My name is Paul Allen Smith. My mother and father are Beola and Lawrence(nick name Sandy) Sandretto. I lived with 3 brothers. Tony Sandretto, Curt and Mike Smith. I grew up in small towns (Dixon, Sterling, Rock Falls, Manlius, New Bedford and Tampico) outside of Chicago, Illinois.

    As a child I had to pick up every reptile I could find, even if it was poisonous. I was even known to bring snakes and such to school in a sock to show off. When I moved out on my own I bought my first Ball Python name "Axle Damian". I kept him for about 2 years until I joined the Marine Corps. Okinawa was my first and last duty station, because I loved the island so much, I decided to get out after 4 years and live in Okinawa, Japan. I got a job working for Marine MWR(now known as MCCS) in Scuba Retail and Rental. I quickly  moved my way up thru the different levels of scuba training and became a PADI Divemaster with about every specialty that existed at the time. I then decided that I would leave scuba diving as a hobby and not make it a job by becoming an instructor. About a year after working in the retail side of scuba and transferred to the maintenance side and am currently the Scuba Maintenance Supervisor for all of the Marine Corps base scuba centers.

   About 3 years ago I found out that there was a new reptile pet shop on island and quickly became good friends with the owner and family. I bought my second Ball Python from him, but it would not eat and soon died. My friend felt bad about this and knew that giving my money back was not the answer to this problem, but he didn't have anymore ball pythons to replace it with, so he gave me my first yellow striped king snake. That is how it all began and now my collection of reptiles has grown to about 30 different species of reptiles and amphibians and will most likely keep growing. Also due to the very expensive price of food locally, I breed my own mice, crickets and superworms. Check out my collection in detail by clicking on the "My pets" link above.

    Some of my current hobbies including: Scuba Diving, Free Diving(Spear Fishing), Okinawa Shell collecting (currently over 2000 logged species all found and cleaned by me), Coin Collecting (American, Japanese and foreign), and a small stamp collection. Last but not least I'm a hasher and member of the Okinawa Hash House Harriers. A local chapter of an international drinking / running club. Our motto is "A drinking club with a running problem" To learn more visit the Okinawa Hash Web page at http://userhp.konnect.net/ohhh/. The hash is open to everyone (we currently have about 50/50 American to Japanese ratio).