After looking at our visitor logs over the last year, I feel I have to do something about a group of states that never visit. You know who you are…well, you really don’t know who you are, do you…

Maine…monosyllabic Maine. No one’s even sure what you’re named for.

I once walked into Maine, but I didn’t get very far and I think I only stayed for lunch. It was really just for the novelty of being able to walk out of New Hampshire (I’ll get to you soon enough).

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that not many people from Maine visit since it’s apparent that there are way more trees than people up there, and trees don’t get the internet.  Maine has the lowest population density East of the Mississippi, and it really doesn’t get more East than Maine.

In doing a background check on Maine, the thing that struck me was that every city I could name was more famous for being somewhere else.  The capital, Augusta, Portland, Belfast and of course Norway are all conspicuously borrowed. I thought Bangor was original and then Angie pointed out to me there was a Bangor, PA. I have to hand it to them for a place like Beans Corner Bingo, that you’re unlikely to find anywhere else.

A number of movies and TV shows seem to be set in Maine, but The Cider House Rules, The Shawshank Redemption and  Murder She Wrote don’t really inspire me to visit. The Iron Giant, Dark Shadows (Angelique is named after a witch on that show), and Casper the Friendly Ghost are a different story entirely.

A lot of fun things have come from Maine; like Maine Coons, Moxie, Milton Bradley, and Matt Stairs, so maybe it’s not so bad. On second thought, Moxie is terrible.

I hear you’re beautiful Maine, and I’m sure I’ll be back. Just keep in mind that our site looks pretty nice too. So ignore all the mountains and Canada and look over here, Mainers, Mainards, Manians, or whatever you call yourselves, we get plenty of visitors from the other Portland.

Image courtesy of Greenwich Mean Time.com.
Moxie image by JoeShlabotnik/ / CC BY 2.0

Other states that never stop by: Utah, Nebraska

After looking at our visitor logs over the last year, I feel I have to do something about a group of states that never visit. You know who you are…well, you really don’t know who you are, do you…

Nebraska, when we flew over you last week the pilot said there would be turbulence. At least your air space is mildly exciting. We descended to avoid it, so I may have been closer to you than ever before.

While I’ve never been on the ground in Nebraska, driving through was once described to me as a being on a ribbon of concrete with nothing on either side, and a dip around Omaha.

I know Nebraska has big college sports teams, but I know little to nothing about college sports. There are just so many conferences with seemingly no organization, featuring teams I could never possibly be interested in…like Nebraska. It also doesn’t help that you’re triple land-locked, and have a Republican River (in the interest of equal time, I wouldn’t visit Jackass Flats, AZ either).

And really, Worms, Nebraska? How exactly does a town get such a name?

I do love Abe Lincoln though, so I’ll give you respect for that. Illinois gets more though because a state motto trumps a capital any day.  So Nebraskans, put off your Arbor Day planning, drink the Kool-Aid, and pay us a visit.

Image courtesy of Greenwich Mean Time.com.
Worms image by Aggtastic.

Other states that never stop by: Utah, Maine

After looking at our visitor logs over the last year, I feel I have to do something about a group of states that never visit. You know who you are…well, you really don’t know who you are, do you…

Disclaimer: Before I begin, you should know that we did have a visitor from Utah just last week. However, I had already begun my “research” and wasn’t going to allow this lone visitor to take an installment away from me. Instead they were moved to the top of the list despite being eighth alphabetically.  Also, Angie explained to me that Utah spelled backward is “sneeze” while falling asleep last night.

I’ve never visited the state of Utah, because I’ve never really had a reason to. I have every intention of visiting all 50 states before I’m done, but to date Utah has not been prioritized. Maybe this is why Utahns don’t visit MLD. Are they not visiting us because Jerry Sloan’s Jazz are neither bad nor good enough this season to be worthy of note? Sure they smashed the Sixers already this season, but so have 20 other teams.

Outside of the NBA, the only time Utah even comes to mind is when I’m listening to the The Dwarves or Angie’s watching Big Love. I suppose Point Break might bring it to mind, and I recall Utah Saints being popular in the raver community circa 1992, but how often does any of that come up?

Utah, I know you have towns with great names like Dirty Devil River and Cactus Rat Mine, but outside of Salt Lake City there’s just a whole lot of peoplelessness.  So I beckon you, people of the mountain, don’t let that low population density keep us apart. Put down your snowboarding video games and waste your time on us.  We can even talk about Roseanne Barr and James Woods if you like.

Image courtesy of Greenwich Mean Time.com.

Other states that never stop by: Nebraska, Maine

Just to bring closure to yesterday’s blog post, thanks to the interwebs we have our answer on what the evil, immortal, invincible wasp-like-things are. According to the Bug Guy at my wife’s new favorite blog, Whatsthatbug.com, it wasn’t a wasp at all, but rather a red headed ash borer. They’re designed to look like wasps as a defense mechanism and we were told they likely were burrowed into some firewood we brought into the house and emerged recently due to the warmer temperatures inside. Unfortunately, we don’t have a wood-burning fireplace. So this was a new mystery for us… but upon inspection we discovered some tiny holes in a wood perch in our red iguana’s cage.

Mystery solved.

Harmless beetles.

And since our dissection of one of the dead borers revealed it had a stinger, I’m apparently a terrible junior Entomologist. Now if only we knew what the deal was with the dead hornets we’ve been finding…

KevinMLD’s home is the victim to a hostile takeover by a UFO.  Of course, I needed to chime in and try to discover the identity of the enemy.  This is the conversation that ensued:

angelique do they look like this?  http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/01/the-jewel-wasp-is-amazing/
kevinmld no
kevinmld I tried to take pictures but they didn’t come out.
angelique are they big or small?
angelique you need to put your camera on the flower mode
kevinmld kar says bee size.
kevinmld i was using my phone
angelique Carpenter bee or Bavarian bee?
kevinmld what the hell is a Bavarian bee?
angelique hahahaha
angelique i have no idea
angelique are they fast or slow?
kevinmld mostly slow.
kevinmld but not that slow.
kevinmld the Orkin guy proposed that maybe it was some sort of wasp baby larvae thing, but he said that basically he had no idea what it was, why it was awake, where it came from, or how to stop them.
angelique interesting.
angelique i thought wasps were fast
kevinmld Since we basically live in a cartoon world, we’ve been putting cups over top of them when we find them. And then we watch the cups move ever so slowly as they fight for their lives. We literally leave them lying around for weeks at a time to the point that the cats slap the cups around.
kevinmld and we put one in the freezer…
kevinmld overnight.
angelique hahaha
kevinmld and it came back to life.
angelique eeew
kevinmld so clearly they’re immortal.
angelique

kevinmld no and what is that?
angelique that’s a digger/plasterer bee
angelique i guess it likes eating plaster the way a capenter bee eats wood
kevinmld we do have plaster all over the place in here.
kevinmld it’s wings are barely formed.
kevinmld and it’s skinnier than that.
kevinmld and it’s legs are almost like cricket legs.
angelique

angelique ?
kevinmld less happy than that with a friggin’ weapon on it’s tail.
angelique stripes?
angelique

kevinmld yes stripes, thats why we think its some sort of bee.
angelique

kevinmld stop! these pics are freaking me out (Karen)
angelique am i getting closer?
kevinmld that thing looks huge
kevinmld its super skinny
angelique i think it is super zoomed in

kevinmld

angelique eeeeew
angelique those legs are super long
angelique
?
angelique i don’t know what’s wrong with me……
kevinmld yeah… weird cricket legs.
kevinmld tiny wings and a nasty tail you can’t see in the picture.
kevinmld and they’re invincible.
kevinmld and immortal.
angelique ok – according to my search for “skinny bug long legs spider/bee”
angelique this is the culprit!

angelique also – immortal
kevinmld it looks just like the bottom one
angelique OR
angelique it is this guy:

angelique as found on the internet:  “Bees will only come back if you thaw them in your mouth. Every few minutes, you will need to sip a bit of honey so they have food when they wake up. Be very careful not to swallow.”
kevinmld i’ll have to try that
angelique i can’t find anything like that bug online.  it must not exist.
kevinmld cause its an evil hybrid mutant invincible immortal hell spawn that will someday be named after us