You would never guess it now, but Rodney was once a bustling and thriving river port town. It missed becoming the state capital by only three votes. However, today it is pretty much in ruins. There are still a few people who live there but most of the town itself is abandoned. There are empty buildings, houses and churches lining the main street in Rodney. One of the churches still bears the scars of a Civil War gunboat attack and even has a cannonball stuck in the wall.

We almost didn’t find Rodney because there is only one road into and out of town and none of the streets in that area have signs on them. By a process of elimination, we finally found the right road after almost giving up.

The road into Rodney.

The first thing we noticed when we pulled into Rodney was the old Presbyterian church. According to the historical markers in front, the Union gunboat “Rattler” was docked at Rodney during the Civil War. The pastor of the church, who was a Union sympathizer, invited the captain and crew of the gunboat to services that morning. The captain and eighteen of the crew eventually went and were captured by Confederate soldiers who surrounded the building. When word reached the Rattler that the crew and captain had been captured, the gunboat began shelling the town and church. The church still has a cannonball stuck in its wall from the attack.

Rodney Presbyterian Church still bears the scars of The Civil War.

The cannonball remains stuck in the wall.

On the corner of the main street is an old gas station. It even had the old underground style pump for leaded gasoline.

There were also two buildings that were general stores long ago but had long since been abandoned. One was still standing but Hurricane Katrina destroyed the other one.

This building was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

There was yet another abandoned church but it’s path was blocked by a huge fallen tree. When we tried to go around it we stumbled upon another building that was so overgrown with trees we actually didn’t see it until we put our hands on its wall.

This is beside the overgrown building. According to locals, it was once an old hotel.

This is Rodney’s Baptist Church. It remained in use until at least the late 1970s.

This is the old Black Masonic Lodge.

Perhaps one of the most interesting things about Rodney is the cemetery obscured by overgrown trees and brush. It is a hidden gem made infinitely more sad by the state of disrepair it has fallen into. 

Rodney was an amazing place to visit and is rich with history. The town is a reminder of the people that lived before us and their way of life. It’s sad to see it so deteriorated and run down knowing it was once a heavily populated town with four churches and two newspapers. Today, it’s like a time capsule preserving the way it once was. If you do decide to visit, keep in mind there are still a few people that live there and you should be respectful of not only them but the memory of those that came before us.

Finally, here is a video I made of Rodney in full color.

I’m not sure how many actual ghost towns have free Wi-Fi for their vistors, but Holmesville is the first one that we’ve ever visited. More on that later.

According to ghosttowns.com, “Holmesville was the site of Mississippi’s First Territorial General Assembly on Dec. 9, 1815. It was also the county seat of Pike County from the county’s formation in December 1816 until June 1873 when Magnolia became the county seat. During its heyday in the 19th century, Holmesville boasted a large business district with a number of hotels, stores and saloons. After the railroad came to the area, the river was largely ignored, and Holmesville with it.”

The first thing you’ll see is an old cemetery. You could tell the age of this place just by reading a few headstones. There were graves dating all the way back to The Civil War and The Revolutionary War. Much like some other cemeteries we visited in other ghost towns, it had fallen into a dilapidated state. A few of the headstones had fallen over or were standing crooked and others were completely illegible, leaving the identity of the deceased a mystery.

A grave from the Revolutionary War.

This is the grave of a Confederate Captain. The inscription reads, “Capt. Josephus R. Quin, of the Confederate Army. He was born in Holmesville, Aug. 12, 1826, was killed at Harrisburg, July 11, 1864, while leading his company in a charge upon the enemy work.”

A grave marker falling over.

As for the town of Holmesville itself, there isn’t much to it. Main Street consists of a simple grid which contains three structures: an old church, a store and a community center. For a “ghost town,” there were a lot of modern houses surrounding the area. I saw an old guy who lived right next to the church mowing his lawn. Spooky.

This church is right on the main grid of Holmesville. Although it dates back several hundred years, it’s still in good shape and probably still in use.

This store didn’t hold up quite as well as the church. Although, it looks like someone was making an effort to clean it up a little as evidenced by the supplies on the front porch.

There wasn’t anything terribly interesting about the community center. I walked up to it to take a picture and heard a television on inside. That’s about when my phone asked me if I’d like to join the network: Holmesville Free Wi-Fi. Again, spooky.

While the town of Holmesville is indeed old, it isn’t really a ghost town. There were even people living in the area out and about during our visit there. I’m not sure who sent this in to Wikipedia and the other site as a ghost town, but Holmesville is mostly alive and well.

The cemetery was definitely the most fascinating part of the trip. After doing some simple Google searches, I learned a little of the history of Peter Quinn, the Revolutionary War soldier who is buried in that cemetery. After the war, Quinn applied for government pension and he later became a Notary of the Public. He was originally from Ireland and stayed in Holmesville until his death.

The trip to Holmesville wasn’t a complete bust thanks to the historic cemetery and few main structures on Main Street, but those looking for a traditional ghost town need not apply. Still, if you’re looking for history there are a few things to see here.

Hello, God? I’m a hypocrite. Let me explain.

For most of my adult life I have professed that I am an atheist. But the truth is that I’m only an atheist most of the time. Although I grew up in a religious family in arguably the heart of the Bible Belt, I never believed in God or an afterlife or anything in the Bible.

The idea of faith was something I just couldn’t wrap my head around. Growing up, we were taught to question everything and to never believe anything we read - except when it came to religion. Then everything was backwards. We were supposed to just accept things with no proof. No questions. Just faith.

Still, if I ever find myself in a situation where I need to appeal to a higher power, all of that atheism stuff goes out the window. The few times I have let someone talk me into setting foot on a roller coaster, I hoped to God that I wouldn’t die. Every crush I had in high school, I pathetically begged Him to please make something happen. And then there’s the last time I prayed. 

Growing up, my grandfather was my role model. He and my grandmother practically raised me while my single father worked nights to pay the bills. I spent most of my time after school with them. While my grandmother cooked for us, my grandfather and I would watch the news. I would listen to him make sarcastic comments about what was going on in the world and smile. He was hilarious.

One of the best compliments I have ever received was when a family member told me I remind them of my grandfather. I hope I can be one third the man he was by the time I pass away.

Death was never something I had to deal with until recently. I had never even thought of my own mortality for longer than a few seconds until I was called into the hospital room to see my grandfather speak to us for the last time. I didn’t know it was the last time when it was happening, but I do remember thinking something was extremely wrong before the doctors told us as much.

Not very long after that he was placed on life support. What had started as a small cut on his leg turned into him fighting for his life. Despite his back problems and age, he tried to remain active after he retired from working at the brick plant. One of the things he did regularly was mow the grass on his riding lawnmower. We theorized that something had flown up from the blade underneath the mower and cut his leg. This cut became the entry point for a rare but very severe type of bacterial infection called Necrotizing Fasciitis, a flesh-eating disease.

By the time his doctors realized what was going on, it was too late. First, he had his left leg amputated to try to stop the infection from spreading. Then he had his right leg taken. But the infection had already spread into most of his body before the doctors were able to really do anything.

I spent every night except one with him at the hospital. I slept in the waiting room, didn’t go to school and I called in to work because I wanted to be there if something, anything happened. And one night in particular, something did. Around 8 p.m., the doctor let us into his room to visit. He had been moved into the intensive care unit because of his condition. At first, it was me and a few other immediate family members. But slowly one by one, they all left until it was just me and him.

A week earlier before any of this happened, I had recorded a song about my grandfather. I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated everything he did for us growing up. My grandfather loved music. I thought it would be a fitting tribute to him. But I never got a chance to let him listen to it before he was in the hospital. I knew I would never get another chance. I slipped some earphones on his ears and I swear I saw him smile.

Do I believe that some deity cosmically dictated that I write a song about my grandfather a week before died? Of course not. But that night, I prayed anyway that my grandfather got to hear it even though he was unconscious.

There is nothing I would love more than to believe that some day I will cross over to the other side and reunite with my grandfather for eternity. But I’m not that kind of person. At least, I’m not right now. Believe me. If I could believe, I would because my grandfather was and still is one of the most important people in my life. I love and miss him so much. But for now, I’m just going to have to live with being a hypocrite.

Easily the nicest portable handheld currently on the market, the Playstation Vita boasts several new features including dual analog sticks (finally!) and front and rear touch screens that put it in a league of its own. But does it have enough to convince gamers to fork out upwards of $250 for the unit? Not to mention the lack of on-board memory means you have to spend at least another $30 to $100 on a proprietary memory card to even get started. If you can get past the price of admission the Vita offers the most hardcore gaming experience on a handheld ever. 

Casual gaming has been on the rise for awhile now and many developers are still catering to the 99 cent cell phone app market. But the Vita is clearly trying distinguish itself from that crowd by offering a console experience on the go - and it comes awful close. However, there are slight noticeable graphical differences that won’t get in the way of gameplay per se, but don’t quite look as stunning as they would on your 50-inch high definition television. 

For instance, in “Uncharted: Golden Abyss” the jungle environments are as lush and gorgeous as ever and I would even argue look as good as the first Uncharted game. But some of the close shots of Nathan Drake look a little off. The textures just don’t look as good as they do in a traditional Uncharted game. That being said, Golden Abyss is probably the best-looking handheld game on the market right now. It’s just that sexy. 

There are several other features that offer promise but aren’t fully realized yet. One is using your Vita to control your Playstation 3. In theory, this should be a huge selling point for Sony. But currently, you can only play select titles using this feature. On my own PS3, I was only able to play two regular PS3 games out of 20-something games on my hard drive. I was able to play all of my PS1 games through my Vita, although they would not download onto the Vita itself. All of these things are supposed to be addressed with future updates according to Sony but until then, they seem like novelties. 

Likewise, the crossplay platform is one of the features that I was extremely excited about before getting my hands on a Vita. The thought of continuing gameplay from my PS3 on my Vita after I leave the house was something I wanted in a protable handheld. But to date, there are only THREE, count ‘em, THREE games that take advantage of this feature at launch. Talk about dropping the ball. 

Outside of gaming, you have your standard fare of Netflix and a music application, Sony’s Unlimited. You also have applications for Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter but if you’re like me, you’ll probably just use your cell phone to do all of the above as the Vita certainly won’t replace your phone or any of its functionality. 

At it’s core, the Vita is a gaming unit designed specifically for hardcore gamers. It likely won’t win over any casual gamers and Sony isn’t trying to do so either. The question is, is there a market for hardcore gamers who want a console experience on the go? Right now, Sony hasn’t really started courting that crowd and only die-ard Sony fans are going to take the plunge. 

Is it worth it? My feeling is as the games come out and updates fix some of the problems mentioned above, the Vita will become irresistable in time. 

In the ’80s, arcades used to be bustling with eager players looking to best each other in the latest video games. Today, arcades are more or less a rarity - a leftover from a bygone era where consumer hardware was still years away from being able to accurately replicate the arcade experience.

The closest thing I could find to the arcades I grew up with is the kiddie-filled play area of the local Chuck-E-Cheese. And I live in a large city. Needless to say, it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.

I sought out to recreate the feel of an arcade in my home by buying arcade sticks for my Xbox 360 and inviting over friends to play some Marvel vs. Capcom or Street Fighter IV. And while it made for some fun and competitive Friday nights, something was still missing.

I’ve known about other people building MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) cabinets after reading about it on various forums for years.

But it always seemed like a project that I wouldn’t be able to finish. After all, it takes a fair amount of craftsmanship, resources and a lot of time. But something is lost in translation playing the games on a PC with a standard USB controller. There wasn’t that excitement of a new challenger stepping up to rob you of your quarters. There wasn’t the satisfaction of looking back to see someone cheering you on as you take on the last boss. I missed that.

It turns out all I needed to make it happen was a little motivation and timing. On a whim, I searched the online garage sale that is craigslist and found a guy selling a broken Area 51 cabinet for cheap. I loved that game by the way. But I knew if I was going to make it happen, I needed to do it now. I gutted the cabinet, trashed the broken monitor inside and started to make it come to life. 

Spending just under $500, I was able to build my own cabinet to house my MAME PC and recreate some of the great times I had blowing through pockets full of quarters.

I used an old Pentium 4 as my main rig. I also found a cheap 22-inch flat-screen monitor. A trip to a crafts store gave me the supplies to cut out a bezel for the screen. And the X-Arcade joystick gave me an easy and inexpensive alternative to wiring the controls myself. Some people swear by wiring their own control panel but honestly, I think the X-Arcade joystick is just as capable and responsive. Plus, it’s USB, has a built-in trackball and fits right inside a standard arcade cabinet.

Then I ordered the custom marquee from a gaming site and had the plex-glass cut at a local plastics shop. Finally, I built a small stand inside the cabinet at the same height as the coin door to hold the PC. In all the project took a little over three months to complete - the last two weeks were spent solely loading the front end (Maximus Arcade) matching the gameplay videos to each ROM.

Here’s a video showing the finished product. I hope you enjoy it and I encourage you to take on this project if you have the opportunity, especially if you are nostalgic for a true arcade gaming experience.