitely NOT pg-13....lol i also LOVE to cook and bake. and i am rather good at it  :Smile:  there are only 3 things in this world where i have a bit of an ego. my tanks, my job and cooking.....lol but of all the "creative stuff" i have done, i was always drawn back to fish. well anything in a glass cage really. when i saw my first paludarium a while back, i knew it was my "calling". i get to use all the knowledge i have about aquatics, terrestrials and animals? i'm in!! i LOVE a good challenge, and have never backed down from one and i never will. so, if you ever want to get my creative juices flowing, just challenge me with something. i may pull it off, i may not, but i will give it my all.

one last thing. i want to thank ALL the people on the forum for being so kind and welcoming. that even includes the lurkers who never post. i belong to a lot of forums, but i spend the most time on this one, because this is like "home" to me. so once, again, thank you everyone!!

that's all for now, i need to hit the viv section to start a new build thread  :Wink:

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## Heather

It's great to hear more about you, Bill!  :Smile:

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## Lija

hey Bill we are not done asking questions  :Smile:  great to know more about you.

how did you get your first frog and why? how did you end up here, on FF?

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## bill

oh, i always liked frogs, but never had the opportunity to keep them, that all changed last may, when i got my first trio of White's. then off we went!!LOL  i ended up on frog forum long before i signed up for an account. like most people, i was researching. then i figured maybe i could return the favor. and my time here at ff "officially" began...LOL

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## Jen

It's Tuesday - time to tell us about your amphibians. 

How you came to keep them, mistakes/learning curves, species kept, breedings, how you found Frog Forum etc....we heard enough about you on Monday, let us hear about them frogs!

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## bill

I kind of covered this last night. Like most people here, i was researching frogs before i kept them. So i lurked around the hallowed halls of FF for quite a while before i got my first trio of white's tree frogs. The were The Prophet, Technoboy, and Headhunterz. All named after three of my favorite techno DJ's. After i got them, i signed up for an account and the rest is history. When i finally decided to pull the trigger on building the 125, i added 3 more of them, MacKenzie (always liked the name), Hubby (he was ALWAYS trying to escape), and Frog (i ran out of names).

Next came my 2 RETF's, Jake and Elwood. Both were w.c. "rescues" from Petco. Jake passed after a little over a month, and i eventually rehomed Elwood, along with Fidel, the cuban tree frog i got from my plant ladies  :Smile:  

Then came along my painted mantellas, Mantella Baroni. They are Marty, Melman, Persephone, and Leto. And i just added eight Mantella Betsileo.  They will be inhabiting my 125 when i complete it.

Learning curves, HAHAHA, too many to mention. Mostly with construction techniques. I learned alot from others on this forum and sooonunique in it's application. developed a few of my own. Take my rain system, for example. I know it was nothing new and innovated, but the way i designed it is, at least i believe, unique in it's application.

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## Lindsey

So nice to get to know the man behind deranged chipmunk!
Thanks for sharing!

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deranged chipmunk

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## bill

ya know, it just dawned on me, i guess no mini bio of me would be complete without explaining the deranged chipmunk name. it's my playstation gamer tag. my psn name is a little different spelling, but close enough. i got it from the movie, Disaster Movie. if anyone remembers, Alvin, Simon and Theodore made an appearance, and then went insane. i thought they looked deranged and evil, and the deranged chipmunk was born  :Smile:  i like evil stuff. sometimes, i make Ozzy look like an altar boy....LOL

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## Patsy

It's great to read more about you. Cooking and baking...would never have guessed, maybe you should post recipes instead of poems!

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## FriedrichsFrogs

_congrats Bill u deserve it dude! BTW that duckweed adds a real nice touch to my tank. it hasnt overgrown yet but im defintly going to look into natural greenery in the near future so youll be seeing me again...and i get to see ur latest project lol_

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## Geo

Congrats Bill  :Smile:

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## bill

i missed pic day!! sorry folks, i was dealing with the flu last week. i took a few pics of my enclosures and tanks tonight and figured i would post a few:
the brown mantella temp enclosure. you can see a bit of my hissing cockroach tank and some of my white's tank in the pic. space it tight right now with the 125 rebuild going on"


my 75g planted tank. this just underwent a replant. hence the floating plants. it now houses all of my rare cryptocoryne species:




oh, and the 2 plastic bins you see at the top of the first pic is my hissing cockroach and dubia breeding bins. they get awesome heat from the t5ho lighting.
this is my 30g yellow and crs shrimp tank. :



current pics of the Mantella tank, including my new mini phaleanopsis orchid:


my white's tank:

sorry for the poor pic, but it's the only one i have of it and it's currently housing a very poor looking maidenhair fern i am trying to revive for the 125.

a sneak peek at the 125 rebuild (i made this intentionally dark). planted it temporarily with a very large bird's nest fern. i swear, all i need is leaf litter at this point and it will look awesome!!LOL

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Lija

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## bill

and now the froggies!!


and no pic set would be complete without my doggie Mandy. she's the apple of my eye and my bestest friend:

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## Lija

Bill! WOW! i was just starring at your mantella tank for at least 10 min, people even run to check if I'm ok lol I. AM. SPEECHLESS! and that doesn't happen often lol wow

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deranged chipmunk

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## Patsy

Very impressive tanks. I have a brother that has been into building things his entire life, he currently makes kitchen/bathroom cabinets. When he was 18 he built a 100 gallon fish tank to house his two tiger oscars. A few years ago he built another tank, he posted the build on the web I'll try to find the site. Anyway, seeing your builds makes me wish that he lived closer to me, he would totally be into building a frog tank and he'd have to pick your brain for ideas!

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deranged chipmunk

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## bill

thanks for the nice words guys. @Lija, my whole goal in building this tank was to get you to shut up for just one minute. i have exceeded my goal!!LOL seriously though, that is a very high compliment, thank you  :Smile:  and you phat frog people need to venture out of the pacman forums every now and then.....LOL
@Patsy, thank you  :Smile:  and please do try to find the link. i would love to see it. maybe i'll get a little bit of inspiration as to what to do with a spare 29 bowfront i have lying around. and my brain is always free to be picked anytime  :Smile:

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## Lija

> thanks for the nice words guys. @Lija, my whole goal in building this tank was to get you to shut up for just one minute.


 that what i thought  :Smile:  but seriously though i didn't know something like that is possible to do, and you even have freaking orchid in there, i better hide with my attempt to do nasuta tank deep deep in a forest lol hm... on the other thought... is it real? photoshop may be?

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## Patsy

Got it! He made it out of Corian. Like I said he builds cabinets so he was able to use scraps of stuff from work. 

"Corian" tank - 2/24/07 (Finished) - Aquarium Advice - Aquarium Forum Community

I reread his first post, his first tank was 30 gallon. He's my older brother so to me it was like 1 million gallons  :Embarrassment:

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## deeishealthy

Okay, the WTF clinging to the gnome's hat is the cutest thing ever!!

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## NatureLady

Such an interesting person. Can't believe that the orchid is blooming, glad you planned that one.  :Smile:

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## Heather

Great pictures! I love all of your tanks! I'm still waiting for you to come help me with mine  :Big Grin: .

(Sorry I didn't post much last week. I was a bit under the weather myself.)

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## bill

Any time Heather. All i require is good cooking......lol

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## bill

> that what i thought  but seriously though i didn't know something like that is possible to do, and you even have freaking orchid in there, i better hide with my attempt to do nasuta tank deep deep in a forest lol hm... on the other thought... is it real? photoshop may be?


Sorry, no photoshop here. And btw, there are 3 orchids in there  :Smile:  if you need help on the nasuta tank, just pm me  :Smile:

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## bill

> Such an interesting person. Can't believe that the orchid is blooming, glad you planned that one.


The one is bloom is the mini phal. I added. Citrata is almost there. Another week or so, i hope  :Smile:

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## Lisa

Bill, it was a pleasure to“meeting“ you! Your tanks are amazing. Wish I had more time to create that much beauty. I'm still not done my first!  (I get nervous everytime I start lol). I loved loved the pics, especially of mandy.  Absolutely inspiring. Wish I could do orchids in my tank, but I have a feeling I would just figure out another way to kill them lol.

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## bill

Thank you Lisa!! i'll tell ya what, building tanks is all about the tool set. seriously. it's not about talent, or vision or skill. it is all about your tools. i'll let you in on a little secret of mine, my all time most useful tools i use when building a tank: Patience, knowledge, patience, luck and patience.  :Smile:  and believe me, i am not a patient man. i considered putting a space heater in my 125 to cure the foam i just sprayed tonight so i can carve tonight.....LOL

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