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A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

arlington national cemetery

30 Days of Writing: Hanging out in the cemetery (16/30)

June 16, 2012

Cemeteries — especially old ones — can be amazing places for research, photography or other reasons. And all the while, you can pay respects to those who went before us.

This post is written in conjunction with the 30 Days of Writing, a blog challenge devised by Nicky and Mike at “We Work For Cheese.” I’ll be participating throughout the month of June. If interested, you can see my post with the details of the challenge. 

Please note that some of these posts will be serious, some will be normal, and some will be an attempt at humor. This one is a little of everything! 

Cemeteries.

Many look at cemeteries as a sad place. One where many people who have passed through life are buried.

Did you know, back when, cemeteries were places of celebration? People would picnic in cemeteries and town events would be held there. And it’s how it should be. When you go to a cemetery, you can celebrate those who have already left us. Sure, it can be sad. But it can also be a good place — one where you remember the good times.

I was brought to this old cemetery through geocaching. It was an overgrown cemetery with some historical people and I never would have found it without the game.

But man cemeteries seemed to be long forgotten. The ones that aren’t active anymore and have the old and amazing tombstones. Hundreds of years have passed for some of these cemeteries and, unless they were famous, there are many people buried throughout the world who likely have nobody who visits their graves anymore.

I have a lot of hobbies in which I participate. One of them is based around cemeteries, the other sometimes involves cemeteries.

The first is with the website Find A Grave.

Many people use this site to help with research about family or whatever else. The site has a large database of cemeteries and photos. What I do, is when local cemeteries get requests for photos of graves, I like to try and get out and go get them for the people seeking the photos. It’s actually been a little while since I’ve done it as my other hobbies have distracted from this one.

But, I love this one because when you’re searching for the headstones, you can learn about things. You can see the stones and different aspects of the burial grounds.

My other hobby in which cemeteries sometimes appear is geocaching.

For those who don’t know, geocaching is a technology-based treasure hunt, using a GPS.

From Geocaching.com:

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.

Geocachers will hide caches all over. In fact, there are nearly 1,800,000 active caches placed around the world. And there are more than 5 million geocachers playing the game.

But, back to cemeteries.

Cachers like to find old cemeteries and hide caches near them. Often, geocachers will do research about these long-forgotten cemeteries and take you there for a certain reason. Maybe because there’s people buried there who fought in the Revolutionary War. Or a famous athlete is buried there. Or someone else. I’ve learned a lot in cemeteries through geocaching and for that, I’m thankful.

Arlington National Cemetery is a place where you can lose yourself in the history and be moved by everything this cemetery stands for.

Finally, cemeteries can be some of the most powerful places to visit.

Take for example Arlington National Cemetery.

I don’t know how many of you have visited there, but during a trip to visit friends in Washington D.C. last year, I spent a combined six or so hours in Arlington National spaced out over two days. From the changing of the guard to staring at all the headstones, it was one of the moving things I’ve ever seen. To know how many of these people have given their life for the United States is something that, for those of us who are Americans, should be thankful for.

Cemeteries, though places where people are buried when life on Earth ends, are not places to be afraid of, rather places to remember and honor those who have gone.

Take a walk through a local old cemetery and look at the headstones. Even if it’s people you might not know, be related to or know anything about, you can still pay respects or at least look around and know that you might be one of the only people to see these names over a given time.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Filed Under: blogging, Cemeteries, Geocaching, My world, Photography, We Work For Cheese Challenges Tagged With: 30 days of writing, 30 days of writing challenge, arlington national cemetery, blog challenge, blogging, cemeteries, cemetery, find a grave, geocaching, photography, photos, we work for cheese challenge, we work for cheese., writing

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Foto Friday: The archives

February 10, 2012

My external hard drive is starting to fill up. That pretty much means I need to start shifting some things and deleting, or I might not have room for a lot of photos.

I have three external hard drives, but two of them are full and the third, which is a terabyte, doesn’t have much left. I know there’s a lot of waste on all three of them. So, over the next few weeks, it’s my hope to really clear a lot of space. In the end, I’d like to have the TB drive be all photos only — so I can get an online backup service as well.

Anyway, as I do that, I got peeking at some older photos. And that got me interested in looking at some older photos on Flickr, too. So, in this post, I am going to share some of my favorite (or not so favorite) photos from the Flickr archives. Things are going to be random. I am going to hit a few random pages and snag a photo of those pages and share them here.

I’m hoping to head out and shoot some fireworks tonight, so if things come out as I hope, I’ll look to share what I did and such with the images next Friday.

Page 40

Ahhh, this past September. We got some unseasonably warm weather and this page was basically filled with sports photos — a softball tournament and some flag football. Here’s one of those shots.

Foul ball!

 Page 67

I had been catching up on posting some images, including from my trip to Ireland in 2010. Those photos were on this page.

Good advice!

Page 94

From April of last year, my trip to the Washington DC area and Arlington National Cemetery.

The unknown plots are extremely moving. There are far too many.

Page 123

From November 2010. One of my favorite disc golf photos.

My faithful buzzz.

Page 149

Ahhh, the Ireland trip. This wasn’t long after getting back. This was a shot I took in Howth.

My mother and brothers at Howth Harbor.

Page 165

The Oneonta Outlaws. Love some of the shots on this page.

Pitch coming in.

Page 187

Out on a photo day with a former co-worker. Watershed property…

Stay off!

Page 204

This big snowstorm at the end of February 2010 shut down local schools and even the local college. A great day to be out taking photos!

Snow!

Page 235

Geno’s Steaks, at night. December, 2008.

All lit up!

Page 270 (last page for now)

Downtown Montreal at night. I took this photo from Mont Royal in August of 2007.

Montreal!

I hope you enjoyed a slight trip through the archives with me. I’m sure as I get going through these external drives, I’ll be sharing more — and uploading a lot more to Flickr. I want to get a lot more of my photos on Flickr and put them together as sets. That way, they are there for all to see!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook by clicking the button on the right side of the page!

Filed Under: Cameras, Foto Friday, My world, Photography Tagged With: adult softball, archives, arlington, arlington national cemetery, baseball, buzzz, camera, cheesesteak, cold, disc golf, discraft, discraft buzzz, dublin, dublin zoo, foto, foto friday, geno's, geno's steaks, headstone, howth, images, ireland, montreal, new york city watershed, oneonta outlaws, outlaws, philadelphia, photo archives, photography, photos, snow, softball, south philly, sports, unknown soldier, upstate new york, washington dc, watershed, winter

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You know, of course, Santa Paws travels with Santa Clause, making sure to find treats and toys for all the good little doggies! (We know they are all deserving, right?) So, Harper put out some milk for the big guy, carrots for Rudolph and the reindeer, and special cookies for Santa Paws! She is ready! 

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I’ve recently realized how many photos I have to I’ve recently realized how many photos I have to post here, as well as on Harper’s (@harper_dublin) account). So, as I start to transfer photos, I’ll try and catch up. So photos coming could be from all seasons and who knows when. 🤣

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From a few weeks ago. I was trying to get Harper t From a few weeks ago. I was trying to get Harper to put her paws on the bridge and looked out, but she was more content jumping on me and looking up. I do love the way she seems to be looking at me.
Instagram post 17992900117561614 Instagram post 17992900117561614
Couldn’t resist a quick stop this morning with t Couldn’t resist a quick stop this morning with the fog and frost settled in. 

Hamden Covered Bridge 

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Harper’s friend Lucy is around this weekend! #g Harper’s friend Lucy is around this weekend!

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This is why we can’t have nice things. Saw this This is why we can’t have nice things. Saw this on me morning walk Friday with Harper. Likely some college kids, but also as chance at local hooligans. I had Harper so not a lot I could do, but I managed to get the cart off the chair. (See second photo) This was in a local park.
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Finally learning this Canon M6 MarkII before my tr Finally learning this Canon M6 MarkII before my trip starts this weekend. Really like it now that I took the time to set it up and learn the differences between this and my 7D MarkII. This and the iPhone will do most of the work on the trip. 

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