Your plant identification website probably was state of the art when you created it. I never thought I would have a use for that kind of resource until I owned a forest with things growing and cared for by Mother Nature. At first I looked up web sites similar to the one you made when I wanted to identify a plant. I recall trying to identify poison ivy, for example, and came to a dead end. It seems that not all poison ivy has that identifying "thumb" on it's leaves and there are some perfectly non-poison plants that do. Some botanist would know the difference right away, but neither me nor the websites I was using could define what I had well enough. In any case the operation was manual. I had to sort through a bunch of pictures in order to find the closest match.
Then, I got a clever phone made by Google. Google, as you know, is the world's largest database. They also have the best algorithms for indexing and retrieving information. It took them several years but they came up with a way to search images for matches. Initially I used that to try and identify people I met online. It was fairly good at finding all the places you might have pictures posted on the Internet. Google also invented a pair of glasses, called Google Lens. The idea there was to look at something or somebody and you would get information in your field of view about what your lens saw. The glasses didn't go over so well, but the software is a giant success. It's built into the Google Pixel phones and licensed to other folks such as Apple. All you do is point your camera at something, turn on the "lens" function and you will get hundreds of pictures and articles about whatever it is you want to know. I've been able to identify plants in under 3 seconds.
Cutting SS benefits is part of the Republican Party's agenda today. I guess they must have snuck that one past Trump when he wasn't looking.
It was crude, but got tons of hits. The web host wanted to charge me more since I crossed a certain number of hits, but he decided to wait, and the hits dropped back off as other sites had better layouts.
Now if you have a picture of something, you can check google for it, works with almost anything now due to their massive databases and high speeds.
I've had many pictures I've searched for that I know is on their databases and they never found a match for it.
One was a picture of an old truck, the picture was nice and clear, and viewed from the front left of the vehicle. So you could see the grill, hood, windshield and side of the truck. I even went through hundreds of pictures myself for the approximate year of the truck and never found anything close. And if I put in a name to hunt, nothing comes close.
Now I can't find the picture again to do a search for it. Must have been only on the desktop of a computer that died.
The only time we never got the usual SS increase were the years Obama was in. Prior to that we got increases, and three increases while Trump was in. We did get an increase after Biden was in, but it was no where near the rate of inflation.
The websites that identify plants are pretty cool. Some of them are so cool that they charge you a subscription fee, and there is no shortage of people willing to pay for such a service. It struck me as being a bit odd that plant identification apps and websites would be so popular, but they are. What Google did with their Lens project is one step ahead of having to search for images on a web site. If your wife has an Android phone she may have the Google Lens function built into her Camera options. If she does, use Lens to take a picture of the truck you mentioned. If you don't get the results you are looking for that way, then it does not exist on the Internet. I know it's hard to believe but some things have not been indexed yet. To be sure Google Lens is not a perfect way to search for images. It's much like facial recognition wherein errors are made due to the limitations of the criteria. Then, too, if you have a one of a kind item that needs to be identified, it's possible you are the only person on earth who knows anything about that item.
The truck I learned to drive in, grandpa called it a Ford Model B.
I've looked at every Ford Model B on the Internet and NONE of them even come close to what this truck was.
I even checked a few other brands like Dodge Brothers, and International, companies who made trucks back then.
This was a very old truck with wooden spoke wheels, probably a hardwood frame, and flat wood sides, like plywood, before plywood was invented.
All of the Ford Model B trucks have the engine up front under the hood.
While this truck had the engine under the flat board seat you sat on.
I guess you would say it was mid-engine.
Unfortunately, I don't really recall much about what the engine itself looked like.
But the steering post came up right between your feet, about where your heels are located.
It had four pedals on the floor, and three of them went straight down into the floor when you pressed on them.
The far right pedal was probably a later add-on, used as a starter.
But when I drove it, you cranked it on the outside side of the truck.
There was a lever you held down with your left hand while cranking with the right hand, and once you had it spinning fairly fast you let go of the lever held down by your right hand.
At the time I didn't know why you had to start it that way. But now I do. That lever held the valves open so you could crank it over easier. I had a Milbradt lawnmower with model B Briggs engine that was started that way.
Oh My, it just hit me like a ton of bricks while talking about it.
I'll bet grandpa meant it had a Model B Briggs motor in it, not that it was a Ford Model B.
Hmm, now back to doing more research to see if I can find it with that bit of info.
I take it you don't have access to Google Lens. LOL
The truck you describe sounds like one amazing machine. All I remember about wooden motorized vehicles is the Woody station wagon one of my relatives owned. Like most of the other cars of my youth, the Woody didn't impress me and I don't recall a lot about them. Since you did such a great job of describing your wood truck memories I did a search to see what they might have looked like. There are some very interesting pictures of wooden trucks out there and the one that struck my eye first was a mail delivery truck. It resembled the milk delivery truck my grandpa used. However, the milk truck had no wood at all. The style is all it had in common with the mail trucks. Knowing how creative your entire family was, it would not surprise me to learn it was a custom truck built by one of the relatives. LOL
I've been thinking about this. Did a little bit of searching on-line again, to no avail.
But I'm beginning to wonder if it was not a horse drawn truck at first.
It was really a plain Jane looking truck, nothing fancy about it, other than it did have a windshield, which I've never seen on horse drawn trucks. I did look a lot like the metal milk trucks of the era.
I know it had many minor modifications to it over the years, but nothing that would change it's outside appearance.
You could be right about it being a home built truck, but I sorta doubt it.
Based on the looks of most of the home-brew flat top wagons they built, hi hi.
The origins of your childhood wooden truck may never be known. I still believe you and probably your entire family for many generations back had the talent to build a truck from scratch. That creativity would not demand using metal frames or panels. And, if horse drawn trucks were readily available as a resource, then why not use that as a starting point? There was a large proliferation of woodies back in the day. It's more likely the memory you have is of something built outside the family. Many modifications could have been added to make it unrecognizable from the original vehicle, which is why Google can't help you. They weren't taking selfies back then and Facebook wasn't even a dream yet. LOL
Last edited by yogi on 24 May 2022, 16:18, edited 1 time in total.
Most of the wagons we had around the place, usually flat top whoopies, were all built on top of Model T frames or some slightly newer car model chassis.
We had a lot of old motors around the place, some one-lungers, and some of those were huge.
It was sorta neat growing up where grandpa never threw anything away.
If it quit working, it was stuck in one of the back barns, or in the warehouse, in the case of old office equipment.
Which I managed to grab some of the old crank style check writers and sold them on e-Bay for nice prices.
I know people who never throw things away. At least that is what it looks like. I don't know how useful that old stuff actually could be, but once in a very great while you are glad you didn't trash that old gizmo from back in the '30s. The only problem with saving everything is that most folks live in houses without the luxury of attached barns or warehouses. When we cleaned out our basement and garage in preparation for moving, a lot of long lost memories were discovered. That was nice, but otherwise that collection of junk was just that. Junk. The girls were not interested in all their old toys we had saved so that now they are stored in a landfill somewhere in Illinois.
Here's hoping your trip to the doctor is just routine.
I was a virtual pack-rat. I saved nearly anything I thought I could reuse later, or fix-up to sell.
And whatever I still had on-hand when I was ready to move, all got sold at auction.
There wasn't much that didn't sell, because everything was itemized and in boxes, or sets of boxes geared to the usage.
This made it really easy for the auctioneer.
I'm still sorta like a pack-rat. If I think I can sell it, I don't throw it away.
And now with all my medical problems, it is hard to get things ready to sell.
I've found a few old toys down here, some of which deteriorated since they were plastic. They hit the landfill already.
The heart doc is very positive thinking, he said my exercise is paying off on keeping the old ticker from losing ground.
He is so optimistic, he scheduled an appointment for May 30, 2023, hi hi.
Now my regular doctors appointment comes up next month, and he's not an optimistic person, hi hi.
My dad called himself a machinist, which means he was pretty good at using tools you would find in a factory production line. He didn't save everything, but if it looked like it might be usable in any way shape or form during the coming millennium, he saved it somewhere in his tool room. I still have a wooden cigar box full of screws and nuts and bolts and sundry other things that were likely manufactured during the Great Depression. I'm not the pack rat he was, but I like this collection as a momento to remind me of his skills and talents. I have a hand drill that you crank to make the chuck turn, and have in fact used it a few times in this house because I was too lazy to get the electric drill set up. It's kind of cool using something I recall watching my dad use when I was just a wee lad.
That's really great news from your doctor. Keeping an optimistic outlook is half the battle for staying above ground. I was wondering just the other day if I should bother to renew the lease on this site's domain name come this November. I now have reason to believe it would be a mistake not to.
I too have a hand crank drill, and use it when I need a single hole or something easy.
I hate battery operated tools because the battery is always dead when you need to use it.
I'll take the good old plug in tools any day of the week.
The only time I like having something battery operated is when I was using it daily, and even then, they were always so heavy, I remanufactured them to make them lighter, and better balanced, and wore the battery packs on my waist belt. Ran the wires up inside my shirt and out my shirt sleeves. They usually stayed tucked up inside my shirt sleeve unless I needed to use one of my modified tools.
My heart doctor has been very pleased with me. He was a little ruffled after my second heart attack because it messed up the first pair of stents and both had to be replaced with a higher quality, plus he changed my meds also.
I do know he has never prescribed the medication he used to, that he claims is what caused my second heart attack, to anyone else, ever after. He even told my insurance company to pay for the medication they didn't want to, because the other one was cheaper. He said that other medication was what caused my second heart attack. Shortly after that, the insurance company removed that one from their formulary.
So sometimes the squeaky wheel of a doctor does get some changes made.
