Thanks guys!
Okay...absolutely, positively certain now that The BLOB was based on these bakers' starters! Split, feed, and discard about 1pm, and the monster had grown to triple size again.
Per the instructions, half was again discarded, watered, but now it gets fed with unbleached all-purpose flour. This "starves" the bad bacteria but allows the yeast and good stuff to continue. Once this stabilizes in about three days, we can go back to whole wheat flour for the feeding.
After all this work plays out for over a week, we can work on storing the stabilized starter in the refridgerator. At that time it will still need to be fed once a week.
Jon