25th Anniversary World Punkin Chunkin Championships take place in Delaware

by McLean Robbins on

What happens when you combine leftover Halloween pumpkins and big ol’ farm boys with too much time on their hands and extra equipment? A Punkin’ Chunkin’ contest, of course. Held this past weekend in Delaware, the 25th Anniversary of the World Championship Punkin Chunkin Association brought teams from up and down the East Cost to see how far their punkins could fly.

“We had a great, great turnout,” said Frank Shade, the event’s media director. “We’ve had a real strong headwind, so I doubt any records were broken, but we had a lot of good thows.”

Full numbers of attendance were not yet available, but DelawareOnline.com reported that total attendance was predicted to surpass last year’s record of 80,000. Shade commented that the field’s Verizon tower, which normally reports about 750 “hits” per day, was receiving about 7,500 hits, causing some cellular communication issues.

Scheduled for broadcast on the Discovery and Science channels on Thanksgiving, the Chunkin’ contest featured three days (distilled into three hours for TV) of high-flying excitement hosted by “Mythbusters” stars Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman. Science will air a “Road to Punkin Chunkin” special November 24 at 10 PM.

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“It’s the highest-rated event on the channel,” said the Science Channel’s general manager of programming and executive vice president Debbie Myers. “It’s pure Americana and ingenuity. The teams take it seriously, and the characters are over the top.”

The main competition centers on 110 teams that use creatively-engineered “chunkers” to launch their pumpkins into space – or at least far, far away. The goal? To get the gourd to fly at least a mile away – a feat that hasn’t yet been accomplished … or at least captured on record. The current record is 4,483.51 feet by team Young Glory III in 2008. The 2009 “Air” winners, “Big Ten Incher” came close last year with a distance of 4,116 feet.

The three-day event includes a “Miss Punkin Chunkin” contest, a chili cookoff, and separate competitions for men, women, youth, and children under ten. Separate categories include human powered, trebuchet, catapult, centrifugal force and air machines.

Lest you think it’s just a bunch of hillbillies running around with their punkins, think again – media director Frank Shade ran for Delaware’s 37th Congressional District in the State House of Representatives this past year.

Want to catch the action? You’ll have to tune in on November 24th and 25th. In the meantime, enjoy the photo gallery (courtesy of DelawareOnline.com).

Or you can practice your singing of the official Punkin Chunkin song (yes, there’s a song, we’re not making this up), written 1989 by William and Dawn Thompson, has become a traditional part of the event’s daily opening ceremonies. It’s pasted below for your viewing pleasure:

It was the end of October, the beginning of November.
The air was cold and clear and I said, Boys listen here,
I think I can make a punkin fly.
John said, Cannot. I said, Can too.
So we put that punkin in a bucket, swung around, away it flew.
John said, No fair. We said, Hell, it’s in the air.
So the challenge was made and the gauntlet was laid
To build a machine to power a punkin through the air.
John said, Springs are the way to go. Bill said, I don’t believe so.
It’s Punkin Chunkin time again.
Come on, all you neighbors and friends.
I’ll show you how to make a punkin fly … rain, snow or blow.
Them punkins are gonna go!

Photo of the Day (11.7.10)

by Jeremy Kressmann on
I think this photo should be titled “The Million Mile Stare.” What is it about bodies of water that inspires such deep contemplation? Their size? The view? It’s hard to say, but Flickr user jrodmanjr has managed to capture one of these “introspective moments” during a visit to St. Petersburg, Russia. The image is a beautiful blend of colors and textures. I love the hue of the bright yellow buildings and bridge in the distance, their lights smudged by soft focus. Above them is a steely-blue sky, smeared with dark patches of clouds. Below, an inky-black river glittering with light. I can understand why the woman in the foreground needs a minute to take this whole scene in. Wow.

Have any photos you’d like to share from your travels? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flckr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

Thoughts on Myanmar, travel and change

by Jeremy Kressmann on

On Sunday, citizens of the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar voted for the first time in 20 years. This week also marks the one-year anniversary of my own visit to Myanmar in 2009. At the surface level, these two events have nothing to do with one another. But as I struggle to make sense of what I saw and learned during my visit inside this cloistered country, I find that today’s historic vote is more meaningful than I expected.

I don’t claim to be an expert in the politics and history of Myanmar. I’m a traveler first and foremost, and the three weeks of my visit was barely enough time to give me a fleeting glimpse of the country’s fascinating history, warm people and awe-inspiring sights, let alone understand its complex political situation. But often travel has a way of forcing you to confront the issues you don’t want to see, and you find yourself drawn into them in ways you wouldn’t expect. In Myanmar, my window was through its people – their stories have stayed with me and touched me in ways I never expected.I remember the two enthusiastic young monks who accompanied me up the thousands of stairs that flank Mandalay Hill. They had left their families behind to take up a life of devotion and study. Then there was “Mikey,” the Burmese man I sat smashed next to in the front seat of a pickup for 10 agonizing hours as we bobbed and weaved along the treacherous dirt roads towards Kalaw. His broken-English banter and jokes sustained me through that exhausting ride. And Nain, who followed me all day across the sweltering, chaotic streets of Yangon, helping me buy train tickets and showing me around. He refused to take any money from me for his help.

There is much that could be said about the state of affairs in Myanmar. The lack of political freedoms and poverty echo the problems seen in developing countries around the world. But what has stuck with me the most from my experience in Myanmar is the stories of these ordinary individuals. These interactions brought the hard realities of life into focus in a place few travelers visit. As I think now about the election, I find myself seeing this event through their eyes and hoping, on their behalf, that some good will come of it.

Will the election create any meaningful change for the people I met in Myanmar? I’m not sure, but it looks doubtful. What about my visit? Did it have any affect on their plight? No, I don’t think so either. But what I believe has changed is my awareness. Myanmar is no longer just another news story for me on the BBC website. It’s a land inhabited by real people I met, affected by real issues. Change is possible. But often that change doesn’t occur in obvious ways like elections. It’s the accumulation of seemingly insignificant interactions, day-by-day and year-by-year that, over time, ultimately add up to something much larger.

On the Aztec Trail in Mexico City

by Jim Johnston on

This piece was written by Red Room contributor Jim Johnston.
Although Mexico City gets a lot of notice these days for its trendy bars, hip hotels and chic art galleries, what makes this city really cool has been around for almost 700 years: The city was founded by the Aztecs in 1325, and although the Spanish conquistadores tried hard to erase the pagan past, the Aztec influence is alive and well.

The phone book lists nearly 800 Moctezumas, and you’ll see those tongue-twisting Nahuatl names everywhere: Popocatepetl, Iztaccihuatl, Nezahualcoyotl, Chapultepec. The basilica of La Vírgen de Guadalupe is built over an altar where Aztecs prayed to their mother goddess Tonantzín.. Fragments of the past turn up at building sites throughout town–even the metro has its own Aztec ruin, the temple of Ehecatl, god of wind, at the Pino Suarez station.

CENTRO HISTÓRICO

The best place to begin exploring Mexico City’s Aztec past is at the Zócalo, the vast open plaza which was once the ceremonial center of Aztec life. Ruins of the Templo Mayor, the main site of Aztec worship and sacrifice, were unearthed at the Zócalo in 1978 while electric cables were being installed. You can stroll through the ruins and visit the small museum here.

The Palacio Nacional, seat of national government, spans the entire east side of the Zócalo. Inside are murals glorifying Mexico’s Aztec past, painted between 1929 and 1945 by Diego Rivera. These seductively colored paintings depict daily life of the Aztecs before the conquest. One shows an Aztec market in full swing with the city of Tenotichtlán in the background. Fruits, vegetables and flowers are being sold, as well as woven straw mats, hand-made pottery, medicinal folk herbs, and of course, tortillas. It all looks much like any Mexican market today, except perhaps for the human arm one butcher offers for sale. To see a modern-day market not far removed from Rivera’s images, go to the Mercado Jamaica, one of the most colorful traditional markets in the city. It also houses the city’s dazzling wholesale flower market, open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

[Photo credit: Flickr, Ireed76]
MUSEUM OF PRE-HISPANIC ART

The most important Aztec art is found at the Museo de Antropología on Paseo de la Reforma in Chapultepec Park, a few miles west of the Centro Histórico. The Sala Mexica, at the far end of the central patio, contains the Aztec collection. One of the most compelling sculptures is a horrific mother figure, the great maternal monster, Coatlicue. In Aztec myth, Coatlicue was murdered by her 401 children. Her statue, over eight feet tall, looks like a snakeskin-covered tank mated with a Japanese super-hero. The Spanish were horrified by her and kept the statue out of sight. She is so mean and ugly that even the museum gift shop doesn’t carry a replica.

AZTEC CUISINE

One of the most delightful ways to absorb Aztec culture is through its food. Tortillas, chiles, tamales, guacamole, pulque, atole, mole, tlacoyos, huitlacoche, nopales, pozole, chocolate and vanilla are just some of the foods you will easily encounter today that were eaten in pre-Hispanic times. Adventurous diners can seek out escamoles (ant eggs), chapulines (crispy fried crickets), or gusanos (worms of the maguey cactus) rolled up in a fresh tortilla and eaten live with salt and lime.

Street stalls carry on the Aztec food tradition in Mexico City. Throughout town- expecially around markets and metro stations–you’ll see women cooking over charcoal fires, making tlacoyos, which look like small flattened footballs made of blue corn. They are filled with beans or cheese, then cooked on a dry griddle, topped with chopped cactus, onions, cilantro, grated cheese and your choice of red or green salsa. Pre-Hispanic ingredients are found on menus in most Mexican restaurants. Ensalada de nopales, a salad of cooked cactus with onion and cilantro, has a slightly tangy flavor and crunchy-soft texture Huitlacoche, a black fungus that grows on corn cobs with a delicate, mushroom-like taste, is used as a filling for quesadillas. Flor de calabaza are squash blossoms, used in soothing soups and quesadillas. Pozole, a thick soup made with hominy, was mentioned in the chronicles of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, an early Spanish missionary. He reported Moctezuma eating pozole that contained thigh meat from a sacrificed warrior. Today’s version is usually made with pork and garnished with lettuce, radishes, onion and oregano. Perhaps the most ubiquitous of Aztec- inspired foods are tamales, ground maize steamed in corn husks or banana leaves, which can be found at street stalls all over town in the early morning.

UNESCO declared the Centro Histórico of Mexico City a World Heritage site in 1987, while it was still reeling from the devastating earthquake of two years earlier. Recent investment in the Centro and Alameda areas of the city have made it a cleaner, safer and more vibrant place than ever. But amidst the rush to make Mexico modern, trendy and slick, those ancient artifacts keep popping up out of the ground, constant reminders of Mexico City’s glorious Aztec past, humbled but not vanquished.

GETTING AROUND

Maps: The Tourist kiosk to the right of the Cathedral has excellent free maps of the major tourist areas. Guia Roji maps, sold at newsstands and at Sanborn’s, are the most comprehensive (also on-line at www.guiaroji.com)

Taxis: Registered sitio taxis are the safest way to travel around the city. You find them at most hotels and at designated spots around town marked with the word sitio. There are sitios on the Zócalo behind the Cathedral on the left side, and in front of the Anthropology Museum. At most sitios you can also hire a taxi by the hour, usually US$10 to $15 per hour. Always negotiate prices beforehand if there is no meter in order to avoid surprises. Get a card from the sitio-you can call them from anywhere in the city to come get you.

Metro: The metro is fast, efficient and cheap (3 pesos, less than 30 cents). Avoid rush hours (8-10am and 5-7pm) and you will be fine. The system is easy to figure out from maps in each station. Metro stop Auditorio on the no.7 line is about 5 blocks from the Museum of Anthropology. Metro Jamaica on the no.9 line is right in front of the market. The Zòcalo metro stop is on the no.2 line.

Bus: From the Centro and along Reforma, buses marked Auditorio take you to the Museum of Anthropology. Buses marked Metro Hidalgo or Zócalo head back to the Centro Histórico.

WHERE TO STAY

Hotel Gillow (Isabel la Catolica 17 at the corner of Cinco de Mayo, tel. 5512-2078). Just a block off the Zócalo, this comfortable place is a good deal, with doubles around US$50,). Rooms on the 6th floor have terraces. They don’t take reservations for terrace rooms, however, so asck when you check in. (www.hotelgillow.com)

NH Hotel, (Palma 42, Centro Histórico, tel. 5130-1850) is a attractive modern hotel, well-located in the centro.

Camino Real Mexico (Mariano Escobedo 700, Colonia Anzures, tel. 5263-8888). Located near the entrance of Parque Chapultepec, this impressive hotel was designed by Ricardo Legorreta, one of Mexico’s leading architects, who was inspired by the vast pre-Aztec spaces of Teotihuacán. It has a fun big-hotel feel with flashy restaurants and bars, a swimming pool and peaceful garden. Doubles start at US$190 ($130 on weekends).

WHERE TO EAT

La Terraza del Zócalo. (#13 on the west side of the Zócalo-take the elevator to the 6th floor). Mexican food with comtemporary flair is served on a terrace overlooking the Zócalo. Open from noon till 8pm daily, till 3am on Fridays and Saturdays. (around US$30 for two without drinks)

Cafe Tacuba, (Calle Tacuba 28, near Bolivar, Centro, 5518-4950 or ?-2048, Traditional Mexican food in a charming tiled room. Open from 8am to 11:30pm daily, Sundays until 6pm. (around US$35 for two without drinks)

Restaurante Chon (Regina 160, Centro, 5542-0873, www.restaurantechon.com). Exotic pre-Hispanic cuisine, dreary decor. Lunch only. Closed Sundays (around US$45 for two without drinks).

Pulquería Las Duelistas, (Aranda 30 near Ayuntamiento, Centro). A good place to try this fermented cactus-based drink.

Mercado Jamaica, located at the corner of Avenida Morelos and Congreso de la Union, a few miles southeast of the Zócalo, metro stop Jamaica on the #9 line. There is a taxi sitio behind the flower market.

A native New Yorker, Jim Johnston has lived in Mexico City since 1994. He is author of Mexico City: An Opinionated Guide for the Curious Traveler. Read his blog on Red Room.

[Photo credits: Flickr, su-lin; Flickr, sheeprus]

Daily gear deals – $5 luggage scales, $5 Bluetooth headset and more

by Scott Carmichael on

Here are the hottest gear deals for today, Sunday November 7, 2010. Remember, these deals are often valid for just one day, so act fast before they are gone.

Today’s first deal is for a compact digital luggage scale. The unit features an overload indicator and tare button. On sale for $4.99 at 1saleaday.com.

Next up is a Motorola Bluetooth headset. The style may not suit everyone, but at just $4.99, you certainly can’t complain about the price. Click here for this deal.

Today’s third deal is for a USB laser presenter – perfect for professionals who rely on Powerpoint to do their job. The product comes in a carrying pouch which holds its USB receiver. On sale for $9.94. Click here for this deal.

And finally in today’s lineup is the Griffin Travel stand. This neat little gadget holds your headphones, and unfolds into a movie viewing stand. On sale for just $10.88. Click here for this deal.