News

Slobs let dogs and leverage do the dirty work

Like hunters aiming at reindeer with credit cards dangling off their antlers, retailers now have us squarely in their holiday sights. Admittedly, that’s stark Darwinian imagery for this Intelligent Design-tinted time of year. But while the holidays stir the best in us spiritually, the rule of the retail jungle has always been as cutthroat as […]

News

Why Shovel When You Can Wovel

At first glance it looks like an antique garden tool, but a snow-removal gadget called the Wovel (rhymes with shovel) has found a place in some Wisconsin garages right next to the rock salt and ice chipper. The Wovel consists of a 34-inch wheel attached to a long shovel. As you roll the wheel down […]

News

Labor of Wovel

or: How to re-invent the shovel by adding a wheel BY MARC SILVESTRINI Copyright © 2005 Republican-American Had the driveway that leads to Mark Noonan’s New Canaan home been just a bit shorter, none of this would have happened. But Noonan’s driveway is 100 feet long and clearing it of snow and slush is a […]

News

What the Heck is That?

What the heck is that? I don’t easily give in to publicity requests about new inventions. Most are patently (get it?) just stupid, uninteresting or both. But when Journal Times Editor Randolph Brandt dropped this particular news release on my desk, it instantly became one of my favorite pieces of mail for the week. Behold: […]

News

Push It…Scoop It…Shovel It

Winter weather is pretty tricky in Maine. You’ve got your ice storms, your 2-foot-deep slush storms, your all-out blizzards and the always popular snowstorms followed by freezing rain. The latter leaves your driveway looking like a well-baked pie – nice firm crust on the outside, soft and tender inside. So it figures that to deal […]

News

Wheeled Shovel takes strain out of snow removal

It’s hard to get past the appearance of the Wovel, which looks a little like one of those weird high-wheel bicycles from the 19th century. But there’s nothing old-fashioned about this snow-removal device. The Wovel, or wheeled snow shovel, puts physics to work to make clearing snow easier and less strenuous. The design uses leverage […]