For technician, working on furnaces not always a blast

Maine at Work: A job may require hours on his stomach in a crawl space or on his knees in a basement that has cobwebs or critters.

Open House: Even Stevens’

Even great old houses sometimes need help meeting contemporary needs.

Cruise on up to Bangor

Sunday’s daylong Carnival of Madness is the place to catch some 25 bands playing rock.

Does your job bug you? Try this one

Standing in a vacant second-story apartment, Jon Locke announced that the place was free of bedbugs.

Using a 2-year-old beagle named Pops — who has been trained in the ways of scent detection — Locke had just guided a complete sniff search of the place and found nothing buggy going on.

Pack to school

Backpacks seem to get smarter every year, with new features to meet the needs of students of all ages.

Author Q & A: A hero found amid searches and rescues

Real stories inspire a second mystery pitting a game warden against Maine evil-doers.

The Baseball Project: For the love of the game

Baseball has been very, very good at inspiring songs written and performed by a devoted group of rock musicians.

Maine at Work: Raking blueberriesby hand proves no easy feat

Jake Powers is raking blueberries on a hillside with spectacular views, bending over and using an aluminum rake with two small handles to sweep through the low-lying blueberry plants that cover the land.

It doesn’t look that hard, so I grab my little rake — it’s sort of like a big dustpan with tines — and bend over at the waist. That is my first mistake . . .

Radio host Voornas comes out

The longtime area personality tells listeners this week of her upcoming union with her same-sex partner.

Open House: Neat nooks

Clever use of random spaces gives a Harpswell cottage by the sea the illusion of being much bigger than it really is.