Monday, November 09, 2026
this post will lead you into the next one! IT's a Billy Gibbons hot rod 42 Ford with a bar/hotel hunting/fishing camp logo of a place that Billy co-owns since 2023
I see a couple ZZ Top things in the above image
The exact year that the original Wise River Hotel was established is as hard to nail down as the perfect fishing spot on the Big Hole River, but the earliest available records indicate that the property was owned by C. M. Pyle in 1900.
State and county records prior to 1900 are lacking, but Pyle’s family reported in his obituary that he established the hotel in 1896, only a few years after Montana became a state in 1889. The first known advertisement for the hotel appeared in The Butte Daily Post (Butte, Montana) on Thursday, November 12, 1914.
In the advertisement, C. M. Pyle stated that interested parties wanting to stay at the hotel could write or phone and he would have a stage sent to meet them in Divide, Montana, some 12 miles away.
In 2023, the Wise River Club, which has long since been expanded to include a bar, restaurant, cabin, rentals, and nightly RV rental spots, was purchased by Montana-native and Top 40 rock and roller Tim Montana (raised in Elk Park, MT) and Billy F. Gibbons of ZZ Top (Tim’s friend and mentor) along with a group of financial partners with connections and history in the valley.
In 2023, the Wise River Club, which has long since been expanded to include a bar, restaurant, cabin, rentals, and nightly RV rental spots, was purchased by Montana-native and Top 40 rock and roller Tim Montana (raised in Elk Park, MT) and Billy F. Gibbons of ZZ Top (Tim’s friend and mentor) along with a group of financial partners with connections and history in the valley.
The new owners strive to maintain the integrity and legacy of the Wise River Club by providing the same authentic Montana experience when you stop by, with a few updates to entice your taste buds and musical inclinations.
So, whether you are a movie star stopping by on the way to a wild west movie set (there have been several over the years), a star-crazed Yellowstone fan who moved to Montana to experience the “cowboy way”, or a local hunter looking to “shoot the bull” and share your hunting stories, Tim and the Wise River Club invite you to come on in and experience the charm of a small-town Montana past and see the great collection of horns, artifacts, and stories (some are actually true) that the club has collected over the years.
I've rarely come across cool old woodies with company or summer camps names on the doors, but I think they are a terrific segment of automotive history
Similar to my interest in surplus WW2 warbirds used after the war, by companies for exec level private plane transportation, or Reno Air Races
A lot of us have wondered how much it costs for a company to have a booth at SEMA... here's the facts from BD Performance
a 30' x 60' booth costs 15k for the carpet to be installed,
the booth space is 50k
the material handling fee to get the booth loaded from the parking lot - 15k
to have a banner or call sign over the booth, is 10k
1932 Graham Blue Streak. By 1933 and beyond, the Graham's competition appeared to borrow more than a few cues from the Blue Streak. Graham even used fish scales to create the iridescent Pearl Essence paint finish, another feature that soon caught on in the market. In 1933 Erwin “Cannonball” Baker drove one coast to coast in 53.5 hours, a record that stood for 30 years.
Sunday, November 08, 2026
the SEMA 2026 schwag haul...
there were a couple displays for air freshners.
5 decks of cards... well, not that I'm likely to play cards with them, but IF I get the notion to build a house of cards? I'll be able to
more microfiber cloths than usual were up for grabs!
And there at the top of this bottom photo are the two coolest things I was given as schwag! A bucket of "Tub Of Towels" ( I've bought a couple BECAUSE of the free sample packs at SEMA... and now I was given a bucket of them? AWESOME!)
And the coolest thing? That issue of Hella's new magazine, Dusty Times!
just one example of the great articles in it
The older issues are available online in Flipbooks by Issuu, on each issues page on Dustytimes.com
Bugatti CEO Mate Rimac’s personal Chiron was taken from outside his company’s campus in Croatia, because he left it with the key still inside! Thank you Doug!
He jumped into his Porsche 911 and chased it across Slovenia until police finally stopped it in Austria.
Odd choice of actions to take when your Bugatti is stolen
Someone local came in looking for a job and decided that he would take the Chiron instead. People noticed, they contacted Mate, and he got the police involved. But like nearly every modern car, there's plenty of telemetry that can, among other things, share the car's location. Being the owner of the company, Mate was able to see where the car was (and how much gas was in it) and let Croatian police know.
Instead of letting the police handle things, he saw the car heading to Slovenia, so he jumped into his own Porsche 911 to give chase. He hoped to get the border closed in time, but Slovenia is only about 10 miles from Rimac's campus in Zagreb. From there, it's only about 100 miles to Austria and, since the thief had a one-hour head start (and a Chiron), they were in that third country before police could coordinate.
Mate wasn't able to catch up to the thief, at least until Austrian authorities got the car stopped. The Chiron was recovered, and Mate had to spend the night doing paperwork. Surprisingly, Rimac said he didn't want to press charges.https://carbuzz.com/mate-rimac-chases-stolen-chiron-in-porsche-october-2026
Why doesn't the "door close" button work on most elevators? (thank you Joe!) 80 percent of them are not wired, not connected. They do not function.
it's even a trope in tv shows and movies, that the main characters desperately need the doors to close, but no matter how they smash the button, the doors won't close.
Last week at SEMA I was reminded of the stupid door button. Yup, tested it every day when using the elevator, and the doors close with the same time delay no matter if you wait for them, or hit the door close button.
So... why does Otis build their elevator with those stupid buttons?
Joe sent me a link to the transcript of a podcast that was discussing this, Patrick Carr is the manager/creator of an elevator museum in New York City:
I forgot to mention that Dodge is returning to Nascar, with one team and two cars, in 2027
The team indicated that it will announce its 2027 driver lineup at this weekend's race at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 8th, 2026, while the Dodge race car itself will be revealed at the Snowball Derby in Florida on December 4th.
Saturday, November 07, 2026
Diane Disney Miller at the Family Foundation’s headquarters opened the lid on the Lilly Belle caboose to peek inside the legendary caboose built by her father for his famous backyard Carolwood Pacific Railroad.
Working late at his studio workbench, he had hand-built a miniature bunk bed complete with upholstered mattresses, tiny clothes lockers, and customized seating areas designed to flawlessly replicate a real conductor's resting space.
Right next to that miniature bunk sat a fully functional, highly detailed miniature potbelly stove that Walt machined from scratch using his workshop lathe.
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