Eyes on Ragin'Bot

Cajun has to do with crawfish and etoufee and bayous and stuff like that. But robotic vehicles? Yes, indeed. Let me explain. One night while I was down in Louisiana, the SSon drove us to his office on the campus of Louisiana State University at Lafayette. The idea was for me to see his excellent pix of amphibian eyes. There are two of them above.

But while we were in the building, he took me to see RaginBot, the robotic car that is the successor to the CajunBot; both have been contestants in DARPA's highly publicized challenge to create fully autonomous robotic vehicles. So -- though this university was originally an ag school, it is currently competing quite well against the Big Boys such as Stanford and Carnegie Mellon.

Here's the mechanical works (above) and some of the sensor arrays (below). If you'd like tech talk about Ragin'Bot, here's a video for you. There's also a blog.

The sponsors are thanked above; the logo for the enterprise is below. It is fitting that after all three of the DARPA challenges, the Cajun crew and their backers have produced a Cajun cook-out for one and all. Everything bought locally in California, site of the challenges, except for the crawfish, brought in just for the occasion. (Yes, as described in the blog, sounds like it must have been etoufee.)

Cajun country: ashrimping we will go!

If crawfish are a local specialty, shrimp are the universal specialty of Cajun country. The closer I got to the coast on outings with Sson and family, the more shrimp boats we saw. Reminded me of my youth, it did. When I was growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, any seafood restaurant worth its salt had its own fishing vessel or perhaps two or three.

I remember seeing the high masts at a distance out at the edge of the word as the boats returned to dock at the end of the day. A line of vessels. Of course, they caught fish as well as shrimp.

Local Jacksonville folk back in the aught-30s & 40s had their own shrimp nets. At that time, the inland waters hadn't been shrimped out, so it was quite possible to get a good evening's meal with an hour of so of swirling the net out from the river bank. My dad and I used shrimp as bait when we fished -- either shrimp pieces or, for a classier catch, live shrimp.

I presume that these Louisiana boats are shrimping in the Gulf of Mexico or possibly the inland waterways.

There were no signs so I couldn't figure out whether these huge nets were drying or whether they were for sale. Probably the latter.

The big business of shrimping.

And the roadside business.

Buying the shrimp for the etouffee made by the Sson the evening of this particular outing. Yum! It's especially yummy when the young folk do all that hard work of shelling and cleaning the tasty little critters.

My Second Anniversary: Today, May 27, begins my third year of blogging. If you're curious, here's a link to my first post, The Pleasures of Strolling. It's been a grand two years. I've leaned a lot about digital photography and PhotoShop. I've enjoyed sharing my small adventures. But most important of all are the friends that I have made along the way. It's wonderful to read your comments and enter into a dialog with people from far and near.

The Cajun world: meat stores

As explained by my Sson, the Cajun culture is basically a meat and rice culture. The meat store, of which I saw several, is an important source of basic food supplies, such as boudin and cracklin. Charlie-T's is one local favorite in the Lafayette region. The most critical portion of the store is at the rear -- the smoke house. (Later note: I'm linking to the boudin page; please take a look at the map -- it's a picture of the area I was visiting...)

Another local favorite: The Best Stop supermarket. Each meat store has its own private family recipes for the assorted sausage goodies purveyed; every store has its followers who argue over where one can buy the best boudin.

I believe that the boudin is on the upper shelf in the picture above. Sson says that it evolved from traditional French blood sausage; the Cajun favorite is a mix of rice, seasoning and pork meat pieces which can be squeezed from the casing.

Other major main dishes in Cajun Louisiana: crawdads and shrimp.

The grandchildren love cracklins ... a candy-rich deep fried snack made from pork rinds with fat and meat attached. Not a food any cardiologist would ever OK. I found it yummy, but very filling.

Want to try alligator meat? The Best Stop can fill your order.

Though called a "supermarket", this store's line of produce was limited to onions, potatoes and yams. Not even the other basic Cajun veggies, green peppers and celery.

Among the packaged foods on the shelves. Zatarain's products are close to being staples in Louisiana. I believe I've seen the dirty rice mix at our local Prescott supermarkets, BTW.

And, next the cash register, a bulletin board where partisans of The Best Stop's brand of meats can sign up. I didn't see whether or not that picture of Elvis at right carried a signature.