Rest In Peace

A dog for all seasons.

She was a go-dog, always wanting to go someplace. She has traveled with us from the Grand Canyon to Land's End.

She loved the snow.

Antique Lawn Comics

It's been a very rainy past few weeks and the yard loves it. You can see how well it's growing with Pandora just peeking over the grass. We pulled out our riding lawn mower last week, on one of the few not raining days, and discovered the battery was dead. We now know we should bring the battery inside during the winter. Carrie bought a new one, now I just have to figure out how to get the thing primed again. Hopefully we'll start the mowing process again over this long weekend.


Last weekend we went to the Maine Comic Arts Festival in Portland. First convention type event we've been to since we moved up here. We bought a handful of comics. Actually, Carrie bought most of them. I made sure she saw the ones I thought she might like and she bought all but one of the ones I thought I might also like (that were not overly expensive.) So I did buy one.

Carrie got a free Tiki drawing from Daniel Edwards. He had an interesting children's book, that we'll probably want to investigate once he's turned it into comics or a cartoon. He's been drawing some tarot cards to use in the story line so we chatted for a bit about comics and tarot and Sita Sings the Blues. Tikis are getting featured in his next book.

Another artist was giving out free sample panels of his comic. A couple got Carrie to laugh out loud, so she bought a copy of his sampler, Secret Harbor.

Upstairs was even bigger and more comics were bought. Kitty Hawk had the best cover in the place, and I want to read the webcomic now. A couple of books had artwork very similar to Jeff Smith's work. Grune was the one we picked up. The Underburbs looked good enough to buy the first collection, but they were sold out, so only issue one was purchased.

Carrie bought a mini-comic about cats from Gynn Stella, but what brought me to the table was the banner hanging from the front, especially the art you see to the right. Back in the days when I was playing in fantasy role playing games, I had a character named Meep who was a were cat. Guess this is from one of his as yet untold adventures...

Weather was cool enough to wear my Love & Rockets the band hoodie, and this time I wore my Love & Rockets the comicbook t-shirt underneath. The shirt got a lot of compliments. And a couple of people even noticed the hoodie.


This weekend we started by traveling down to visit Kemmer in Massachusetts. We went to a few antique stores and ate at a Thai restaurant. And I am contemplating the purchase of an expensive toy. It's made out of wood, just over 3 feet high, 4 and a third feet long, and in need of severe TLC. But expecting to be quoted a price in the thousands, I was stunned to get one in the hundreds. Carrie and Kemmer both seem to think it would be a good buy for me. I'm still a tightwad, so am sitting here today talking with Carrie about where to put it. We already think we can do enough repair work to it ourselves to make it look good enough and not fall apart. But if it cannot be placed somewhere safe and yet well displayed, there is no sense in spending the money. If I can talk myself into it, I'll go again next weekend and see if it's still there.

As always, click on a photo to get a bigger view of it.

Fence Sitting (part 3)

The fence did get finally set up, a few days longer than expected. It even has 2 gates. The next step is to put up the wire on the inside to keep Pandora from roaming. We're hoping to have most of it done during this long weekend.

Snow reason not to

Above is a view of our driveway heading out toward the road. Below is Pandora in the backyard. A couple days ago we were looking at a much greener landscape around here. With the rain and warmer temperatures the snow was all but gone. Suddenly, boom! Several inches of snow. Welcome to Maine.

I haven't shoveled or done any snowblowing yet because the temperatures are supposed to get into the 40s. If that happens and goes on for most of the day, it would be a waste of time to bother with snow removal. As the day wears on, I might have to do something, but for now...

One Giant Steps For Maine

Last weekend we took Pandora and headed out to Bailey Island. We'd been to Bailey Island before, but didn't know about the cliff walk until a coworker of mine who had stayed in the area for a while told me about it. It was a very picturesque and pleasant walk which Pandora greatly enjoyed. The special feature was what was called The Giant Steps. A regular step-like cutting into the cliff face that I climbed down. Carrie took my photo from the top of the stairs.

I took the video from the bottom.

Eerie Deer

It's Sunday and finally sunny, so we took advantage of it by first raking up all the piles of grass left after mowing last weekend. Then we took Pandora with us to the Brunswick Common, a pine barren with lots of walking trails. She didn't seem to notice the deer, so Carrie took her further along the trail while I got closer to the deer for a better shot.

Yesterday it alternated between rainy and sunny all day. Except for the brief hailstorm. So I mostly hung out at home doing a few chores and playing on the computer. Carrie had to work both Saturday and Friday.

Friday, Kemmer came up for a visit. And the weather was pretty nice then too. We also went to Brunswick, but stayed in town visiting a few favorite shops and having lunch at the Bombay Mahal. Kemmer bought a bunch of books at the bookstore and a few items at the health food store. All three of us agree that Brunswick is a nice little town.

Sunday Toppings

Carrie and I had Sunday off together again, so we did some grocery shopping then took Pandora and headed up to look at the Basin Cove Falls off South Harpswell on the Harpswell Peninsula. They look more like some very short rapids than falls. But it was an interesting beach covered in shale and mussels.

The Beach, Pandora

Time for my monthly trip to York to check my mail drop. I brought Pandora and she got to go for a walk on the beach.

Castle Waiting

I had today off, so decided I should check my mail drop in York. I seem to only get there about once a month. If that.

And because I was going that far south, I asked Kemmer if I could stop at her place, a bit further south. She had been unable to join us on christmas, so we still had presents to exchange.

I took Pandora with me for the adventure. We drove the surface streets most of the way and I stopped several times just so she could get out and walk not nearly long enough to suit her.

One place we stopped at was Winnekenni Park in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Kemmer and I kept meaning to go hiking there on one of their many trails, but never quite got around to it. This time I just walked up the road to see the castle at the top of the hill and walked back down again. Pandora wanted to sniff everything. An hour at each sniffing point.

Family Values

We flew Carrie's brother Ross out from Arizona christmas eve so he could spend the holiday with us. It was nice that the snow didn't get all washed away by the rain and warmer temperatures. We took him out through our meadow in an attempt to do some sledding, but it didn't work out quite as easily as we'd hoped and devolved into a snow fight.

Pandora enjoyed it.

Afterwards we went for a stroll around the area. There are lots of deer tracks all over the place here. Even in our backyard. It's nice to know they're around, even if we didn't actually see any.




We also took Ross down to the Freeport port. Those are piles of lobster traps behind him and Carrie.

Then it was lunch time, so we headed to Mikado's. After lunch we went in search of a movie theater Carrie had looked up that was showing The Spirit. We're still feeling our way around the area, so it took a bit to actually figure out how to get there. We arrived in the middle of the previews, but didn't miss any of the film itself. I had a difficult time getting past it not being The Spirit as I knew the character. When I finally did, I started enjoying the movie. I want to see it again so I can watch it from the beginning in the right mindset.

Click on any picture to supersize it.

Lord Snowed In

I was at my job at Staples when the next round of snow started. The TV had been telling everybody to get where they needed to go and then stay there because it was going to be a big storm. Well, it was in the middle of the storm when my shift ended and I had to head for home. I drove between 25 and 40 mph most of the way, but otherwise it wasn't as bad as I was expecting.

The next morning I spent about an hour and a half with the snowblower clearing out most of the driveway before I decided I had to go to work. I knew I would be late, because I'd thought an hour would be more than enough to do the snow removal. Oops.

While I was wrestling with the snowblower, Carrie had our not quite a snowshovel and was getting the snow from off the porch and around the vehicles cleared away.

Hours have been cut at work because Staples isn't doing anywhere near the business they were expecting, so I was out two hours early and came home with the intention of finishing up the snowblowing. I couldn't get the bloody thing to run. I could get it started, but it wouldn't continue. So I had to shovel. The front of the driveway had been plowed under by the street plows. I had barely managed to get my car through it. So I shoveled until it got dark.

This morning I start at Pet Pantry at ten, so I am going to be outside before then with a hairdryer trying to thaw out the gaslines on the snowblower. The repair guy says that we need to use extra amounts of drygas when it gets this cold to keep things from freezing up. I hope that's all that's wrong.

But it might be wasted effort because, although it's snowing right now, it's going to turn into rain and that may melt all our snow away.

What's Up Dock?

On our Tuesday together, Carrie and I took Pandora to the Freeport docks. We then went off to the Freeport Beach. It doesn't sound very exciting, but we are enjoying our little explorations of this area so very different than the desert southwest.

Light of My Life

Carrie's job has her working some saturdays instead of tuesdays. Today, I also have a day off. We decided to go to Ft Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth and see the Portland Head Light. It was a bit cold and overcast, but fun nonetheless. Pandora, as you can see in the photo, certainly agreed.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow often walked from Portland to visit this lighthouse. The Keepers were his friends and it is believed he sat here for inspiration on his poem, "The Lighthouse."

And if you want more history tied in to this place, it was commissioned by George Washington in 1790!

Carma Dogma

Carrie and I took Pandora for a ride yesterday when we brought Carrie's truck to a mechanic recommended by my Freeport bosses. We took her again this morning when we brought my car in. My car needs at least one belt tightened as it screams like a banshee until it's warmed up. Poor thing.

Belts and brakes were the 2 things I had our Arizona mechanic looking at before I left that state, and those are the 2 things that I needed taking care of once I got out here. Guess they figured they didn't have to do a good job as I wouldn't be able to come back in and complain.