I didn’t realize my second-to-last post (or what with the publishing sequence will be two posts prior to this one once it’s actually published) was dated before the end of last year until I published my latest post about our outgoing Decider earlier this afternoon. 20 days between posts is simply unacceptable; this would produce less than 20 posts per year at that rate! I have a lot more to say and show than that damnit! I’ve said it before but generally on my watch when I’m not blogging it’s because there’s simply too much else (real… life…) going on. The gimmick being that you need those experiences to blog about but when they just keep steamrolling on you, sometimes you never find time to talk about it. I make sure to always stay busy in one capacity or another however.

In the past 20 days I’ve taken 1,255 photos. I’ve put approximately 400 of them up on my Flickr for permanent public viewing. Over the next day or two I’m going to attempt to recall as much of that activity as possible and present you with merely a snippet of visuals – 2% or 3% of what I’ve managed to capture – taken already, in an attempt to catch up to the days’ ongoing incredible activities.

(all of the following images are from January 8, 2009, en route to New Orleans from St. Louis)

Shortly after New Years recovery I started planning my trip down souf where I am currently scribing from (while I’m absolutely loving it down here, one of the causes of my lack of productivity definitely is not having my own office and base of operations). This trip took place during the first full week of the new year and since then, whoah. Where to begin?

I took a shuttle bus – which was really just a van – from St. Louis to Carbondale at 1am in 28F degree cold. The driver loved to blast R&B and there was a rider (male, with gold teeth that shimmered even in the dark hours) who knew all of the songs but was trailing the radio like an echo by I’d say .15 seconds. It was lovely, and amusing, but only for so long as the ride was nearly 2 hours long. Thankfully I had my studio headphones and my own mp3 player.

In Carbondale I caught the New Orleans bound train departed from Chicago. It was exactly an hour late but I was told this would be caught up in Memphis where the train normally sits for an hour from 6-7am, this trip it would simply arrive and depart, thus eliminating the twilight delay. By the time you wake up the majority of your trip goes through Mississippi, a state I’ve previously not travelled to or even through:

Life along the tracks looks pretty rough. If there isn’t simply a lot of debris strewn about, then chances are the visual includes standing water. Rust looks really genuine under the sun down here by the way.

That part of the Louisiana start border that touches Mississippi that is a straight line that runs east to west, I don’t know where that comes from or how a straight line was decided to be the best border option, but you do know when you’ve crossed over into Louisiana, because then you’re in swamp country, and things just look a little different:

And arrival into New Orleans parish is obvious too. Of course crossing Lake Ponchartrain gives it away (the bridge is 26 frickin miles long after all!) but more than that, something changes. The light, the look, the pace of vehicles outside my window, even the same whiskey I was just drinking north of New Orleans tastes different – … better! – once you cross into New Orleans! How did they do that!?


infrastructure in New Orleans along the tracks


London in New Orleans. the English did have an influence here.


Big White Elephant. the site of so much turmoil during Katrina. the train rolls reallllllly slow past this one, we’re backing into the terminal now.

Next installment: Bywater; Martina, Angie and Shalin; first food; first art; and Booooooom!

journeys