Babe's Completed Makeover

A little while back I posted about renovations being done to Brainerd's Babe the Blue Ox. Recently, Josh Porter of Avalon Studios uploaded a bunch of photos of his work to Flickr. He has a set dedicated to the Babe makeover, which includes the above before and after. It even has a shot from inside Babe. He did some excellent work and this should help keep Babe around for another 50 years... hopefully.

And, just because I didn't post enough links, here's another link.
Slideshow of Babe makeover

2008 - Year In Review

2008 is at an end. It was another good year in Big Stuff, highlighted by our Brainerd trip, the Vining Sculpture Park, and another truly weird backstory that could challenge Big Louie for the Oddest Big Stuff Story crown. Here is a brief recap of all of the Big Stuff we saw in 2008.



March 19th - A-Z Happy Chef, Princeton, MN
March 19th - Giant Walleye, Isle, MN
March 19th - Big Mean Fish, Isle, MN
March 19th - Walleye Capital of the World?, Garrison, MN
March 19th - Robin Hood, Garrison, MN
March 19th - Leaping Deer, Deerwood, MN
March 19th - Sea Serpent, Crosby, MN
March 19th - Babe the Blue Ox, Brainerd, MN
March 19th - Paul & Babe Bowling, Baxter, MN
March 20th - World's Largest Art Tractor, New York Mills, MN



June 29th - Small Pelicans in a Big Pelican Town, Pelican Rapids, MN
June 29th - Vining Sculpture Park, Vining, MN
June 29th - Our Lady of the Hills, Urbank, MN
June 29th - World's Largest Dragonfly, Ottertail, MN
June 29th - Giant Metal Otter, Ottertail, MN
July 26th - Beach Dude, Hampton, MN
August 2nd - World's Largest Dala Horse, Mora, MN
August 2nd - Pine City Voyageur, Pine City, MN
August 16th - St. Urho, Menahga, MN
August 16th - Giant Ice Cream Cone, Wadena, MN
October 4th - Iggy the Iguana, St. Paul, MN
October 11th - Giant Green Adirondack Chair II, Minneapolis, MN
October 11th - Giant Mermaid, Mounds View, MN

a little late, but... Happy Holidays!

"Old Three Legs" Gets Makeover

So this isn't exactly Big Stuff, but it's a neat bit of history from my home county and the following report from Roadside America does a decent job of tying it into Big Stuff.

Makeover For Minnesota's Killer Wolf
December 8, 2008

For years a lone wolf nicknamed “Old Three Legs” worried the citizens of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. He ate chickens, mostly, but some believed that he was a potential child-chewer, and his knack of not getting shot made him more fearsome. “Hunting parties of hundreds could not bring him down,” reads a lurid report on WDAY-TV, “his reign of terror still unmatched.”

(It’s no surprise that Old Three Legs hung around Detroit Lakes, if the nearby World’s Largest Turkey, Pelican, and Booming Prairie Chicken symbolize the local food supply.) continue reading....


Other articles:
WDAY
DL-Online

International Spotlight: Pineapples

Photo by BelizeSquare

This giant pineapple is 16 meters tall and is located at The Big Pineapple, which is a tourist attraction and working farm near Nambour, Queensland, Australia. They have tours, rides, shops, restaurants, and exhibits. I believe you can go inside the pineapple and get a view from the top. There is some history behind the attraction on Wikipedia.

There is another giant pineapple not too far away in Gympie at a vacant gas station. It looks to rival The Big Pineapple in size. I don't know the size of this one, though.


The Gympie pineapple circa 2005. Photo by drewish.

Bathurst, South Africa claims to have the "biggest Pineapple in the World!" This one measures 16.7 meters high and has 3 floors, complete with a gift shop, and an observation deck.


Bathurst pineapple. Photo by philrickerby.

This awesome building exists somewhere in Thailand between Cha-am and Phuket. That's all I've been able to find out.


Photo by Master Matt

Lastly, but not leastly, here is a less huge pineapple in the Philippines.

New World Record for Largest Pinata

A new Guinness World Record was set yesterday (or possibly a week before) in Philadelphia for the World's Largest Pinata. The pinata measured in at 28.5 meters (94′) long, 7.2 meters (24′) wide and 18 (60′) meters tall and was filled with 8,000 pounds of candy. This was all done for a Carnival Cruise commercial. Organizers had originally planned to break open the pinata in a public event, but became concerned over safety when 15,000 people showed up. They cancelled the event and broke (broke isn't really the right word) open the pinata secretly using about 300 extras for the commercial shoot. All the candy will be donated to a number of charities.

Most of it is explained on John Heald's blog, which includes the video below.

New World Record for Largest Pair of Jeans

Seamstresses in Peru set out to set a Guinness World Record for the largest pair of jeans sewn. (link) The pair of jeans measures 141 feet tall and 98 feet wide and weighs in at 7.5 tons. The current record is held by the city of Medellin in Columbia. That pair was 114 feet tall and 82 feet wide.

It sounds like they are just waiting for their record setting jeans to be accepted by Guinness. There wasn't a Guinness representative present, but a notary who can send documentation to the group was.

The pants will be recycled as backpacks for school children.