Politics in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky: Last day to vote for a jackass for mayor–literally

by Jamie Rhein on

Residents of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, even people who don’t live there can vote for mayor. Following the tradition of the U.S. presidential elections, today is the last day to vote. The candidates are like no others. Up until this year, all mayoral candidates have been dogs, but the canines have competition. These days, the effort to vote in a town mayor have heated up. Travis the cat is a fierce competitor, the first time a feline has been in the race.

Then there is Higgins, the miniature donkey that is also a contender, although people can’t help resist making connections between politics and a jackass. I don’t know if that will hurt or help his chances. As of October 30, he was in 3rd place with Travis in 5th.

You can vote more than once, by clicking here. A vote costs a dollar and all proceeds go towards the Rabbit Hash Historical Society–a worthy cause, let me tell you.

Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, about 30 minutes from Cincinnati, is one of those American oddball kind of treasures on the banks of the Ohio River. The Rabbit Hash General Store has been around since 1831 and doesn’t look much different than it did then, although the goods have been updated.

The town got its name from a joke by one of the town’s people after a flood one year. All that seemed to be left to eat were rabbits and he quipped there would be no shortage of rabbit hash. Rabbit Hash. Get it?

As a bonus, when you visit here, if you follow Kentucky SR 58, guess where you’ll end up? Big Bone Lick, the place Meg recently wrote about in this post.

**I heard about this story on CBS Sunday Morning Show and had to watch. I’ve been to Rabbit Hash a few times. If you do go here, check out the Bybee Pottery if there is any in stock. It’s Kentucky pottery perfection, in my opinion.

Here is a clip about the election that was on CNN.

Through the Gadling Lens: choosing the right lens

by Karen Walrond on

Thanks for all your comments on the previous post, “what kind of camera should I buy?” — there were some really going points made, and some great feedback. Today, as promised, I thought I’d go through a quick guide on why there are so many lenses out there and why they differ — as well as why you might want a particular one on your trip.

Generally, lenses are described by their focal length. A quick Google search of the term “focal length” returns some fantastically technical definitions — my current favourite is, “The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly it converges (focuses) or diverges (diffuses) light. A system with a shorter focal length has greater optical power than one with a long focal length.“

Mmkay.
Here’s how I like to remember it: the larger the focal length of a lens, the bigger the subject looks and the less of the background you’ll see in your shot. The smaller the focal length of a lens, the smaller your subject will look in your photograph, but you’ll be able to see a whole lot more background.

In other words, if you stand 10 feet away from an apple sitting on a table, the photograph you take with a 35 mm lens will have a lot more background and a lot less apple; with a 100 mm lens, the picture will have a lot more apple and a lot less background.

Clear as mud? Not so much?

Okay, let’s look at a few practical examples. (Note: all of the following images are taken right out of the camera — I didn’t do any cropping, or processing, other than to size them to fit on this post.) I asked convinced coerced my 4-1/2 year old daughter Alex outside to act as a model, and took several pictures of her, using different lenses. I asked her to stand on the curb, while I switched out lenses. That’s her on the left:

Isn’t she cute?

Okay, so the first shot I took, I used a 50mm lens. In general, lenses that are between 35mm and 70mm are called “normal” lenses — in other words, when you look through the viewfinder, what you see is pretty much what you would see without the viewfinder — everything looks about the same size, you don’t see any more detail than you would with the naked eye, that sort of thing. Disposable cameras, for example, usually have lenses between 35mm and 70 mm. So taking the shot from the opposite curb, like so …

… the image of Alex looks like this:

A perfectly suitable shot, and the kind of image that conveys exactly what I saw at the time that I saw it. This sort of lens works if you’re going for street photography, or documentary-style photography.

But watch what happens when I switch my lens out for a 200mm lens. The following image was taken at the same spot, on the opposite curb from Alex:

See? All of a sudden, it’s like I was standing right in front of her, even though I’m still standing across the street on the curb. She looks bigger in the shot (and you can see a whole lot more detail); however, I’ve lost a lot of the background (i.e, you can’t really see the house or the trees anymore). The beauty of this lens is that you can take wonderfully intimate shots of people (e.g., the old men playing chess in the park) or wildlife (the boa constrictor wrapped around the tropical vegetation) or sports (that touchdown made by only inches) without actually getting in the way of the subject — the old men, boa constrictor or running back will likely not even know you’re there.

The downside of this sort of lens? This bad boy is huge (see the photograph at the top of this post), and therefore very unwieldy. On major trips I do usually take this lens with me, but I generally only devote one day to using it (getting lovely intimate shots of people talking to each other at a cafe, or otherwise interacting), and then put it away for the rest of the trip, instead using a lens with a smaller focal length (usually between 50mm to 100 mm).

Speaking of 100mm lenses, let’s say you don’t mind if your subject knows your taking her picture — and in fact, you want to get a nice tight portrait shot. Generally speaking, lenses with focal lengths between 75mm and 135mm are known as “portrait lenses,” and they enable you to take lovely, magazine-cover-shot type images of people.

And so, grabbing my 100mm lens, and standing right here, about three feet away …

… I’m able to take a lovely tight shot of Alex’s face, like so:

Now, is it possible for me to take a shot this close to Alex using the 200mm lens? It is, but I’d still have to stand about halfway across the street to do it, in order to get the focus right. And I probably couldn’t take a shot like this with the 50mm lens, because I would have to stand really close to Alex to take the shot, and would likely end up with a really blurry shot, because I would be too close for the lens to get a really sharp focus.

For what it’s worth, I always carry my 100mm lens (or a lens which “passes through” that focal length, like a 70mm-120mm zoom, for example), particularly when I travel; primarily because I love portraiture, and I love shooting the faces of the people who are native to the countries I visit.

Finally, let’s take a look at a macro lens: the type of lens that let’s you get really up close and personal. Again, I’ll use Alex as a model, but this time I’ll get very, very close to her (about 8 inches away):

And — you’re going to love this — check out how much detail I can capture of her here:

See how you can make out every eyelash in this photo, every tiny contour of her skin? Macro shots are beautiful for grabbing very tiny details, sometimes in breathtaking ways. And there’s no other kind of lens that can get this sort of detail than a macro lens — other lenses just can’t focus that well.

Now, obviously, you’re not likely to walk up to an individual, get all up in their personal space and shoot their eyeballs. But macro lenses can be really fantastic for getting details of, say, the bumps on the back of some weird-looking tropical insect, or the stamens of a truly exotic flower
. I always carry my macro lens with me if I’m going somewhere known for its beautiful flora and fauna — I never know what I might get.

Finally, for those of you with point-and-shoots, don’t despair: these days, point-and-shoots have wonderfully wide ranges of focal lengths for their built-in lenses. For example, the following two shots were taken with my Nikon Coolpix. According to the Nikon website, the Coolpix has a focal length range of between 28mm and 112mm.

So again, standing on the opposite curb from Alex, here’s a shot at approximately 28mm (also called a wide-angle shot, used for architecture or landscapes):


(Notice now, how much more background I get than even the 50mm shot at the top of this post? Although Alex is tiny in the shot, now I not only get the house and the two trees, but the next-door neightbour’s house as well!)

And here’s a shot zoomed in at 112mm; this time, again, standing on the curb across the street from her:

Whew — that’s a lot to cover in one post! Hopefully, this helps you better understand what different camera lenses can do, and when they’re appropriate for your favourite type of photography — and for those of you who like crib sheets, there’s a great one covering the kind of photography each lens is best for here. As always, if you have any questions, or would like me to cover anything specific in an upcoming post, please feel free to let me know in the comments below, or e-mail me directly at karen.walrond@weblogsinc.com. I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say!

Karen is a writer and photographer in Houston, Texas. You can see more of her work at her site, Chookooloonks.
And for more Through the Gadling Lens, click here.

Amazing Race 13, episode 6: Delhi, India is hard work

by Jamie Rhein on

After a few lovely shots of Bayon Temple the teams were off in The Amazing Race 13, episode 6 to Delhi, India–my old stomping ground.

Although all teams scored the same flight from Siem Reap, Cambodia, the setting of episode 5, once they hit the airport in Delhi, the order in which each team left the temple was irrelevant. Ah, yes, as they dashed through the airport, there were the familar rows of uncomfortable chairs just outside customs in the main waiting area of the building.

Nick’s predictions of “heat, confusion, and crowds” was exactly right. Delhi is that and more. Nick could have thrown in cows, cows and more cows for a more accurate picture. I was looking for an elephant, and later on in the episode–bingo.

Travel Tips:

  • Use the Internet at the airport to help you locate where you need to go at your destination.
  • Have a taxi driver wait for you when you are making a stop. It can save time later.
  • Ditch the taxi driver for another one if you continue to get lost, no matter if your driver is a nice person.
  • Use terms of endearment with your traveling partner like “Babe” to help diffuse tense situations.
  • If you’re female, don’t wear shorts and spaghetti strap tank tops in India. They’re culturally insensitive.

Cultural highlights and recap: First stop was the Moonlight Motors, a drive into downtown Delhi that made the Andrew & Dan team notice that, compared to India, “Cambodia was child’s play.” As the traffic choked the streets, hands flapped to create a breeze in the stifling heat.

The massive amounts of vehicles, cows and people that barely streaming forward gave Tina the idea that they had landed in Delhi at the wrong time for easy-going travel. How true.

Although traffic in Delhi can be overwhelming, there are hours when it’s not that bad. However, with their rush hour arrival time, I bet they were settled into their taxis by 5:30 or 6:00 p.m., one of the worst hours for going anywhere.

Getting to Moonlight Motors wasn’t easy for Terrence & Sarah, Kelly & Christy or Tina & Ken. Due to no fault of theirs, their taxi drivers had no idea where to go. Tina & Ken were still going in circles while Nick, Andrew & Dan, and Dallas & Toni were finishing their first task–painting the bottom half of auto-rickshaw taxis green.

There’s a movement in India to convert auto-rickshaw taxis’ engines so that they will run on CNG (compressed natural gas), a fuel that is more environmentally friendly. Taxis that have been switched are painted green at the bottom like the one in the photo taken by Avinash Meetoo. The top half remains yellow. The effort is working and air quality is gradually improving.

While the first three teams arrived at the taxi park when it was still daylight, the last three arrived after dark, an indication of just how long they were lost.

Painting the auto-rickshaw involved covering the parts not to be painted with newspaper, donning a paint mask and using a spray can to evenly spray on the paint–all arduous tasks that are exacerbated under pressure. If there are any indications that one should NOT direct the actions of the person who is your traveling companion, this segment was it.

The more Terrence and Tina cajoled and directed Sarah and Ken to paint faster and do the task a certain way, the more the two painters became frustrated. Ken stayed silent, but Sarah told Terrence several times to, in essence, “back off Babe.” The term of endearment kept her from going off her rocker, I imagine.

Andrew finished first, much to this team’s glee, but their lead was lost when they couldn’t find a taxi right away. That’s Delhi for you. Taxis, although plentiful at times, can be evasive when most needed.

Tina & Ken did the smart thing and told their driver to stay, however, their driver had no better sense of direction after Ken finished painting his taxi then he did before. Hopelessly lost, they finally ditched him for another driver.

Once the taxis were converted to green, the teams headed to the colonial style Ambassador Hotel to find the guard in the garden who held their clues with the choice of their Roadblock tasks, two more indications of how labor intensive India is. Pick a job, any job, and you’ll find someone doing it by hand.

The Roadblock four of the teams chose, Launder Clothes where the teams headed by taxi to dhobi ghat, a communal area where laundry workers called dhobis wash, dry and iron clothing in order to make a living. The irons are the old fashioned kind filled with hot coals.

As a cultural note, in India it is very common for people to hire a dhobi to do laundry, even people with a modest income. When we lived in Delhi, our dhobi did our laundry twice a week, although there was a regular laundry room with washers and dryers where we lived. Hiring people to do household tasks is one way to keep the Indian economy flowing.

Each team had to iron 20 articles of clothing that ranged from shirts to pants. Once all items passed inspection by the real female dhobis who supervised their work, the teams were handed their clues that led them to the Pit Stop.

The dhobi section was where the contrast between Western dress and traditional Indian dress for women was most apparent. The Indian women looked elegant and stately, even though they were traditional laborers. This photo by Meanest Woman is typical. The American women, except for Toni who consistently wears a T-shirt, are dressed totally inappropriately for Indian sensibilities of what is considered decent attire.

I kept thinking, Starr, Starr, Starr, I don’t care if you’re hot, put your shirt back on. Christy and Kelly have long ago lost a sense of where they are in the world and are wearing shorts. Even Andrew & Dan commented on their cultural gaffe. I’m not saying that these are decent women, they are clueless though when it comes to appropriate dress.

The other Roadblock, “Launder Money” lead to a fairly accurate excursion into an Indian wedding and the difficulty of finding correct change. The teams who picked this one had a complicated task of acquiring the right number of rupee notes in the right denominations in order to make a traditional groom’s necklace. The next step was to find a groom to give the necklace to.

The elephant in this episode was outside the wedding hall. It’s common for a groom to come riding to a wedding on an elephant. Horses are also used. Also present were horn playing and throngs of dancing people. The noise can be overwhelming, but the weddings I’ve been to are not this crowded. I bet this was a setting designed specifically for The Amazing Race. The elements were there though, including the dais where the bride and groom sits and what they wore.

What was missing from the Amazing Race scene were the tables laden with wonderful food.

Unlike traditional, typical American weddings, in a traditional Indian wedding, the bride and groom don’t get down on the dance floor with the guests, but sit at the edge overseeing the festivities. Both team Sarah & Terrence and Ken and Tina had a hard time locating the groom because the kept looking in the center of the crowd. Finally they found him.

(In this photo by Dahon, the groom is wearing a flower garland. He is waiting for the bride to show up. When she does, she’ll sit where the child is.)

While these two teams were searching for their groom, poor Andrew & Dan’s life as frat boys were haunting them. They had a heck of a time ironing. The dhobi wallah overseeing their efforts shook her head, almost woefully, but would not let up until their pile was perfect. A gust of wind blew half their clothes to the ground which didn’t help. Oh, I felt bad.

As the end came near with Ken & Tina, yet having another problem finding a taxi and getting chased by dogs, and Andrew & Dan finally finishing their last shirt, the suspense built as Phil waited for them at the Pit Stop at the Baha’i House the world headquarters of the Baha’i faith. Andrew & Dan came dashing in 5th place leaving Tina & Ken to pull up the rear.

Who won this round? Nick and Starr–again. Their lack of bickering and focus helps. Plus, I think they are used to winning. They’re wired to win. I still don’t want them to win. They are not underdogs enough for me.

What did they win? An electric car each. As Phil off-handedly pointed out, Delhi is certainly an indication that the world needs clean air.

Who was eliminated? NO ONE!

After how hard Andrew & Dan ironed, but not all that well, and how many times Tina & Don got lost because of their bum luck with taxi drivers, I would have been so sad if one of these teams was eliminated. This ending was one to tug at heartstrings.

Andrew & Dan were over the top, whooping it up joyous, and Ken was tearful, making the connection between the need for a comeback to win the Amazing Race, and a need for a boost to save his and Tina’s marriage. As he sat tearful, struggling to talk Tina gave him a tender rub on his cheek.

For the life of me, I can’t quite figure how why the two of them don’t seem to think they get along. Have they paid much attention to other married couples who are traveling together?

For their last place standing, they face a Speed Bump next week, a task only Tina & Ken have to do before catching up with the other teams.

I wondered why there wasn’t a shot of the Baha’i Temple. It’s shaped like a lotus flower and quite lovely.

“Obama: The Musical” to play in Kenya

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Think front-running presidential candidate Barack Obama is popular in the United States? In Kenya, home of Obama’s father, Obama is absolutely beloved, so much so that a theatre company in Nairobi is currently presenting the hagiographic show “Obama: The Musical.”

The musical, which debuted yesterday and will run through November 5, tells the story of Obama’s young life and his eventual political career. The actors involved in the production are virtually all rabid supporters of Obama, even the actors who play the show’s villains, John McCain and George W. Bush.

The actor playing McCain says he would have preferred to play Obama: “Obama is more fun to portray than McCain,” he says. “I hope he will win.”

The show’s director, George Orido, says he has already received invitations to perform the show in South Africa and the UK.

[via Chris Blattman]

The airlines celebrate halloween

by Grant Martin on

Oh, to be part of the airline industry. As we recently saw in great detail, Southwest Airlines takes the holiday very, very seriously. Out at their headquarters on Friday, I was privy to a celebration of epic proportions — several departments decked out completely in costume and decoration, some with meticulous construction and weeks put into planning. I heard that some departments hired professional choreographers to coordinate their dance moves. More on that later this week though.Elsewhere in the industry, Virgin America also hosted a smaller celebration at their headquarters in California, complete with over-the-top costumes and decorations. I also heard that some Northwest employees dressed up as Delta employees. Wild.

In other news, the candy jar at my office has been empty for about a month now. I’ll cross my fingers on the Halloween celebrations getting kicked off next year.