I'm almost tired.

  Yesterday was a great day, or a good day, but it almost made me tired.  It was Hollies 30th birthday so we celebrated that.  She had heard so much about 30 making women feel older that she had some question as to whether she was a "geezer" or not.  No, I told her you have to be 60 to start being a geezer.  She was satisfied with that answer.
  We ate lunch at Bugaboo Creek in Bangor, because they give a birthday cake to the celebrant and you also get to kiss the moose (stuffed head).  She informed them that she has Autism and didn't want any noise or candles.  She also requested the cake to go.  She did kiss the moose.
  I recently learned that the animals on the walls will no longer talk, that's kind of sad because children, and a lot of adults, really liked that.
  So, I left home at 4:15am to go to coffee and got home about 1:30pm, I think that's about 9 hours and enough time doing things to make me a little tired.

Dodge Brothers starts to build trucks

1927 Graham Brothers stake truck
Photo: www.autonet.ca

  The Dodge Brothers started to make "trucks" at the request of the Army in World War One, they supplied panel trucks to be used as ambulances.  They weren't really trucks because they were built on automobile chassis.  They were the only trucks built while the Dodge Brothers were alive, they both died in 1920.
  After the war production of trucks were passed over to the Graham Brothers for a few years until the Grahams were brought in to the Dodge fold.
  Read more (it's interesting): http://www.autonet.ca/en/2014/03/16/dodge-trucks-in-the-beginning

1931 Dodge Panel - wish I had one. - click
Photo: www.autonet.ca

Tractor Girl

Manon "Tractor Girl" Ossevoort
Photo: AAP
 

  I learned about the Tractor Girl when I read a column by Julia Bayly in the Bangor Daily News.  Julia writes a lot about tractors on her Rusty Metal Farm.
  Tractor Girl Manon is a Dutch actress who has already made it the length of Africa, no easy feat in itself.  Now she is in Antarctica and headed for the South Pole.
  She drives a Massey Ferguson 5600 series.  She hopes to make the Pole by December 10th.
Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2014/11/27/living/i-aspire-to-be-tractor-girl/
and: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/12/03/dutch-actress-heads-south-pole-tractor

Want a date? What word will you use?

A North Dakota roughneck
Photo: Jim Urquhart/Reuters

  Match.com, a dating web site, was asked to find the word most used by those who want a date, in each state.  According to their research the man in the photo would use the word "oil" in some context.  People in Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota all use that word.  In Maine the word du jour is "woods".  I live, work, hike or hate the woods, or do you want to go in the woods?
  Read more: http://hashtagmaine.bangordailynews.com/2014/12/01/the-internets/picking-up-a-mainer-what-we-say-more-often-than-anything-else-on-our-dating-profiles/   there's a link so you can find the "word" in all 50 states.

To fish with bait, or wait?

Rangeley Lakes - click to enlarge
Photo: George's Outdoor News, George Smith

  In the early last century and the century before (1800-1920) as "war" was fought in the Rangeley Lakes. 
  Most people fished for food.  They took fish with bait.  Then came the "sports" from the east coast cities.   They fished with flies, for sport.
  The two sides didn't get along to say the least.  It was a mostly verbal war.  In one instance a cook fishing for food has a large trout on his line.  "Play it!, play it" shouted at sport.  "Play your grandmother" the cook shouted back as he waved a 15 pounder over his head.
  Read more: http://georgesoutdoornews.bangordailynews.com/2014/11/28/maine-woods/battle-rages-over-rangeley-fishing-between-bait-and-fly-fishermen/

The Dodge Brothers done up proud, in Alberta, Canada

Dauphin Red and Manitoba Brown 1929 Dodge Roadster
Photo: www.autonet.ca

  Bill Gess who lives in Calgary, Alberta is the very proud owner of this beautiful Dodge roadster.  It was reworked and restored completely.  You'll wonder how it was done when I show you what he started with.
  The car was originally sold in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1929 and it looks just as good now as it did then.  It was done in the original colors and tan sharkskin leather.  Sharkskin is a finish of regular leather not from the fish.
  Read more, see more cars: http://www.autonet.ca/en/2014/11/30/dodge-brothers---three-for-the-road

At the start of restoration
Photo: www.autonet.ca

This little piggy stayed home.

The Pig on a plane
Photo: www.cbsnews.com

  Some people have support animals, helpers if you will.  Some people who have seizures have a dog that alerts them when one is going to happen.  Other people have an animal for emotional support.  Allegedly.  My own opinion is that some of them are attention seekers.  That's why you see women, or men, in Wal-Mart with four dogs in the cart!  Do YOU want to use that cart?
  One woman was an "emotional support animal" that's a pig.  That's right, she has for her "emotional" support a pot bellied pig.  A fine swine if ever there were one.  But the porker doesn't like to fly.
  Recently the woman and her support animal boarded a flight, she tied the leash to an armrest and the pig went wild.  No flight for the little guy, he was off-loaded and that little piggy stayed home.

An expanded view.