09.28.06
Hire a Burner!
This article is going on my resume as a reference. 🙂
09.27.06
Burning Man 2006 – Part 4
Friday, September 1st, 2006 – What a long strange trip it’s been
(Note: I started borrowing pictures from others on flickr since I didn’t take nearly enough. Hope noone minds! So some of these pictures aren’t necessarily chronologically correct, but they are representative of the familair sights.)
Friday really summed up the trip and was a special night. If I had to pick the best day/night of the experience, I don’t think I could have chosen between Wednesday and Friday. By this time I was really into the swing of things. I was acclimated to the desert, I had a great group of people to hang out with, I knew my way around the playa, everything was just falling perfectly into place.
I spent most of the day working in the studio until that evening. Like usual I headed over to camp DDI to meet up with everyone. There had been some talk about challenging Deathguild to a match; two champions competing in Dance Dance Immolation and then a match in Thunderdome. Deathguild is the camp responsible for bringing Thunderdome to the playa every year. It’s a bunch of goth kids that seem to be quite full of themselves. Granted they do have some great post-apocalyptic cars.
Now DDI couldn’t just walk over and say “Hey, we want to challenge you guys.” It had to be done with the appropriate flair and flames. Several people suited up in proximity suits, and the rest of us donned DDI flightsuits. Rubin loaned me his to wear for the evening as I was basically adopted by the camp at this point. We gathered several fire accessories including a rope dart, poi, two flaming swords, and a flame thrower carried by someone on stilts. We marched down the Esplanade chanting D-D-I as we made our way to Thunderdome. When we got closer we stopped to light up all of the fire and marched the last bit in. A prepared challenge was read to Deathguild and the audience at the Thunderdome and then we turned around and marched off like the badass geeks we were. It went off well and we gathered quite a bit of people wondering “what the parade was for.”
Back at camp everyone scattered off to their nightly plans and activities. Rubin and I got together with David and Heather and soon met up with Nathan with the intent to go out and ride art cars that night. Both Rubin and I were both Burning Man virgins and neither had ridden one yet.
Our first stop for the evening was 2pir where we spent some time watching how people interacted with the canvas of flamethrowers that had been provided. It was a lot of fun watching how differently people played. And the smile on their face as they walked away from the platforms to the cheers and clapping of all the spectators gathered was a treat to witness. We also had the chance to witness one of the most beautiful things I had seen on the playa. Mary danced with fire oh so elegently on the platform as flames shot up all around her. I had to pick my jaw up off of the dust I was in such awe.
After who knows how long at 2pir we regrouped and decided we should keep exploring. Since we were already pretty far out in the deep playa, we figured we’d make a trek all the way out to the trash fence. The trash fence is an orange fence that basically forms a perimeter around the area designated for Burning Man. You’re not supposed to go outside of this fence. The walk out there was a little bit longer than we thought, but a nice one.
We got to chatting and I started rambling on about how great this was. I mentioned the enourmous party at my back, the great group of people I had met, the stars in the sky (the Milky Way is beautiful out there), the shadows of the mountains in the distance, and nothing put possibilities for exploration in front of us. I had one of those moments where you can’t help but go “damn, this is it, this is great.”
The walk out through the deep playa felt very much like we were exploring a different planet. The playa is a prehistoric lake bed, so it’s perfectly flat, and it dries up and cracks into chunks. This in combination with us in the dark, surround by such surreal sights and sounds, plus the only light coming from our headlamps made it feel very other-wordly. It felt like we were millions of miles away from Earth and that we were interpid explorers, wandering and experiencing all that we could. While we were walking out there we had an odd discovery. In the middle of the nothingness we happened to choose a path that brought us across a stack of mud “scales” that someone had created from playa pieces. We paused to reflect on this and the fact that someone somewhere had been at this spot and had taken the time to create this. They didn’t know whether anyone would see it, and chances are they thought noone would. But they still took the time to sit down and create it because they wanted to. We took a minute to appreciate someone’s random contribution and then left it for the next set of explorers to stumble upon.
We finally made it out to the trash fence and spent some time sitting in the darkness looking back on the city of multi-colored lights and various thumps of bass and music. The sheer size of what we were a part of was amazing. While we were out there a random woman jogged, yes jogged, by us without a single light on her. I believe Heather said it most succinctly with, “It was absurd in its normalcy.” After some time we realized that we still had not ridden an art car and that it was a long walk back to the city. We saw a familiar “snail car” roll by and we went chasing after it. Unfortunately the snail was too fast to catch up to, but they stopped and we wandered over to say hi. The couple that had journeyed out in the car looked like they were having their own moment, so we complimented them on their ride and began the walk back into the city.
Along the way we found a random door set up on the playa. Rubin crawled through it and then it was locked behind him. He’s stuck on this side of the door now.
We also came across a setup that had a box of envelopes and cards. You were meant to write your hopes and/or fears on a card, your address on an envelope and then put it into the box. The creators would mix up the cards and envelopes and mail them out to the various people after the event. Rubin got the last envelope, but there was a final card left in there for me to write on. I jotted down something about refusing to let my fears overshadow my hopes, dropped it in the box, and we continued on our journey. A random mini-golf setup distracted us for a few minutes and then it was off to walk the Esplanade and find the roller skating rink.
Yes, there is a theme camp that sets up a roller skating rink on the playa, complete with skates to borrow. David and Heather were feeling up to the task, but Rubin, Nathan and I opted to watch as we appreciated our only slightly bruised bodies at this point. Everyone around was having such a good time, so many smiles, no drama, no fighting, no ugly faces. It was great. There was a couple out in the middle of the rink dancing their asses off like there was no tomorrow with the biggest smiles on their face. It was just people having a good time and it was so refreshing.
Some photos during the day of the Roller Disco and a dark one from nighttime I found on flickr:
After David and Heather had enough we continued walking down the Esplanade. We happened to be by my camp so we stopped in for some supplies real quick. A few blocks down we stumbled upon Camp I Am. Drawn in by the incredible panoramic shots of previous years at Burning Man we spent some time there. After checking out the panoramas we discovered that there was a pay-phone there, and it worked, and it was free. Using the wonders of satellite image and a modified phone booth they were giving the playa a phone that called anywhere in the world for free. While we were there everyone respected a “one phone call” guideline. It was interesting to see people connect to others who weren’t on the playa. One group of people called and sung Happy Birthday to someone, another person called someone and walked away with moist eyes, others called parents or friends just to say hi. It was 2am Pacific time, but I still felt like I should call my father to say hi or at least leave a message at 5am in North Carolina. The love and support my family has shown me in their encouragement of me following my bliss has been wonderful. My dad even went out of his way to send me the kite we flew as well as a little extra cash to help offset the expense of this trip. While I would have called my mom, I think she would have been not too happy to have been woken up at 5am on a Saturday morning. I knew my dad would either sleep through the call and get the message in the morning, or wouldn’t mind too terribly being woken up at the odd hour. I got the answering machine and left a short message telling him thanks for everything and then we headed back to the celebration on the Esplanade.
We decided that we should go make a stop at Center Camp and the Medical Tent to see how Nicole was doing. As we had prepared to leave earlier in that evening Nicole was being taken to the Med Tent. She was basically exhausted, having worked herself way too hard on 2pir and just in general. On the way to the Med Tent we made a quick detour down a side street to find some porta potties. In the bank of potties we came upon, we found the “Pimpest Potty on the Playa.” Someone had taken it upon themselves to clean out one of the porta potties, line the seat with fur, setup and light candles, put some art on the walls, and even provided a little stereo for music. Oh, and the kicker? a fresh _unopened_ roll of toilet paper. It was an amazing sight to see this late in the week.
We also ran into “Panic!” and “Don’t Panic!” They were a pair running around alternately screaming just that. As we were heading back on our mission to the Med Tent I noticed them consoling a random guy who wandered into the street crying. Very cool to see that random compassion from complete strangers to someone in need.
We finally made it to the Med Tent only to find out that Nicole had been discharged back to camp DDI. This was good news at least. Nathan split off and we wandered around Center Camp, slowly making our way in the direction of Camp DDI. We were walking and discussing the fact that we had accomplished many of our mini goals that evening, however we had not ridden an art car yet. Minutes later Heather noticed a familiar art car called the Moonshine Saloon. She recognized it because apparently it was stored/built at NIMBY. We ran over and jumped aboard. We were finally riding an art car! Mark that one off the list.
Some more pics borrowed from flickr
A few blocks later the art car came to a stop, we thanked them for the ride and walked the last few yards back to DDI to catch them finishing up for the night. I bid everyone good night and thanked them for an excellent time and made the surreal bike ride back across the playa to my tent, a comfortable air mattress, some good music and a smile on my face. The next morning I found myself waking up with my headphones still going, the smile remaining, and ready for another day in the greatest place on earth.
09.16.06
Big Round Cubatron video!
Luckily Heather was the smart one and pulled out her camera to record some video of the Big Round Cubatron in action. It is 1000x cooler in person, but this will give you kind of an idea of what it was like.
09.13.06
Burning Man 2006 – Part 3
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 – Does it get any better than this?
Wednesday was an incredible day, or rather I guess most of it happened that night. During the day we had some pretty nasty dust storms, but nothing too serious. Laura and I actually braved the worst of them to walk down the street to visit the Flaming Ugly Cowboy Saloon for a few drinks in the dust. FUCS was an outdoor bar so we were literally drinking in the dust storm. Quite a new experience. While we were there we met a very attractive cop from New Zealand (if I remember right). She spent some time painting La’s face, chatted, had a few drinks with us, and then we headed back to our camp. That’s all the excitement I remember during the day (probably had something to do with the drinks).
That evening I headed over to Camp DDI as usual to meet up with everyone. It had been decided that we would do a group outing around Black Rock City this night. With 14+ people, that would turn out to be quite a task.
We started out with Skippy informing us of the best method for keeping a group together in an environment like Black Rock City. She would call out DDI, and we would count off to make sure we had everyone. It was a valiant attempt by Skippy, but alas, we had a bunch of sleep-deprived, cracked out, distracted geeks and I think we only counted off 2 or 3 times.
The night started at a club camp on the edge of the 2:00 side, not sure which one. The music was decent and some of us danced, but a majority of people weren’t feeling the music and wanted to expore. Since we had agreed to stay together as a group, we gathered everyone and headed out, losing 2 or 3 people who headed back to camp for some reason. We then headed out across the playa to the Waffle, aka Uchronia. We had such a large group of us that we decided to hold hands and form a line to sweep the playa. Along the way I got a chance to meet some of the DDI people I didn’t know yet. Such a cool group of people. I wish I could have bottled Amada’s excitement and happiness. After a long and slightly distracted walk we made it to the Waffle where the lights and music were going.
It was like a mini-rave, although much better. We spent some time just hanging out and enjoying the sights and sounds. Jennifer and I spent quite a bit of time talking about life. An incredibly cool conversation. We also spent some time dancing and checking out Uchronia close up. We found a random guy with a great EL-Wire jacket and went and let him know how much we liked it. He thanked us and let us take a few pictures.
An interesting thing happened while me and Jennifer were discussing life. I mentioned to her that I had a crush, and minutes later that crush took a whole new direction. Sometimes some things just need to be voiced for things to happen. 🙂 The rest of the night was a blur of running around the playa with some of the greatest people. We hit several art installations throughout the night. At one of them (Cat’s Cradle I think) I took off my camelbak so it didn’t get dirtier when I layed on the ground, and ended up leaving it when our group moved again. Luckily I realized quickly and was able to run back and grab it. A true loss for the night occurred at the Serpent Mother where one of my plugs was knocked out into the dirt by accident. I looked for it for a minute or two in the sand, but quickly realized it was a lost cause with the amount of people, the fine sand, and it being night. Unfortunately this was a piece of Matter Out Of Place (MOOP) that I contributed. 🙁 I hope one of the volunteers did find it when the playa was swept. While at the Serpent Mother I did get a chance to play with the buttons that triggered the flame effects which was just plain fun.
The night went on, more art pieces were visited and we wandered the playa. Eventually the group dwindled to Nicole, Rubin, Mella, Ian, Rachel, and me. We went back to someone’s tent to hang out and then crashed out in another tent. I was so tired I don’t think I could have made it back to my own tent that night.
The next morning I woke up and pedaled my bike back across the playa and promptly went back to bed, completely ignoring the fact that my tent was 100 degrees.
Thursday, August 31st, 2006 – 2pir Works!
I spent most of the day Thursday sleeping and just recovering at camp. I helped out with the studio a bit (mainly just watched) and enjoyed the shade.
We found out that Nicole, Mella, David, and Reed’s project, 2pir, was up and running! One of the projects I looked forward to seeing in action the most was working!
We headed out to the deep playa to spend most of the evening playing with 2pir. Rubin and I had fun running around the platform setting off huge flame effects with just the wave of our hands. We also watched as Mella and Rubin spun fire on the platform. I even took my turn at controlling the on/off switch to make sure noone’s fur got singed. Originally the project was meant to have three levels of sensors, and only one was working, but noone noticed as it was still one of the best interactive fire art pieces I’ve ever experienced.
Here are videos of Mella and Rubin spinning fire with 2pir:
And here are some random pictures of 2pir in action. Please keep in mind it’s hard to get a good picture when fire is shooting all over the place. Rubin did a better job so the first two are ones I stole from him:
After spending most of the evening at 2pir, it eventually started running out of fuel. So we headed over to the Waffle, the tried and true hang out place. I hung around for a bit and then decided that my sleeping bag was calling me. Realizing I would probably need to get some rest for the big weekend ahead I bid my friends good night and crawled into bed for a good nights sleep.
09.11.06
Video from Burning Man
Halcyon (who I had a brief minute to meet) has a great video of Burning Man 2006. The intro describes the vibe very well:
“The playa removes all barriers to self-expression. All the voices in your own head and that come from outside of you that make you dwell in doubt and shame and judgement. Those things are gone and when you take those things away it is amazing what is possible. It is amazing who we are when we can look at ourselves clearly. And when you’ve got a city full of people that aren’t saying “oh you shouldn’t of worn that” or “isn’t he too old to be doing that” but instead are saying “yeaahh! good for you, sing it louder, scream it, dance harder, express it with more feeling.” You’ve got those voices lifting you up. It’s amazing how high you can reach.”
09.09.06
Burning Man 2006 – Part 2
Monday, August 28th, 2006 – The Playa in daylight
The sun rose and the tents quickly heated up Monday morning, forcing us awake and outside. We spent the day marking off the boundaries of our land and setup the portrait studio so we would have some shade. Nicole was nice enough to swing by and say hi and helped us get things up. If it weren’t for her, I think George and I would have had a hard time getting our shelter up.
We went exploring, checking out art pieces on the playa that we hadn’t seen last night. It was a very different look during the day. You really appreciated the vast nothingness and the seemingly endless desert, with the mountains rising far off in the distance. Plus the sky is just incredible. A huge blue sky, dotted with white clouds, and just pure and beautiful looking.
We spent a lot of time just hanging out with the DDI crew and relaxing. We had to adjust to the desert before we started running around like madmen! Rubin showed off his overkill gas mask (while Leah watched) that he had acquired when a dust storm threatened to roll in.
Later we did however get a chance to see Uchronia, aka The Waffle out in the distance. If I remember correctly, Doc showed up at GPS and we started getting to know him. We even made some time this day to go out and fly the kite that my dad had sent me. I’ve never had an easier time flying a kite. We also ran into a guy who had a much bigger kite that was a suitable means of transportation when you add in a board with big wheels.
After quite a bit of flying (as well as some crashing), we headed back to camp and got ready for the evening.
It felt like we had been there for days already and we fell right into the swing of things. We were truly introduced to our first dust storms and learned how to deal with those. Here’s a picture of me in what would become my normal nightly attire that everyone seems to enjoy:
That evening we spent some more time at DDI and went out to the Waffle to check it out while it was all lit up and the music was going. We made it an early night as the city was still setting up and we figured we could use some good rest for the days to come.
Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 – The Playa Task and DDI
Another hot morning ejected me from the tent and started my day. After a breakfast of fruit cups, granola bars, and a fill up of my Camelbak, we biked over to DDI to see what was happening there. We just happened to run into the SF0 Minneapolis crew while we were there and realized that the Playa Task was today!
George headed back to camp, not really in the mood for running around in the heat, while I wandered around killing time and then headed to Center Camp to meet up with everyone for the Playa Task for SF0. I ran into the impressive sculpture made out of scrap metal out front.
Gadget organized a wonderful little activity for us to do in teams. We split up, and I opted to go with a team of people I didn’t know. Turns out Team Dust was me, Ink Tea, and a couple of people who had no idea what SF0 was but thought the event sounded random enough to check out.
We received our clue from Gadget and deciphered the spanish sentence into something about a lazy alpaca by the bathrooms of low tea. We headed off to a bank of porta potties where we figured the next clue would be. Once on the road, we quickly turned into Team ADHD, getting distracted left and right. Ink Tea, in her leopard print dress, had to break off from the pack to chase down a zebra art bike, we spent some time going through some interactive art pieces and even got distracted helping a topless girl walk on stilts for the first time.
We finally made it to the porta potties and sure enough there was a piece of paper with an alpaca on it with little slips of paper to rip off with a string of numbers on them. Someone had already ripped off a few, and I wonder what they thought they were for. While there we also noticed someone had equipped one of the johns with some music (video), and another porta potty was dubbed “Your Mom.”
After getting the slip of paper, it was back to Center Camp, and we spent the next hour or two waiting on others, hanging out, Ink Tea drawing on Rubin’s face, doing other small SF0 tasks, and then deciphering the coded message.
Then, under the direction of the decoded message, it was out to the Black Rock City airport to find the SF0 box, which contained a flask of scotch and some granola bars. The journey along the way involved hat stealing and camera breaking races.
A quick find of the box, the flask was passed around, granola bars consumed, photos taken, and then everyone headed back to the city. I ended up splitting off to go refill my empty camelbak while the others dispersed into the crowd.
Back at camp GPS, the rest of our crew had started to arrive, RVs galore! Introductions were made, and we hung out for a bit helping unload things and set up. Then it was back across the playa to camp DDI. Along the way we were distracted by some fire dancing on a large platform that had been erected. Some incredibly performances by a talented staff spinner with incredibly cool neck spins, an attractive and topless girl who knew what she was doing, and various art cars that stopped by to shoot off their flamethrowers. I’d post the pictures, but anyone that’s tried to take night photos of fire with a low-end camera and no tripod knows the blurs that they become.
DDI was open and running this night and I knew that I had to play. I had waited so long since I had first heard about it online, and then Nicole had shown me the bits and pieces at NIMBY. I jumped into line and ended up waiting an hour or so before it was my turn. While waiting, those of us in line got to know each other, sharing stories, ideas, drinks, etc. It finally came to my turn and Mary helped me suit up in one of the proximity suits and walked me over to the platform.
I climbed up and thought, “hey, I’ve played DDR before, this should be a piece of cake.” Apparently I have forgotten all of my DDR skills from years past, and I was terrible. But as far as getting shot with fire in the face, I’m a professional now. Needless to say, even with my poor performance, I still had a good time and walked away with a smile. I’m not sure if Rubin’s “this is rabbit, give him special treatment” comment resulted in more fire than normal, but they definitely picked some hard songs to dance to.
(Yes, that’s my head engulfed in flames!)
(Where did I go?!)
After I was done with DDI, I loaned my shoes to one of the people I had met in line (you can’t play with sandals and he was my size), and hung out watching the other people in line get shot with fire. then it was back to camp GPS to wash my feet and get a fresh pair of socks. Apparently sometime around 3am we headed out and checked out the Serpent Mother by the Lotus Girls and then I assume we went to bed shortly after, since Wednesday was going to be a big day.
-A Huge thanks to Rubin for some of these pictures. I’m glad he remembered to grab his camera when I forgot. 🙂
09.08.06
Burning Man 2006 – Part 1
Alright, so I’m going to tackle documenting my Burning Man experience in parts and hopefully I’ll make it further than I did with the San Francisco trip documentation. 🙂 If you don’t know what Burning Man is, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do to explain it. It truly is one of those things you have to experience to truly understand it. My attempt at a short description: It is a celebration of art, life, music, expression, community, interaction, and self-reliance in the Black Rock Desert (i.e. middle of nowhere) for a week. This year there were an estimated 39,000+ citizens in this temporary city, named Black Rock City. I was one of them for the first time.
1997 – A spark…
I first heard about Burning Man some 9 years ago when I was “out west” in Utah. For those that know me this was during one of the major life changes I’ve experienced. I read an article and it struck me as something I might be interested in. So I ripped out the photo and taped it into my journal at the time so that I would remember to look into it more. Nine years later my journey to Burning Man began…
Friday, August 25th, 2006 – The Pilgrimage Begins!
After spending $1000+ on a ticket, a plane flight, and various other items needed, I finally started my pilgrimage to Black Rock City. First was a car ride to the airport with my two large bags and my trusty messenger bag carry-on. A quick check-in of the bags and only one got the menacing “HEAVY” tag, but no fees for it luckily. I boarded the plane and we took off.
There was a powerful moment on the plane somewhere between Chicago and Phoenix. I was listening to my mp3 player, and one of my favorite songs came on, Halcyon & On & On. There’s something about the simplistic beauty of this song that always gets me in a reflective mood. I realized what was happening and I started to tear up with joy. Here I was, on a plane, headed to Burning Man. I was following my dreams, my bliss, doing what I truly wanted to do. And on top of it all it was me that was making it happen. I was responsible for it. I later realized that this was a similar feeling that was had by people seeing their art on the playa. For me, my journey was my accomplishment, my expression of self-reliance. What started as a consideration months before was actually becoming a reality. Just the act of making the trip out to Burning Man sparked something in me before I even got there. But more on that later.
The rest of the plane flight was uneventful and before I knew it I was standing outside Oakland Airport, wondering why in the world Chu kept saying “Hegenberger!” I soon found out that was a street he had taken to the airport that he liked the sound of. The bags were tossed in the Falcon, and we headed back over the Bay Bridge to San Francisco.
We made a stop down in Twin Peaks to see Chris and La and to pick up the stuff for the Portrait Studio. I had my ID done so Chris could show us how to run everything. Thanks to the generosity of Chris and La, we acquired several of the items on our shopping list that they already had. With a packed van, we headed back to the city and Chateua Chu.
Saturday, August 26th, 2006 – Shopping Day
After being woken up by Ava mounting me in the morning, followed by introductions, Chu and I spent most of the day running around shopping for the last bits and pieces that we needed for Burning Man. We stocked up on 30 gallons of water, a metric crapload of baby wipes (aka showers), various food items, random necessities, and scored some kick-ass bikes at Target.
For only $35 I had transportation in Black Rock City for over a week! Ava was nice enough to decorate our bikes with some of her FaCuffs as well. And I repacked all the things I would need, and prepared the Camelbak so I’d be ready the minute we hit the playa.
Sunday, August 27th, 2006 – On the Road…
We were supposed to leave at the ass-crack of dawn on sunday to make sure we got to Black Rock City by sundown. That didn’t happen, but it didn’t matter. We took our time getting ready and finally headed out around 1pm I think. The drive was great, and the Falcon held up incredibly well. The drive through Nevada was gorgeous as we twisted and turned around mountains.
We stopped off in Reno at the Albertsons to stock up on some last minute things. I was a bit worried about having enough food (we didn’t) and water (we had plenty) so we did one last shopping trip. We also found a pile of Sparks on sale for $1 a can so we stocked up. (It was only appropriate that were we just minutes away from Sparks, NV)
It was obvious that the parking lot was filled with Burners on their way to Black Rock City. Albertson’s knew exactly what people needed as well, so it was easy to find everything we wanted. An excellent example of the impact this event has on the surrounding economy.
After a long lonely drive from Reno to Gerlach, dotted with the occasional Indian Taco stand, we finally pulled into a gas station after sundown to fill up our tank. We then headed out into the darkness towards the line of cars waiting to get onto the Playa. As soon as we pulled off the road it hit me. I was here. Nine years had passed since I had first heard of Burning Man. I still have the journal where I cut out a small blurb on it and taped it to a page to remember to look into it further. Every year since something has held me back from going, whether it be school, money, people, etc. I had finally done it. Months of preparation and determination and we were finally kicking up dust on the playa. It was a great feeling
Our greeting was kind of a mess and we didn’t get any of the typical virgin greeting stuff. since we were the first people in our theme camp, it was our responsibility to claim camp. They radioed our placer and told us to head to our camp location and he would meet us there. We slowly drove through the dust, and found Anxious and 9:00 on the North side of the playa. We waited and soon our placer, Jake, came to confirm that we had indeed figured out correctly that the blue flags marked off our land. We thanked him, parked the van in the middle of our plot, unloaded the bikes, and went exploring before we even set up the tents. It was a wide-eyed bike ride with huge smiles across the playa to meet up with Rubin and Nicole who were camping with Dance Dance Immolation. After some socializing and playa exploration, we headed back to our lonely camp, set up tents and fell asleep for the first time on the playa.
08.27.06
Final Burning Man preparations
All day yesterday was spent running around town gathering the last
necessities for Burning Man. A $35 bike score for me, 30 gallons of
water, various camping bits and pieces, and a selection of easy food
items. Chu just headed out to get the Falcon, then its load up time and
on the road for us. Hopefully we’ll hit Black Rock City around sundown.
08.24.06
I’m off to see the man Burn
A journey that has been bouncing around my mind for 9 years, and has been close to an obsession for the last 3 months, and it is finally here. I fly out tomorrow for San Francisco, and then drive out to Black Rock City on Sunday for Burning Man. Basically I will be out of contact for two weeks, starting tomorrow. No internet, no cell phones, virtually no outside communication while I’m in the desert. Think this geek can handle it? hehe We’ll see! I’ll be back on Sept 6th. Everyone take care until then!
p.s. if you happen to be going and I didn’t know it for some reason, swing by Anxious and 9:00 and ask around for divinity 🙂
08.22.06
Yes, a bit obsessed
My shopping (as far as pre-flight shopping goes) is almost done! My
camelbak (3L M.U.L.E) finally arrived and I scored a new nalgene, some
lightweight camp towels, and a bike light amongst other stuff this
afternoon. Only 2 days of work and then a few hours Friday morning till
lift off!
