It's football season, which means it's also time for Beat the Experts, our annual interactive feature that pits you, the amateur, against some of the smartest football minds in Bakersfield!

OK, maybe that last comment is an exaggeration if you take it literally (and some of you sure will), but our panel of "experts" is pretty good. And this year, one of our experts is a real goat named Jester. Amateur farmer/real-life Californian sportswriter Mike Griffith convinced Jester to participate this year.

We've made lots of improvements to Beat the Experts this year, and we know you want to mess with Jester (c'mon, are you really scared of picking games against a goat?), so preregister here before the actual contest starts next week.  The concept is simple: We ask you to pick winners in 15 prep, college and pro football games each week through December. You don't even need to understand football to play!

And Beat the Experts not only is fun, but it's FREE to play. And if you win the weekly contest, you'll get some fun prizes plus be eligible for the grand prize, which is a HDTV (Thanks to our sponsors, Urner's and Haddad Dodge Kia, for ponying up the prizes).

If you’ve been searching for homes to buy (and it’s certainly a buyer’s market right now), you know how valuable a map can be in terms of finding homes in specific parts of town.

We’ve just added a mapping feature to our Homes section that gives you one more option to narrowing down your choices.

The Homes search results page now includes the option of selecting “list view” or “map view” to display your listings. The map view includes “satellite” or “hybrid” options that add physical landmarks to the map. Mousing over the map icons will open key information about individual homes, and link to more details. The map view will plot 10 listings at a time, and you can use the site tools to save those searches so you can check them out later.

If you love local football or just looking at people having fun, you’ll want to check out our new Snap! photo section, which features photos of action on and off the field at local high school and college football games.

The concept is simple: Our Snap! correspondents take dozens of photos – shots of game action, cheerleaders and bands, and fans in the stands (see a good example here) and upload them onto bakersfield.com by noon the day after the game. If you see our photographers strolling through the stands at local games, show them some love and ham it up.

Because we’re new to this, trying out new software, working with a bunch of photographers, we’re focusing Snap! initially on high school and college games in metro Bakersfield. As we get experienced in this kind of thing, we’ll expand the concept to any number of community events, both in and around Bakersfield and Kern County. But for now, we’re not equipped to shoot every game or every school. We appreciate your understanding and patience as we build momentum.

We’re still looking for photographers to represent Bakersfield Christian, Centennial, Golden Valley, Liberty and South high schools. We're also looking for backup photographers for East, Foothill, Highland, Ridgeview, Stockdale and West.

You’d be shooting at least 50 shots per game, with 80 percent of those being devoted to the crowd, the stands, etc.—basically, most of your shots won’t be of game action.  By noon the next day, you’d upload your shots to our website using the account info we’d provide you.  Thus, you’ll need access to a 3-megapixel-or-better camera and high-speed internet for uploading. There’s a stipend of $150 for shooting the whole season.

If you’re interested, email Jason Sperber, our community content coordinator, or call him at 661-395-7296.

And a big shoutout to our friends at Nissan of Bakersfield for being our Snap! site sponsor this fall. They’re really excited about sharing in what we think will be great fun for all involved. We’ll also be adding Josten’s as a Snap sponsor next week!

We're still working through some navigation issues, and know there's room for improvement. So, as always, we appreciate your constructive feedback.

 

The Californian newsroom and readers have been having fun trying to narrow down a list of Kern’s Seven Wonders, playing off last month’s vote for a fresh batch of seven from around the world.

First, we had the active “The seven wonders … of Kern County?” post in Talk of the Town. That generated a whole bunch of nominations, both serious and silly.

Now comes the real thing: You get to vote for the finalists our Seven Wonders of Kern County poll.


Voting closes Sept. 16, with results announced about a week later.  As of today, 426 people had voted. Don’t be left out; let your voice be heard!