here’s a screen grab of a video of me picking him up while cleaning his tank, Norm is about 9 or 10 inches long now

That’s a big one, I saw some mud puppies for sale at a flea market in California once, I didn’t buy one, but wanted to.
my other current hobby that i do when i can, i cut opals into gemstones from rough that i buy from the miners in australia and ethiopia, and i also silversmith and can make some intermediate jewellery. here’s my shop with my smithing bench, flex shaft station, and cabbing machine on the right there with a water system
Nice! I had to do some jewellery back on my degree. Yet. I didn’t get to work with gems.
I see some things in that shop my father had, he also did the same kind of work making jewelry, he particularly loved opals, as a kid we went on a trip to a mine in Nevada where they dug open pits mining them.