I’m happy to share the video of this year’s Halloween Costume Contest winners. As usual, we had a strong collection of costumes and the winners should be very proud.
The video will be immortalized under the photography section of the site.
A National Park Ranger Teaches Us about the History of the Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings
During the summer of 2009, I passed through Mesa Verde National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage in southwest Colorado. It is most famous for its well-preserved, 800 year old Anasazi cliff dwellings. In the first video, a Mesa Verde National Park Ranger explains various aspects of the park, the dwellings and the history of the people. In the second, he talks about the homes in which people lived, the culture they adopted and the reason they left Mesa Verde. Signposts are provided if you’d like to skip ahead.
0:00 — The people who lived here
and how we know
1:20 — The Anasazi creation story
2:00 — Learning to live in the region
4:30 — Why the Anasazi chose the cliffs and how they obtained water from the sandstone
6:45 — An introduction to the work area and storage rooms
7:30 — Constructing the cliff dwellings and division of labor
9:10 — On whether the Anasazi were involved in warfare
0:00 — Kivas, the homes of the Anasazi, cradles in Mother Earth which are today used for religious ceremonies
1:10 — Households and who occupied them
2:25 — Leaving Mesa Verde
3:10 — How the Anasazi lived, ate, married, ground corn and died
6:25 — Why did they leave?
These videos are part of a larger American Southwest gallery. Click the link to see more great videos, photographs and interactive panoramas.
Four Corners Twister
While traveling through the American Southwest, we decided to stop at Four Corners, the point where four US states – New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah intersect. But other than stand there and appreciate its abstract significance, what does one do at Four Corners? We invented an answer – play Twister!
This video is part of a larger American Southwest gallery. Click the link to see more great videos, photographs and interactive panoramas.
Interactive Panorama of Mars’s Greeley Haven
The Opportunity rover is still alive and kicking on Mars. Over its four month “winter break” it was stationed on the northern slope of Greeley Haven. From here, it took over 800 images of its surroundings in 360 degrees. Visible in this panorama I constructed are the past tracks of Opportunity, its dust covered solar panels and the interior wall of Endeavour Crater, which it is now exploring.
Halloween 2011 Photos are Online
For those of you who may not have noticed, the photos from our annual Halloween party are now online. This and all other galleries may be accessed through the photography tab at the top of the page. As a special note, if you attended this event and have photographs you would like to share, please let me know and I will add them to the main page.
One reason I host my own photos rather than post them to Facebook or Flickr is that I want to present my events and travels using a variety of media that these sites cannot accommodate. My Halloween 2011 gallery includes a full collection of photos, a smaller subset of the very best images stored in my “Elite Gallery” and a video of the award ceremony.
Enjoy!
Ko Samed – Into the Heart of Darkness
So there the two of us were, clinging for dear life as the speed boat raced into the darkness of the Gulf of Thailand. Our pilots were two Thai teenagers, one 15 and the other no older than 11.
After about a quarter hour of sailing into near total blackness, the older boy surreptitiously cut the motor, setting the boat to glide. He turned in his seat, pointed towards our bags and said, “Get out.”
Our trip had begun that afternoon in Bangkok. We boarded a bus bound for Rayong, the home of a ferry which would take us to the island of Ko Samed, our final destination. We arrived late. The last ferry had already departed.
Undeterred, we hooked up with a cab driver who promised an alternative. He whisked us a couple miles out of town to a smaller dock punctuated with a long, ramshackle ticket counter lit with a handful of fluorescent lights.
“Ko Samed,” we asked. The two proprietors debated with each other what to charge us. The price was too high. We accepted anyway.
…
“Get out.” With our bags over our heads, we did as the boy asked. Lacking recourse, we plunged faithfully into the water which rose to our chests. The younger boy motioned towards dim lights in the distance. “Ko Samed,” he said.
In a flash, they were gone. Bags held high, we waded in, emerging on the shore of Jep’s Beach (and Restaurant). As the two wet Americans emerged out of the ocean, luggage in tow, several diners glanced up. Within moments, they had returned apathetically to their beers.
We had arrived.
The preceding account is a travel story I submitted to Afar.com. It took place in January 2004. For more photographs from this trip, visit my Southeast Asia photo gallery.
David Byrne’s Brand New Cycling Music Video
On July 28-29 I attended the 2011 International Green Energy Economy Conference. The proceedings were mostly interesting and I intend to post some of my thoughts early next week. However, I didn’t want to wait to get this up.
At the conclusion of the conference on Friday, we were given a “special treat” courtesy of David Byrne, the former lead singer of Talking Heads. In addition to being an artist par excellence, David is also an avid cyclist. He wrote and arranged the following video, which is a “poem to the bicycle and the people who ride them.” As far as I can tell, this video isn’t available anywhere else online. Enjoy.
Stephen Colbert Calls Me a “Hero”
A couple weeks ago I reported on the gift Colbert SuperPAC sends its most generous donors. Now it’s been brought to my attention that I made the “Colbert Crawl.” Nice.
Baltimore City’s 4th of July Fireworks Finale 2011 from the Inner Harbor
Well, it’s mid-July, always a good time to revisit fireworks. Below is
a short video with the finale of Baltimore City’s 2011 Independence Day fireworks show from the Inner Harbor.
If you would like to see the full, unedited high-definition fireworks display, please use this link. Click once to buffer and stream the video. Right click and chose “Save Link As” to download to your computer.
Artscape’s Big Crowd
Baltimore’s Artscape is the largest free public arts festival in America. Each year, musicians, dancers, painters, sculptors, filmmakers, street performers and everyone in between gather for three days of festival revelry. Since I will soon depart for Hawaii, I utilized the opportunity to practice with my new zoom lens. Here’s one practice shot.
