April 26, 2008

Riding the Wheaton Express

One of our favorite things to do when the weather is nice is to take Kayleigh to Wheaton Regional Park, just north of Washington DC, where they have a charming toy train that rides through the park. I thought it would be fun to stream a live tour of the train ride; here's the archive of the video I shot.

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Posted by acarvin at 2:59 PM

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March 28, 2008

DC Cherry Blossoms Walking Tour

Today during my lunch break I streamed some live video over my N95 mobile phone from the Tidal Basin in Washington DC, home to the annual blossom of DC's famous cherry blossom trees. The first video didn't work so well - I had the video at such a high resolution the network crashed - but the second take worked like a charm. The video is about 16 minutes long, and features lots of cherry blossoms, some helicopters, and my disembodied voice talking about the history of cherry trees in DC. My wife Susanne and daughter Kayleigh even make a brief cameo - they were touring the cherry blossoms with my mother-in-law and I bumped into them near the FDR memorial. Enjoy! -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 3:17 PM

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March 25, 2008

Live from the Salt Lick: BBQ and the Future of Mobcasting

I'm back in Austin, TX for a couple of days of NPR meetings, so last night I convinced my colleagues to make the 45-minute trek outside of the city to the Salt Lick, an old-time barbecue joint with some of the best BBQ in the area. While we waited for our table, I thought it would be a great occasion to break in my new Nokia N95 video phone. Using the streaming service Qik.com, I was able to stream a live video as I toured the barbecue pit, watching cooks slapping briskets onto the fire and slathering them with their tangy sauce. (I also managed to let the video keep recording after I thought I hit the stop button, so the end of the video is kinda funny.) This video is an archive of the live event.

As far as I'm concerned, being able to stream live video from a mobile phone to the Internet is an absolute game-changer. I'm hoping I can get some of these phones into the hands of NPR colleagues so they can test them out in the field, but imagine the possibilities when everyday people can press a button on their phones and start broadcasting. I keep thinking of the Tibetan protests that took place against the Chinese government, or the Burmese monk protests last year. In both cases, there was a limited pool of video available, and much of it came up after the fact. Imagine if a protestor - or a whole group of them - were able to broadcast what was going on around them in real time?

It's very much an extension of the mobcasting concept I advocated three years ago. Back then, I talked about using open source tools to allow protestors and citizen journalists to post audio and video to blogs and RSS feeds as events unfolded:

[W]ith the proliferation of video-enabled smartphones, it seems that it would be a natural progression to mobilize the millions of people who are buying these tools with an easy, no-nonsense way to capture socially-relevant footage and get it online in near-real time....

...A quick example: imagine a large protest at a political convention. During the protest, police overstep their authority and begin abusing protesters, sometimes brutally. A few journalists are covering the event, but not live. For the protestors and civil rights activists caught in the melee, the police abuses clearly need to be documented and publicized as quickly as possible. Rather than waiting for the handful of journalists to file a story on it, activists at the protest capture the event on their video phones -- dozens of phones from dozens of angles. Thanks to the local 3G (or community wi-fi) network, the activists immediately podcast the footage on their blogs. The footage gets aggregated on a civil rights website thanks to the RSS feeds produced by the podcasters' blogs. (Or perhaps they all podcast their footage directly to a centralized website, a la OneWorld TV but with an RSS twist.) This leads to coverage by bloggers throughout the blogosphere, which leads to coverage by the mainstream media, which leads to demands of accountability by the general public. That's mobcasting.

Back then, though, we were limited to somewhat crude mobile podcasting tools like Audlink.com and Audioblogger.com, both of which are now defunct. Today, we're seeing the deployment of new services that allow for near-real time audio and video posting, like Utterz and Kyte.tv. These services also incorporate social networking features that allow users to track each other's content, comment on it, and cross-post it to various social media sites, like Twitter or Facebook. And now with Qik, near-real time becomes actual real-time. Rather than waiting for you to finish recording your content before posting it from your phone, Qik streams it with just a 5-10 second delay. That's not so different than the delay you see in "live" broadcasts on TV news or radio.

In some ways, the term mobcasting is more appropriate than ever: groups of people using mobile phones in coordinated actions to cover an event without any easy way to censor them. It's both exhilarating and intimidating at the same time. It's just a matter of time before there's another government crackdown, police beating incident, voter intimidation or other incident that authorities wouldn't want the rest of us to see. But we will see it. Live. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 10:19 AM

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March 12, 2008

Billy Bob Thornton vs. the Studio

Actor Billy Bob Thornton, speaking at the 2008 SXSW festival in Austin, TX, describes the fight he had with a Hollywood studio over his creative independence while making the film All the Pretty Horses. -andy
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Posted by acarvin at 9:33 AM

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February 19, 2008

Unveiling My $17 Burger at the LA Biltmore Hotel

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February 11, 2008

Studio 4A: Inside NPR on Super Tuesday

On February 5, I spent the better part of the night working at NPR, helping out with online coverage of Super Tuesday 2008. One floor above us was Studio 4A, NPR's broadcast command center. Inside, dozens of NPR staff worked to bring live coverage of the voting results, including making projections for every primary and caucus that night.

I spent some time visiting Studio 4A observing the action. I'd only planned to take some still pictures, but ended up shooting this video as well. Because I didn't have a proper video camera with me, the audio is somewhat embarrassing, but at least the visuals will give you a sense of some of the things taking place behind the scenes. Included in the video are Featuring Beth Donovan, Ken Rudin, Ron Elving, Ellen Weiss, Robert Siegel, Michelle Norris, Mara Liasson, EJ Dionne, Scott Simon, David Folkenflik, Andrea Seabrook and Nina Totenberg, among others. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 8:36 PM

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Anonymous Protest Scientology in Washington DC

Footage I shot for Rocketboom at the Washington DC protest against the Church of Scientology by the group known as Anonymous.
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Posted by acarvin at 12:12 PM

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January 17, 2008

Feeding the Giraffes

Video of me hand-feeding the giraffes of the Brevard Zoo in Viera, Florida.
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Posted by acarvin at 1:26 AM

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December 30, 2007

Reliving My Grandparents' Wedding

When I visited my parents last February, I spent some time examining a small reel of 8mm film - footage from my the wedding of my grandparents, Cy Kaplan and Theresa Goldman, in December 1938. The film was practically falling apart, and much of it had been damaged years ago when my grandfather had someone clean the film, and they ended up corroding it instead.

I spent a lot of time investigating ways to restore and digitize the film, along with a number of other reels we had from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. So you can imagine my surprise when I came back to Florida to see my parents and grandmother this week, and they told me that a cousin of mine had given them a copy of all of the footage on a DVD. It turns out that when my grandfater had the film restored, they got transferred to a VHS copy. A cousin had a copy of this tape, so he decided to burn it to DVD and send it out to the family.

A couple of nights ago, we spent the evening watching the footage, largely at half-speed, so my grandmother could identify people for us. Even though she's 92 years old, it's amazing how many people she could spot almost instantly. She also got to see footage of her parents, who died more than 60 years ago, for the first time in decades.

Since I've been documenting my grandmother's stories on this blog, I thought I'd share her wedding film as well. It's about seven minutes long, including the very end of the ceremony, the wedding reception, and brunch back at her family's house in Chelsea, MA the next day. I know it might not be very interesting to everyone, but having it in digital form means the world to us. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 6:33 PM

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December 26, 2007

A Christmas Lumiere

This is a short video I shot in the style of the Lumiere Brothers, who made experimental films in the late 1800s.
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Posted by acarvin at 3:58 PM

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December 3, 2007

Matzah Ball Madness!

Ever wondered how to make matzah balls? Want to become a king (or queen) of kneidlach? Just in time for Hanukkah 2008, here's a chance to watch me in action, demonstrating how to prepare my grandmother's matzah ball recipe. It's a very simple recipe, including four eggs, a cup of matzah meal, a tablespoon of either chicken fat (schmaltz) or vegetable oil, and salt and pepper. Normally I use vegetable oil and an electric whisk to whip up the batter, but for this video I decided to stick with old-school methods, including the schmaltz and a hand whisk.

Technically, these matzah balls are considered "floaters" (as opposed to "sinkers") but they're still pretty dense. If you want to lighten them even more, add another tablespoon of oil or schmaltz, plus a tablespoon or two of chicken stock, to the batter before incorporating the matzah meal. If you like sinkers, add a quarter cup of extra matzah meal and then refrigerate for 30-60 minutes. I should also note that the recipe I make is very peppery, so if your don't want a strong pepper taste to your kneidlach, then cut back on the pepper to half a teaspoon or less. Either way, it's always a good idea to start slowly with the seasonings, then test a dollop of the batter in the simmering broth, so you can taste the results before making an entire batch of kneidlach and regretting it. Lastly, you can also add diced celery to the chicken stock prior to cooking the matzah balls, but for whatever reason I neglected to do that this time around.

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do! -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 10:47 PM

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December 2, 2007

Scottish Christmas Walk

Scenes from the 37th annual Scottish Christmas Walk, an annual holiday tradition in Alexandria, Virginia. Keep an eye out for a cameo by Virginia Sen. John Warner sporting a walking stick and kilt. -andy
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Posted by acarvin at 8:26 PM

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November 17, 2007

Dulcimer Dance

Maggie Sansone plays her dulcimer as three girls dance at the Maryland Renaissance Fair earlier this autumn.
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Posted by acarvin at 8:07 PM

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October 28, 2007

Martin Luther King III on Blogging, the Media and the Jena 6 Protests

Martin Luther King III talks about the role that African American bloggers and media outlets, particularly urban radio stations, played in raising the profile of the Jena 6 defendants, leading to the massive protests that took place last month in Jena, LA.
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Posted by acarvin at 10:30 PM

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Martin Luther King III Discusses Media Ownership

On October 24th, IFOCOS and United Press International hosted a conference about journalism, activism and social media. Among the guest speakers was Martin Luther King III, son of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a veteran civil rights activist in his own right. During the Q&A, MLK III talked about how ordinary Americans are generous and very willing to offer assistance during times of crisis such as Hurricane Katrina, but the media often allows important stories to fall away from public consciousness, impacting the public's attention on the crisis. He continued by expressing concern regarding the impact of media concentration and cross-ownership at the local level, but the moderator then steered the conversation in another direction. So when the moderator opened the Q&A to the audience, I asked MLK III if he would like to elaborate on media ownership and its effects on the quality of local journalism. In this video, you'll see both his initial comments on media concentration, followed up by his answer to my question. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 6:48 PM

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Brookside Gardens in Bloom

Last spring I borrowed a Nokia N93 video phone for a couple of months and shot some footage at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD. For some reason I totally forgot about the footage for many months, and just got around to editing the video. Better late than never, I guess. -andy
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Posted by acarvin at 3:26 PM

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October 12, 2007

Train Goin' Home

There's nothing like going home on a train. -andy
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Posted by acarvin at 7:26 PM

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October 9, 2007

Horse Auction

Last month, Susanne and I took Kayleigh to the petting zoo at Frying Pan Farm Park, a working farm in Herndon, VA, just a stone's throw away from Washington Dulles Airport. We heard the sound of an auctioneer emanating from one of the buildings there, so we went over and discovered a horse auction. Several hundred people were in attendance, with some ponies going for more than $10,000. -andy
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Posted by acarvin at 6:30 PM

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Sack Race

A good-old-fashioned sack race at the Derwood Agricultural Fair in Derwood, MD.
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Posted by acarvin at 3:46 PM

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September 13, 2007

Praying Mantis vs. Bumble Bee

A praying mantis stalks a bumble bee on a milkweed bush at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton Maryland.
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Posted by acarvin at 8:06 PM

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Kayleigh's First Steps!

This afternoon, Kayleigh managed to take her very first steps on her own. She's been able to walk a few steps at a time when holding someone's hand, but this is the first time she was able to do it independently. We didn't have the camera rolling for the literal first step, since she did it unexpectedly. We started shooting video about 20 seconds later. Welcome to toddlerhood, Kayleigh!
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Posted by acarvin at 7:11 PM

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September 4, 2007

Kayleigh Composes Her First Song

Tonight during dinner, Kayleigh started making these hilarious noises, and then began to change pitch as she did it. I managed to grab a camera and shoot about a minute of her taking a crack at composing her first song. It's a real keeper. -andy
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Posted by acarvin at 8:31 PM

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August 26, 2007

Butterflies

Montage of some of the hundreds of exotic butterflies living at the Brookside Gardens butterfly pavilion in Wheaton, Maryland.
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Posted by acarvin at 5:45 PM

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July 25, 2007

Carvin's Eleven

This is the story of how I accidentally carved the number 11 into my forehead today. -andy
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Posted by acarvin at 10:01 PM

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July 24, 2007

My Michael Moore Video

Here's the video I shot of Michael Moore during his appearance on Talk of the Nation yesterday. It's basically a five-minute highlight real taken from the 22 minutes of footage I shot of him. The raw clips are also being posted on YouTube. You can also find a higher-resolution version on the NPR Blog of the Nation site. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 3:12 PM

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July 7, 2007

Kong Nay, Cambodian Chapei Master

When the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975, they killed nearly all of the country's intellectuals, artists and musicians. One of the few to survive was Kong Nay, a master of the stringed instrument known as the chapei. He was forced to perform songs praising the Khmer Rouge, and only managed to survive being executed when the Vietnamese overthrew the regime. Blind and in his 60s, he is one of the last chapei masters. Here he makes a rare US appearance at the 2007 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC.
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Posted by acarvin at 8:32 PM

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July 2, 2007

Unwelcome Questions for Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson

Several of the Democratic presidential candidates took questions from the media following the June 28, 2007 debate at Howard University. As you will see in the this video, not all questions were welcome.

In the first part of the video, Dennis Kucinich is asked about anti-hate speech legislation, which the questioner frames as "chipping away at your constitutional First Amendment rights," irritating Kucinich. In the second part of the video, a person in the crowd of reporters harangues Bill Richardson about his participation in the Bohemian Grove Club, which the questioner refers to as place that conducts "mock human sacrifice." The questioner refuses to let up, even as reporters and bloggers in the crowd tell him to leave it alone. -andy
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Posted by acarvin at 7:11 PM

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July 1, 2007

Waiting in Spin Alley

Following the Democratic presidential debate at Howard University, the candidates and their proxies were expected to visit "spin alley," where hundreds of journalists were assembled to take their questions. Until the candidates showed up, though, spin alley is nothing more than a really crowded waiting room.
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Posted by acarvin at 7:15 PM

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June 29, 2007

Dramatic Sharpton

For those Dramatic Chipmunk fans out there who watched last night's Democratic presidential debate and caught the Rev. Al Sharpton's scowl at Sen. Joe Biden, I present you with this short video.
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Posted by acarvin at 12:03 PM

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June 28, 2007

It's a Wrap

Things are winding down in the media center. All the candidates are gone except Kucinich; he's been chatting with a bunch of the bloggers. I managed to talk with Dodd, Kucinich, Richardson and Gravel about the digital divide and other Internet policy issues, which I'll edit into a piece later. In the meantime, here are some parting thoughts - and sighs of exhaustion - as we wrap things up in the spin room.

Posted by acarvin at 11:57 PM

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Unvarnished: Scenes from the Media Center

Thought I'd upload an unedited clip of the media center.
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Posted by acarvin at 10:15 PM

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Greetings from the Presidential Debate Media Center

Here's a short video I shot from the media center a little while before the Democratic presidential debate at Howard University got under way.
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Posted by acarvin at 8:30 PM

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June 16, 2007

Meeting a Living Goddess: The Bhaktapur Kumari of Nepal

The Bhaktapur Kumari

Who would have guessed I'd meet a living goddess this weekend.

Yesterday evening, we were walking past the Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, heading to a restaurant for dinner, when an adorable little South Asian girl walked by in an ornate golden outfit and an extravagant tika painted on her head. I guessed she and her family were headed to some form of Hindu festival in the area.

"You won't lose her in a crowd," a man remarked as we crossed the street.

"She looks like a Kumari," Susanne said, in reference to the young girls of Nepal who are worshiped as living goddesses.

She did look like a Kumari, but Kumaris never travel. They barely leave their compounds, or so I thought. Susanne and I saw the royal Kumari of Kathmandu when we visited Nepal in 1996. She was cloistered in a special building that serves as her residence during her tenure, and we had to pay a small fee for the privilege of having her stick her head out the window and glare at us for a moment, clearly preferring to be elsewhere.

Selected as toddlers, always from a Buddhist family of the Shakya caste, Kumaris are picked based on 32 personal traits in a process that's sometimes compared to the rigorous process taken to select the Dalai Lama. Once selected, she's revered by the local Hindu population until she reaches puberty, when a new Kumari must be selected. And it's almost unheard of for them to travel.

As it turns out, she was a Kumari - the Kumari of Bhaktapur, the former royal capital of Nepal, and one of the three most important of the dozen or so Kumaris in Nepal. She was in the US for a world premiere of a documentary about Kumaris at the Silverdocs festival here in Silver Spring, and it was the first time a Kumari had ever visited the US. We were both pretty amazed that we'd gotten the chance to see her. Too bad it was just a fleeting glance crossing Georgia Avenue, though.

Today, we returned to downtown Silver Spring for lunch. A large stage had been set up for some kind of performance, and there were signs posted from the local Nepali American association. We stuck around for a while, and sure enough, the Kumari reappeared.

Once again dressed in an ornate costume, she was surrounded by a crowd of photographers and well-wishers. Given my previous experience with a Kumari, I assumed she'd be somewhat aloof, but she was quite the opposite. She smiled and shook hands with visitors, even giving a man a big hug at one point. She was also carrying around an enormous digital SLR camera, snapping pictures of her entourage when she wasn't posing for pictures with others.


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Goddesses Get All the Best Cameras

Eventually, she settled onto a small chair that had been placed in front of the stage. Local Nepalis waited their turn to kiss her feet, then pose for a picture with her. An elderly woman cried tears of joy when she got to meet her. On stage, a troupe of dancers performed, while the Kumari snacked on a plate of crunchy chaat and spicy chana, posing for more pictures and playing with yet another camera - this time a digital camcorder.

I was amazed at how social she was. It turns out, though, as Kumari of Bhaktapur, she's not subjected to the same restrictions that her counterpart in Kathamandu faces. She goes to school and lives with her parents, though she still participates in daily religious rituals. When you ask her what her name is, she says "Sajani" with a smile. And when Susanne and I each put our palms together and bowed to offer her a traditional greeting of "Namaste," she stopped what she was doing for just a moment so she could do the same back to each of us.

I've posted a photo gallery on Flickr. And here's a brief video clip I shot of the Kumari on my mobile phone, in which several Nepalis pay their respects to her:

I'm still smiling from the experience. Nepal is a very special place for us, and I am so happy to have met the Bhaktapur Kumari today. Welcome to America, Sajani. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 8:16 PM

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June 2, 2007

Happy Birthday Kayleigh!

I can't believe it's been a year since Kayleigh was born! Today we celebrated her first birthday by getting her a vegan cupcake. Why, you may ask? It's because babies can't eat anything with eggs in it, so their first birthday cake has to be vegan. The recipes we found online all sounded pretty crummy, so we got her a little vegan cupcake at the Silver Spring bakery Cakelove. It wasn't exactly birthday cake but she seemed pretty happy with it.

Happy birthday Kayleigh!

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Posted by acarvin at 10:55 PM

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May 29, 2007

Toasting Eric and Kim at their Wedding

This weekend, my brother Eric married his fiancee Kim Noble in Philadelphia. I had the honor of being their best man, and their videographer shot footage of my toast at the reception following the wedding ceremony. And no, that's not me at the very beginning; that's the DJ introducing me. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 1:19 PM

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May 6, 2007

Defying the Fire: Rallying Behind Eastern Market

On April 30, 2007, Washington DC's historic Eastern Market was ravaged by fire, gutting the southen half of the building and displacing businesses located there for decades. Its annual Market Day Festival was scheduled for the following Sunday, but they refused to cancel it. Today, thousands of people visited the market in a massive show of community solidarity.


Though much of the building was closed, that didn't dampen the spirits of the visitors and vendors lined up outside the building. I shot some video of the festivities, as well as the damage to the market's interior. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 5:20 PM

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May 3, 2007

Protests on Demand: The Floating Lab Collective

Recently I was walking to lunch and I saw a group of people protesting for religious freedom in Vietnam. A little while later, I walked back the same way and saw the protestors again, but now they were protesting on behalf of dental hygienists. So I whipped out the only device I had on hand that could shoot video - my Treo 700p phone - and began interviewing them.

It turns out they're part of a group of performance artists called the Floating Lab Collective. They were offering "protests on demand." People could request a protest topic in person, online or by text messaging them, and the group would commit a certain amount of time to protest on your behalf. They would generate protest slogans for your cause, and even had a large banner with removable letters, so they could reorganize the text of whatever message you wanted the banner to say.

They were a fascinating bunch of people, but I hope I'll never have to use the Treo for recording video ever again. As you'll see, it looks like a distorted acid trip - so unbearably bad, I normally would never subject people to viewing it for several minutes. But it's not every day you get to see protestors on demand, so I figured why not? -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 7:21 AM

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April 29, 2007

Harper's Ferry Arsenal Blues

Last weekend we took a daytrip to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, perhaps most famous for John Brown's raid prior to the US Civil War. It was also home to one of the first two arsenals in the US, where the government would manufacture its weapons. That, plus its prime location at the place where Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia meet, made it a significant prize during the Civil War. It changed hands between north and south many times, and at one point it was torched by retreating Union forces, to prevent its resources from falling into the hands of the Confederates.

In this video, a volunteer from a local historical society in period costume talks about the arsenal ruins. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 10:45 AM

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April 13, 2007

Grandma's Stories: The Dairy Farm on Auburn Street

My grandmother talks about her parents dairy farm on Auburn Street in Chelsea, Massachusetts, which lost some cattle during the Chelsea Fire of 1908. Photos of the fire damage courtesy of the Chelsea Historical Society.

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Posted by acarvin at 10:55 PM

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April 11, 2007

Snapshot: Dizzy in Flight

I happened to have my camera nearby when Dizzy made one of his vertigo-inducing jumps from our pantry to our dining room table. He does this at least three times a day, since we keep his food bowl atop the pantry so Winnie won't eat his food. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 7:25 PM

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April 7, 2007

Project Hope International

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Christina Arnold of Project Hope International talks about the root causes of human trafficking in Southeast Asia.

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Posted by acarvin at 10:25 AM

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April 6, 2007

Jonny's Busted Laptop

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Jonny Goldstein tells Beth Kanter and me about how he's using a binder clip and a sock to hold his laptop together.

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Posted by acarvin at 8:10 PM

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April 5, 2007

The Four Questions (of Video Blogging Week)

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It's tradition for the youngest video blogger to ask the four questions during Video Blogging Week. The eldest then answers the questions, passing the knowledge down to the next generation of vloggers.

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Posted by acarvin at 4:40 PM

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April 4, 2007

Grandma's Stories: How I Met Your Grandfather

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My 91-year-old grandmother talks about how she met my grandfather in 1936; she also recalls how her father once picked her up from school in a horse-driven sleigh, and how she rescued an old man buried in a snow drift.

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Posted by acarvin at 10:40 AM

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April 3, 2007

Swing Set

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Kayleigh's got a new favorite pastime - the neighborhood park swing set.

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Posted by acarvin at 1:10 AM

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April 2, 2007

Cherry Blossoms in Washington

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Scenes from the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC. I shot the footage using my new Sanyo Xacti HD2 camera in Web video mode. The results are really grainy, so I will probably shoot more cherry blossom footage next weekend in a higher-resolution mode.

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Posted by acarvin at 9:11 AM

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April 1, 2007

Let's Go Fly a Kite

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Scenes from the Smithsonian Kite Festival on the National Mall in Washington DC. This is my first contribution to Video Blogging Week 2007, which kicks off today. -andy

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Posted by acarvin at 6:35 AM

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March 18, 2007

Grandma's Stories: Dairy Farmers & Furriers