bumps in the road
Raging duststorms in 2008?
Aug/22/08 | permalink
"In many previous years, precipitation during the winter and spring have wet the land, allowing the crust to reform as the desert dries out. That helps mitigate the human impact from previous years, said Kelly Redmond, a climatologist also at the Desert Research Institute.
But no precipitation has touched the Playa since the last Burning Man, the BLM's Cooper said. That could mean that festival-goers will face trouble traveling around, and if a weather system comes through the area, the dust storms will be severe."
Full report on Wired's science blog.
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I'm screwed
Aug/17/07 | permalink
Bad news on the
transportation front: with one week to go before the caravan crawls
out of the mossy sanctuary of the Pacific Northwest for the dusty,
desiccated void of the Black Rock Desert, my Toyota 4Runner sprung
a leak. I've had a series of problems with the coolant system since
the day I bought the rig -- the radiator gave out hours after I
sealed the deal. This time around, the water pump has given out. My
mechanic is replacing the water pump, valve cover gasket, timing
belt, cam seals, crank seal and coolant. The damage? $1000!
Do you have any idea what a grand could do right now as I scramble to prepare for Burning Man?!?! Do you know how much booze, blinky lights, food & water, wigs & masks, playatech furniture, bacon and gifts for the community I could round up with a budget of $1000? It is driving me totally insane getting hit with this right now. On top of the financial meltdown, I won't get the ride back until Monday, so my last weekend pre-departure will be spent without wheels -- just when I was planning on doing mad errands, shopping trips, last sorties to the thrift stores.....
Now more than ever, this One Broke Dude needs some outside financial assistance. This website and blog receives hundreds upon hundreds of visitors each month, but the donation flow has been meager at best. That's fine. We're pulling of our dream and our desire to burn anyways. But if you have been enjoying the photo galleries, the movies, following the dBM blog or grooving on the podcasts, maybe you'll feel inspired to pitch in $5, $10, $20 towards the mission. I'm going to be seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel to get my truck back on the road, and the random (financial) kindness of strangers will go a long way towards not only funding the dream but raising my spirits as well. This site has a link to the Destination Burning Man Paypal account, and with a few keystrokes, you can send some monetary relief our way and feel good about contributing to the Three Broke Dudes/Boogie Universal/Boogie Pyramid mission! Click here to contribute....and thanks in advance!
The only good thing about my water pump going out now? At least it is happening here in Bellingham and not in Bumfuck, Nevada en route to the Burn!!!
Do you have any idea what a grand could do right now as I scramble to prepare for Burning Man?!?! Do you know how much booze, blinky lights, food & water, wigs & masks, playatech furniture, bacon and gifts for the community I could round up with a budget of $1000? It is driving me totally insane getting hit with this right now. On top of the financial meltdown, I won't get the ride back until Monday, so my last weekend pre-departure will be spent without wheels -- just when I was planning on doing mad errands, shopping trips, last sorties to the thrift stores.....
Now more than ever, this One Broke Dude needs some outside financial assistance. This website and blog receives hundreds upon hundreds of visitors each month, but the donation flow has been meager at best. That's fine. We're pulling of our dream and our desire to burn anyways. But if you have been enjoying the photo galleries, the movies, following the dBM blog or grooving on the podcasts, maybe you'll feel inspired to pitch in $5, $10, $20 towards the mission. I'm going to be seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel to get my truck back on the road, and the random (financial) kindness of strangers will go a long way towards not only funding the dream but raising my spirits as well. This site has a link to the Destination Burning Man Paypal account, and with a few keystrokes, you can send some monetary relief our way and feel good about contributing to the Three Broke Dudes/Boogie Universal/Boogie Pyramid mission! Click here to contribute....and thanks in advance!
The only good thing about my water pump going out now? At least it is happening here in Bellingham and not in Bumfuck, Nevada en route to the Burn!!!
Nappy Dugout
Aug/15/07 | permalink
The Boogie Pyramid has some issues with the sag....
Edubious and I
visited the pyramid work site with our families this weekend and
had some serious deflation upon viewing the flaccidity of our
temple. We weren't there for the first official erection and so
expected to see a thing of glory -- instead, there is a monument to
sag looking somewhat forlorn in a farm field outside of Ferndale.
It was a bit embarrassing to expose our ladies to the thing that
has been pulling us out of family time so much over the past few
months and have it be a saggy pile of nappy vinyl!
Edub emailed this feedback to our fellow Boogie campers:
"It is a bit awkward for me to comment on the work that NEEDS to be done on the pyramid since I am down in Seattle and can't be there on the regular to contribute my energy. But, I feel very compelled to send out a rallying cry to everyone to shift focus and energy toward getting the pyramid into shape for the Playa.
My guess is that there is going to be a considerable amount of engineering and adjustment on the Playa, but I want to offer us some design suggestions for adjustments that should be made NOW. Those who work on it regularly may already have some of these in mind so pardon the redundancy.
(1) The panels need to be pulled up flush with the tarp truss. We may want to wrap some rebar into the ends of the panels to help hold some of the weight (I noticed that one grommet had already pulled out). I also strongly suggest using something more beefy (and aesthetic) than the blue cord that is currently being employed - perhaps some small gauge steel cable?
(2) The panels seams need to be stitched together WAY tighter. Again, I suggest something other than the blue cord. As they are now, we will have mad dust blowing into the pyramid.
(3) I seriously think we need to cut the panels down. If we take about 8-10 feet off the bottom of each panel and stake them down to the ground, we will have WAY less sag. I think that that the height of the mast makes this necessary. Can we add some larger grommets (1-2") along the bottom of each panel to accommodate rebar stakes?
Each panel should have at least three or four cables running down the inside for support.
(4) Can we support/hang the corner seams (between the panels)from the guy wires that are supporting the mast? This would help the pyramid hold its shape.
(5) The tension wires and turn buckles that are on each corner of the pyramid need to be shorter and staked down closer to the base of the pyramid.
This is my $20 worth. Whatever we end up doing we have to do it NOW. The clock is ticking and we have to tighten up our scene if we're going to represent on the Esplanade. "
At our most recent camp logistics meeting, Erik, who is the ultimate mastermind behind the project, assuaged our fears by reminding us that the pyramid we witnessed is not the pyramid that will go up on the playa -- the panels aren't raised all the way, the sides aren't staked out far enough, the panels can be woven together more tightly, etc. He projected his usual vibe of "everything's gonna work out just fine." I have a tendency to believe his prophecies...
Nonetheless, the group has scheduled three more work parties over the next five days to make adjustments and try to tighten things up. On Sunday, we're gonna lower this baby, fold her up and dismantle the mast. A few days later, she'll be loaded up in to a rental truck and the caravan to Black Rock City will begin...
Photos by Edub. More can be viewed on our Flickr Page.
Edub emailed this feedback to our fellow Boogie campers:
"It is a bit awkward for me to comment on the work that NEEDS to be done on the pyramid since I am down in Seattle and can't be there on the regular to contribute my energy. But, I feel very compelled to send out a rallying cry to everyone to shift focus and energy toward getting the pyramid into shape for the Playa.
My guess is that there is going to be a considerable amount of engineering and adjustment on the Playa, but I want to offer us some design suggestions for adjustments that should be made NOW. Those who work on it regularly may already have some of these in mind so pardon the redundancy.
(1) The panels need to be pulled up flush with the tarp truss. We may want to wrap some rebar into the ends of the panels to help hold some of the weight (I noticed that one grommet had already pulled out). I also strongly suggest using something more beefy (and aesthetic) than the blue cord that is currently being employed - perhaps some small gauge steel cable?
(2) The panels seams need to be stitched together WAY tighter. Again, I suggest something other than the blue cord. As they are now, we will have mad dust blowing into the pyramid.
(3) I seriously think we need to cut the panels down. If we take about 8-10 feet off the bottom of each panel and stake them down to the ground, we will have WAY less sag. I think that that the height of the mast makes this necessary. Can we add some larger grommets (1-2") along the bottom of each panel to accommodate rebar stakes?
Each panel should have at least three or four cables running down the inside for support.
(4) Can we support/hang the corner seams (between the panels)from the guy wires that are supporting the mast? This would help the pyramid hold its shape.
(5) The tension wires and turn buckles that are on each corner of the pyramid need to be shorter and staked down closer to the base of the pyramid.
This is my $20 worth. Whatever we end up doing we have to do it NOW. The clock is ticking and we have to tighten up our scene if we're going to represent on the Esplanade. "
At our most recent camp logistics meeting, Erik, who is the ultimate mastermind behind the project, assuaged our fears by reminding us that the pyramid we witnessed is not the pyramid that will go up on the playa -- the panels aren't raised all the way, the sides aren't staked out far enough, the panels can be woven together more tightly, etc. He projected his usual vibe of "everything's gonna work out just fine." I have a tendency to believe his prophecies...
Nonetheless, the group has scheduled three more work parties over the next five days to make adjustments and try to tighten things up. On Sunday, we're gonna lower this baby, fold her up and dismantle the mast. A few days later, she'll be loaded up in to a rental truck and the caravan to Black Rock City will begin...
Photos by Edub. More can be viewed on our Flickr Page.
Sunnyland Soundsytem Meltdown
May/10/07 | permalink
“Fundi
down! I repeat, Fundi is down!”
What?!
I could hardly
believe the words before my eyes. Cyberspace provides a
limited medium for conveying emotion, but I could feel the angst
and frustration flowing through this email. Sunnyland
Soundsystem had experienced a catastrophic meltdown. A ritual
cup of morning coffee – directed by misfortune and gravity, had
penetrated the internal circuitry of Sunnyland’s mainframe.
Sunnyland was out of commission and as a result DJ Fundi, the
webmaster of DestinationBurningMan was no longer able to post the
musings of The Three. To add insult to injury, this was just
the beginning of a long string of misfortunate events that would
befall Fundi and bring chaos to Sunnyland.
The conversations that followed - once Fundi was able to use his disabled cell phone (yet another misfortunate techno-crisis) were filled with concern and frustration over the podcasts, images and words that were poised to be uploaded to the dBM site. And, of course, the un-answerable question of whether or not Fundi’s iLife could be resuscitated.
Fortunately, since you are reading this, the crisis in Sunnlyand has been resolved. At least the mainframe has been re-energized. The word is still out on the other events that followed…. So, if you haven’t already, head over to the podcast page and download Set 2 of the Burnal Equinox mix. We are, once again, servin’ it up – live and direct for you!
There is much more to come – words, music, images – so stay tuned…..
~ Edub
The conversations that followed - once Fundi was able to use his disabled cell phone (yet another misfortunate techno-crisis) were filled with concern and frustration over the podcasts, images and words that were poised to be uploaded to the dBM site. And, of course, the un-answerable question of whether or not Fundi’s iLife could be resuscitated.
Fortunately, since you are reading this, the crisis in Sunnlyand has been resolved. At least the mainframe has been re-energized. The word is still out on the other events that followed…. So, if you haven’t already, head over to the podcast page and download Set 2 of the Burnal Equinox mix. We are, once again, servin’ it up – live and direct for you!
There is much more to come – words, music, images – so stay tuned…..
~ Edub