Last Saturday Krissy was driving into the alley behind our house when she saw a moving lump in the road. When she realized that it was a turtle she called me. I was making dinner, so she grabbed a bucket and saved its life. She took it over to a pet store and asked if they knew what kind of turtle it was and how we should take care of it. After the employee took the turtle in the back for a second opinion, she identified it as a Desert Tortoise. As it turns out, it is illegal to harass or touch a wild Desert Tortoise, because they are considered a threatened species in the wild. In order to keep one as a pet you have to have a permit, and once they have lived with people, they won’t survive in the wild.

Over the weekend Krissy took good care of our new friend. She started calling the turtle Buddy. We had no idea whether it was a male or a female, but since the name Buddy stuck, we started calling it a him. She placed him in the bottom of a large, empty plastic storage container. She set out water and some small pieces of cabbage and lettuce in the enclosure. Buddy did not like being cooped up in such a small space and spent a good hour trying to climb out. The turtle was completely unsuccessful and would come down with a thud over and over with his nails scratching the plastic walls as he fell. He seemed scared for the first day or so, but by Sunday evening he was willing to stay out of his shell and just sit there.

Early today Krissy contacted Arizona Fish and Game to ask what we should do with the turtle. She drove out to the site, nearly an hour away, and they identified the turtle as a female Desert Tortoise. They said she was in very good health, which lead them to believe that she is someone’s pet. Since Krissy had to leave the turtle with them, we won’t see her again, but Krissy and I will be putting up signs around the neighborhood with the wildlife shelter’s number in case the turtle belongs to anyone nearby. We are going to leave the signs intentionally vague so they have to identify their turtle in order to get it back. Krissy and I were sad to see Buddy go. She was a good turtle. Now we are considering possibly getting licensed and adopting a captive Desert Tortoise. All you really need is a basic shelter, a 6×6 foot plot of land, and an understanding of what the turtle needs to eat to be healthy. Make sure its shelter doesn’t flood, and you’re there!

Desert Tortoises are adapted to living in the desert and can, therefore live outdoors with minimal human interaction for 80 to 100 years! This would be the perfect pet for people who work and can’t spend a lot of time interacting with their animals.

Take care, Buddy, and I hope everything works out for you!

For the last couple of weeks I have been listening to the 7th Harry Potter book on an MP3 player in the car. I am using an FM modulator to get the signal from the MP3 player to the car’s speakers. I can choose to have the modulator broadcast on any frequency in the FM band, but it works best if it doesn’t have to compete with other, possibly stronger, signals. The default for an unset preset on the car radio is 87.9 FM, the very low end of the FM band. It just so happens that no local stations use this frequency, so I figured I’d use it.

While driving around, I would experience interference and static sometimes. After a few days of the commute I determined that it wasn’t in any particular location; the static seemed to happen whenever it wanted to. During on of the times when there was static, I tuned my transmitter to another frequency, just to rule out that it wasn’t part of the recording or a defect with the MP3 player. When I tuned my transmitter away I was blown away by crystal clear &em; and very loud &em; heavy metal music. I thought this was an isolated event at first.

I started turning off the transmitter any time I heard static, and in every single case, there was another signal coming from another car! I was astonished. I know there are FM modulators available that work with iPods, but I was amazed by how many people were doing the same thing I was. I wouldn’t think it would be very popular. After a while I deduced that most of the signals came from satellite radio. I guess the little boxes for cars that receive satellite radio come with FM transmitters to make car installation easier. I’m guessing that most of them default to using 87.9 FM.

If you want to try this yourself but don’t want to listen to minutes of noise in between hits (the whooshing sound makes me sleepy) try just switching over to 87.9 FM at intersections. The more cars you can get close together, the greater your chances of picking up on a signal will be. If you get lucky, then the signal will be coming from one of the cars traveling the same direction as you, then you can listen to it until you get too far apart. It can be fun trying to figure out which car is listening to the Howard Stern show. I’m usually wrong, though. I think I know which car it is, then the actual car will turn off the road and the signal fades away.

Have fun, but be safe. Don’t let the random transmissions distract you from your primary driving responsibility.