DC's Folklife Festival 2008

I went to DC this weekend to check out Amnesty International's Guantanamo exhibit. I didn't know that the Smithsonian folklife festival was going on as well, but it ended up being the more interesting of the two activities of the day.

Anyways, the AI exhibit had very few visitors and a lot of AI staffers. I hesitated because I'm always apprehensive about such situations (where the organizers of an event significantly outnumber visitors), but I decided to take a look at the cell since I had made the trip. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it was underwhelming. The exhibit was just a re-created jail cell with a staffer explaining the plight of those held at Guantanamo.

This year's folk life festival centered on Texas, NASA, and Bhutan. An eclectic mix to be sure; Bhutan ended up being the only part of interest to me. The NASA exhibit seemed to be more geared toward kids, and the Texas exhibit was boring.

Bhutan: Land of the Thunder Dragon

I started of by listening to a lecture on traditional Bhutanese archery. A few members of the royal family were on hand to demonstrate:



The lecturer waxed poetic about the finer points of archery, and how he believed bow-making to be one of the more skilled arts in the world. I listened for a while before moving on to the cuisine exhibit. There a crowd was listening to a mother/son pair discuss the food culture of Bhutan.



Chili and cheese, the national dish of Bhutan. Apparently, a New York food critic, Ruth Reichl, had declared that Bhutanese cuisine was the worst in the entire world. The son, a former monk, explained that Bhutan had many regions, and thus, many different regional cuisines, so it wasn't fair to lump all the regions together. But they wanted to show this one dish in particular because it was the one universal dish that was eaten across the country. Note that those are actually red hot chili peppers - the dish doesn't contain meat, as one might think based on the name. When asked if eating chili peppers would be very spicy, the mother replied that the cheese and spinach made the extreme spiciness bearable!

So the son began to speak again, and explained that meat was eaten very sparingly in Bhutan. It's a predominantly Buddhist country, and if meat is eaten at all, it would only come from an animal that died of natural causes - animals are not generally raised as food and slaughtered in Bhutan.



Congressman Brian Baird (flanked by the Bhutanese ambassador to the US and a member of the Bhutanese cabinet) was on hand to sample the dish -"it's like a red bell pepper, but with a thicker skin", and declared that Ruth Reichl was wrong in her assessment of Bhutanese cuisine. He even seemed to be right at home eating the rice (red rice is a prestige food) and chili with his hands - the preferred way of eating in Bhutan. I'd have tried it myself but the price tag of $9 for four chili peppers and a lump of simulation Bhutanese cheese (made from brie and cream cheese) seemed a bit exorbitant :p.

Water Drops Redux

Another attempt to capture a water drop with my camera. I think the results are much better than my previous attempt: http://bobbypd.blogspot.com/2008/06/project-365-day-5-water.html.


Canon Digital Rebel XTi. 100mm Macro, 1/2500 second at f/2.8 . ISO 1600.

$4.03 Gas

So I've hit a milestone. Today was the first time I've ever paid for gas over $4.00. A dubious honor, to be sure! Apparently $4.03 gas was so cheap that there was a long line of cars waiting for it. 1970s much?

Forest Fire

I ran into a small fire yesterday. It started as a burning pile of leaves, but soon spread to the trees above and the brush around the leaves. It looked like some girls were doing something in the parking lot, and then suddenly ran - maybe they were smoking and their cigarette butts ignited the leaves.

Project 365 - Day 5: Water

It's a bit clichéd, but I wanted to try it anyways. It was surprisingly difficult to freeze the motion of the falling water; I had to snap over a hundred shots just to get a handful of pictures where the drops were even still in the frame. I'll try this shot again next week to see if I can improve.


Canon Digital Rebel XTi. ISO 1600, 1/500 second at f/5.6. EF 70-300mm lens at 300mm.

Project 365 - Day 4: Underground

I went into DC today. I probably shouldn't have because the temperature was 95 degrees with 100% humidity, but oh well; what's art without suffering, eh? I went around to the the various memorials that I've never visited before: Lincoln, World War 2, and the Vietnam Wall, among others - and I was plastered with sweat after the walk.


1/25 second at f/4.0. 17-85mm lens at 17mm. ISO 1600.

This is a picture of an underground metro station - the Smithsonian stop. People always remark on the beauty of the vaulted ceilings, and I agree. Though the subway system in DC is no match for the one in New York City, it's much better looking. I was actually surprised at how many other people were also out fighting the heat. Click on any of the pictures to go to my complete flickr album for today's foray.

Project 365 - Day 3: Macro Flowers

I tried using my macro lens again today. I even used my tripod, but this was the best shot I could get - the tripod I have is pretty crappy and really isn't meant for use with a SLR. I probably should have stopped down the lens a bit more because the upper edge of the flower is still a bit out of focus.


Picture taken with a Canon Digital Rebel XTi. ISO 200; 1/400 second at f/9.0. Canon EF 100mm Macro lens.

Also, 48 hours after the tornado, we've finally got power again. Dominion Power took their sweet time...

Project 365: Day 2 - Trees

So this was the other house in my neighborhood to have a tree fall due to the tornado. Unfortunately, this neighbor was not as lucky as the one in the previous post.

Naturally, I was not the only one on the scene with a camera.


Taken with a Powershot SD500. ISO unknown; 1/636 seconds at f/2.8.

Project 365: Day 1 - The Aftermath

I was going to start my "Project 365" yesterday, the thing where you post a new picture every single day for a year, but the tornado and subsequent power outage put that on hiatus.

Idea from: http://photojojo.com/content/tutorials/project-365-take-a-photo-a-day/

A tornado, in northern Virginia! It's been 24 hours and there is still no power on my street, probably because there are several trees lying on the road on top of the wires.


Taken with a digital Rebel XTi. ISO400; 1/160 seconds at F/7.1. Canon EF-S 17-85mm lens at 85mm.

There were two fallen trees that I found out about. One next door to us, which, thankfully, only took down the neighbor's fence (and power lines). Then there was another down the street, which was apparently sucked up out of the ground and then thrown onto this one dude's house...naturally, as is always the case when misfortune befalls another, there were plenty of curious neighbors armed with cameras swarming the scene.

In any case, the lack of power made for a boring (and hungry) night. My dad didn't want anyone leaving the house, and our stove was crippled by the lack of electricity, so we ate buns and sandwiches for dinner. Savage!

2008 Honda Accord Coupe LX-S, Pictures, part 2

A few pictures from the interior of the 2008 Honda Accord Coupe. A continuation from the first part of the Review, found at: http://bobbypd.blogspot.com/2008/05/review-of-2008-honda-accord-coupe-lx.html.



Unlike the Civic (which used mostly LEDS), the Accord uses actual dials on its instrumentation panel.



You've heard it before probably, but the Accord has a lot of buttons on the center instrument panel. After a while it grows on you, but I still take a while before finding the exact button I'm looking for - not fun when I'm driving!

The space in front of the clock is a perfect place to stick a GPS unit on (you can see the cradle for my Garmin 360 in this picture). The CD player has room for 6-cds. The steering wheel has buttons for radio/CD station, volume control, and cruise control.



The space in the back is quite limited in the Honda Accord Coupe. The rear windows are also small and really hard to see out of while driving. This is the Ivory-colored cloth interior.

Was this post helpful? Interesting? Not? Leave a comment, ask a question, or rate this post using the star control below!

Things to Do in Las Vegas, A Guide with Pictures

A series of posts about possible things to do - other than gambling or partaking in the nightlife - in Las Vegas. With pictures.


My brother accrued enough comp points to room and feed me at a hotel (Bally's, on the Strip, no less!) so I decided to fly out to Vegas to sightsee and to see the family. The comp didn't cover airfare, so I booked a ticket with JetBlue thru Expedia; I got the ticket less than a week in advance, so it was a little pricey, but the hotel room was only reservable for a particular week, so there wasn't much I could do. It was a direct flight and every seat had a TV so I guess I can't complain. Well, the flight attendants did talk pretty loudly while everyone tried to sleep, and they were red-eye flights, but eh.


The Fountains at Bellagio

Bally's was nice enough. My room had a queen size bed, a little wet-bar, a sitting area, and of course, a bathroom. The one thing it was missing was a wireless internet connection - there were plenty of wifi signals bouncing around, but all of them required payment. I asked about the business center, but I scoffed at the price of $5 for 5 minutes of internet usage. Since I needed directions to the various sights I had hoped to see, I gave up and paid $12.95 for the wired, in-room, internet connection for 24 hours.

Vegas in Three Days - Links

1. Las Vegas - Day One: Lake Mead and Hoover Dam
2. Las Vegas - Day Two: Glass Skywalk at Grand Canyon West
3. Las Vegas - Day Three: Red Rock Canyon

• Flickr Album - Las Vegas Shenanigans

Besides the above attractions, there were lots of things to do and see in the city itself. It was interesting enough to walk through the various themed casinos (to try my hand at the tables!), and along the streets to see the various casino frontages. I thought the hot, dry air was refreshing, but make sure to bring/buy lotion and eye drops!


The Fremont Street Experience. As opposed to The Strip, Downtown is pretty kitschy, and the casinos kinda dark and depressing, but might as well go for the experience eh?

Was this post helpful? Interesting? Not? Leave a comment, ask a question, or rate this post using the star control below!

Las Vegas - Day Three: Red Rock Canyon Pictures

Red Rock Canyon was an easy 20-minute drive out of Las Vegas. We just took Route 159 West straight down; it's got a lot of traffic lights while you're still in the city itself, but it's the most direct route. Getting in is $5 per car.

As always, click the image to see it full-size.


Not surprisingly, the canyon is named for red rocks.

Red Rock has a bunch of hiking trails (list available here) dotted along the canyon range. To get to the various parking points, visitors drive along the one-way 14-mile scenic trail (shared by joggers and bikers) - maps are provided at the visitors center.


Places for rock scrambling are plentiful along the various trails.

The first stop we came to, Calico 1, along the scenic loop seemed to have the most visitors looking for photo-ops. There was a rather steep hill leading to some rocks which about a quarter of the people scrambled up. Shoes with better traction would probably be a good idea here (as in any other canyon). After getting our pictures, we descended the rocks and walked back up to the parking area...to be honest, after that, my friend and I were already winded, so we probably shouldn't have run up that rock with such gusto!



The entire scenic route was well-paved, but there were certain hiking trails accessible only through dirt roads. We decided to go on Keystone Thrust, which entailed a short 5-minute drive up a bumpy dirt road. After parking, we first took the .15 mile walk to see a spring, and, man, after walking back up to the parking area, we were just completely drained (yeah, I need to start going to the gym more often!). I really wanted to see the Keystone, described as the most significant geological formation of the park, but...



We decided that soaking up the scenery from the car along the road was just as good. At particularly nice spots, we just parked the car and got out to take pictures. Traffic along the road is light and as it is a one-way road, there is plenty of room for faster cars to pass. Red Rock's Scenic Road is basically free and just a short drive out of Las Vegas proper, so it's definitely something to consider on a trip to Las Vegas.

see also:
Flickr Album - Las Vegas Shenanigans
Las Vegas - A Guide
Las Vegas - Day One: Lake Mead and Hoover Dam
Las Vegas - Day Two: Glass Skywalk at Grand Canyon West
Las Vegas - Day Three: Red Rock Canyon

Was this post helpful? Interesting? Not? Leave a comment, ask a question, or rate this post using the star control below!

New York to Tax Online Purchases

New York is so outrageous with its taxes. Starting today, they are going to start charging taxes on purchases made at online retailers - until today, they only charged taxes on online purchases from retailers who had a real physical presence (brick and mortar) in the state. Both Amazon.com and Overstock.com are suing the state and hoping for an injunction on this new law:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/30/technology/yang_amazon.fortune/index.htm

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9956576-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5