Its still a good read though. I hope you enjoy it. I've kept a variety of aquatic, semi-aquatic and terrestrial chelonians, although most of that was a decade ago when I was a teenager. I always bought them from hobbyists, pet shops or wholesale, on-site. I've never had animals shipped to me and it sounds dodgy at best.
Canadian winters are of course, a bad time to ship as well.
If I ever see one at a show, where I can inspect it first, I may try one again. It sounds like yours is doing extremely well. Yesterday I finally found a Home Depot in Toronto that had the Play Sand in stock. I added it immediately late last night. He didn't dig in at all, but this morning he was half dug in, then woke up for breakfast.