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First,thank you to everyone for all of your support and your emails, but yes, I am alive, and still working on cemetery info here in New Orleans.

I took a longish break because of the wedding and then extended honeymoon. When we returned, I started rebuilding the site in a less “bloggy” format, because I wanted to focus on some other aspects of graveyards and genealogy… plus we’ll soon be offering downloadable tours and more! The new ideas just didn’t work with the blog format, so we’re off to our new home:

TombTrekker.com

There’s still a bunch of fiddling left to be done, but I didn’t want to post here while doing that as well. All of the articles here have been moved there* and the database has nearly doubled in size. Any thoughts/comments/suggestions are welcome, and we hope you’ll follow us there!

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*though the comments have not, since moving them without the author’s permissions seems to be iffy

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(crossposted from Dreamy Dreams)

Hey y’all…

So yeah, been a bad girl and haven’t been posting. Again. I know I promised to be better but I at least wanted to pop in, make sure you knew I was still here and still dedicated… and that I was going to have to step out for a few more weeks. It’s for good stuff all around, but other than a few very brief posts I have auto scheduled, I’m going to be MIA for a few weeks while I’m away both physically and mentally.

Things I’ve learned during my transition period so far:

1. I have a metric crapton of pictures. I’ve kindly been invited to do a show of some of my cemetery photographs in a local cafe, which is totally flattering and wonderful, even though it’s made me face the depth of my photographic illness. I’ve discovered that I have several (like 5) thousand cemetery photos taken over the last decade, most of which haven’t been looked at in a long time, many still on film only, and oh, btw, I have no idea how one goes about putting this sort of thing together, so it’s been a really interesting process, but I think we’re getting there, finally.
2. Weird cherry picking process makes me bang my head repeatedly, which isn’t good for concentration I’m actually having to do this bizarre dance with what pics to use and what not to use, because I’m working on (shhhh, top secret! Double pinky swear not to say anything, okay?) a book that involves some of these same photos + some quasi-genealogy, complicating things. But, hey, since when do I do simple?
3. Writing writing not going so well, and drastic measures are called for. Just to be confusing, there’s also the “real” book I’m (theoretically) working on. (Not that you could tell.) I’m starting to reach the panic stage, where I can foresee myself dramatically flinging the bastard into the fireplace flames, drunkenly crying “L’chaim!”

   This sounds far fetched, perhaps and in the particulars I suppose it is- it’s New Orleans in the summer, fer godsakes. There’s no WAY I’m lighting a fire! But in practice, it’s something I’ve done it before. In fact, I have the better part of a pretty good vampiresque parody done that I tossed aside because a) I lost touch with it, and b) panic set in, although, honestly, also playing a part was c)how freaking tired can you get of vampires? They’re everywhere! They weren’t when I started, but by the time I got serious, they were deep into oversaturation territory.

4. Depression/obsession blows like the oil rig that causes it. It is so so SO easy to start reading the horrifying news stories and have a months-long freakout at the bottom of deep dark pit of despair. I’ve been trying to wean myself from the obsession, and it’s not been easy. When we were in NY for 9/11 I watched coverage for months, curled up and miserable on the couch. After Katrina I drove and drove and drove around until I ended up on a shrink’s couch. I cannot afford to do it again, so I’ve got to call for a mental moratorium, even though it sort of seems like cowardice.
5. If I don’t do something about planning this wedding, Charlie will kill me if my sister doesn’t get me first. Ummmm…. pretty self explanatory, really. Though the venue and date are now set at least…which happened just yesterday. I know, I know, I’m a bad bride, but this should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, really. It’s hard for me to worry about those kinds of things. It’ll happen, it’ll be fine, it’ll be a party, and that’s that.





So a drastic change of scenery, both internal and external is the ticket. That’s where the stepping out comes in while I take a geographical and mental sabbatical. I’ll be back soonish and will start posting more bits of fiction and suchlike for those who care, and to hold myself accountable if nothing else.

And that’s that. I’ll leave you with one of the photos that I’m on the fence about including before saying hasta luego. I like the perspective and the white against the blue, but not sure if it’s a keeper or not- thoughts or comments welcome as always:

When my computer went to the great data dump in the sky, I was working on translating the database from Access (local, desktop based) to PHP (online, server based). It was humbling- a lifetime ago, this was exactly the sort of thing I did every day, but now I’ve found that the gears have grown very rusty and I’ve forgotten more than I could’ve guessed.

But, Lord, I do have a stubborn streak. After swearing to Charlie that I wouldn’t/couldn’t take the months to relearn it, I didn’t. I crammed and relearned enough to cobble this together. I’ll be making further refinements, but from here on out clicking on the database will give you real time results complete with photo links.

As of right now there are 277 photos linked to 736 interred in 159 tombs. Put like that, it really does seem like a bare start. But a journey of a thousand miles, right?

You can access the database either from the top menu or the sidebar. I’m open to suggestion, to please let me know what you think!

Well, the very bare bones of the database is up, anyway.

The Database tab is no longer marked “Coming soon,” instead linking to a searchable .pdf that will be slowly built up to include the thousands of cemetery photos I’ve taken over the years. Currently, it’s far from thousands- only 279 interred in 100 tombs. But it’s a start.

Currently it links to photos of the tombs on flickr, but the database is actually set up to include tomb styles, details, ironwork, inscriptions, etc, so ultimately there will be several different searchable reports up. For now, though, I wanted the basics to be there and see if anyone reported problems.

Click here to access the database, and I hope it’s useful!

I’m taking this opportunity to get refocused here, streamlined the theme while adding in some things I’ve wanted to for a time.

In the meantime, the writeup I did on myself is now in the About section, with detailed info on each of the cemeteries coming, hopefully by tomorrow.  I was able to pull a lot more from this site out of the rubble than from LLDD, so I’ve had to focus on that more for the moment.

But good things are on the way!

Sorry, all, this site and Dreamy Dreams were both hacked, and I’ve spent a whole lot of time trying to put it right.

It’s taken awhile, but things are on the path, anyway. The important thing is that after much sweat and tears the databases have been recovered.

More to come shortly. Thanks.

Nola Graveyard Rabbit is now TombTrekker 

 

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