Great ideas Timothy. I think I'll do the same with the insulation as soon as I get a propane refer insrtalled. My guess re E was correct, don't think the hot desert is the place. Not looking forward to lots of troubled youth showing up but, we will help them out if they do. Planning on taking water for lots of others, Good point on not hauling water to the top of the hill. We have a 21' with a 350 and looks like we get close to the same milage. Thanks for the help, Maybe next year for youall, joe

I just deleted a fairly long message because of what I felt were positive remarks about certain illicit drugs.

On this site some of us old geezers may make remarks about dumb things we did when we were younger but I will not condone positive instructional comment on illicit drugs. I do not consider anything positive about my antics in 1960's and '70's California along these lines and I am thankful to this day that I didn't end up like 4 of my closest friends and fellow musicians who felt that drugs and alcohol were more important than their lives were.

I also have a 27 year old son who lived through the "Rave" sensation when these "home made" supposedly innocent drugs were being used. He and his friends now sit around and say "stupid, stupid, stupid" and do not talk with fondness about laying out in the woods somewhere when their hearts were beating so fast they thought they were going to die.

nuff said.

Better get out there and enjoy the Burning Man before it is declared an environmental hazard:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/0...g+man&sn=001&sc=1000

Hmm...interesting article. However, it doesn't implicate that BM might ever be declared an environmental hazard. Where did you get that idea?

(The 37,000 people said to attend Burning Man during this week produce far less pollution than the hundreds of thousands of RV owners driving on US highways every day of the warm months.)

Burning Man is unlikely to ever be declared an environmental hazard as it is a 'leave no trace' event that cleans up after itself every year. This means all the attendees pack out EVERYTHING they pack in...whether in an RV or not. (not even grey water is supposed to reach the desert floor...one has to pack it out or evaporate it and pack out the residue!)
In addition to participants' cleanup actions, the site is patrolled by volunteers who remain onsite for weeks after Labor Day, making certain there are no visible traces remaining.
Burning Man created a role model for other events where participants share in the creation AND cleanup of the venue and the event itself. [although I have not heard of any other event that is based on a gift economy where the only things sold are coffee and ice...everything else is given or shared.]

new regulations published by Burning Man state that no toxic materials such as carpet or furniture can be burned there, thereby reducing the environmental impact from the Burn itself.
Burning Man makes every effort possible to assure the lease from the Bureau of Land Management will be renewed every time it comes up for renewal. Those efforts, coupled with the vast amount of income generated for the Nevada police and fire departments and the communities along the way, help assure that Nevada continues to WANT Burning Man to be there.

quote:

Originally posted by geoffrey:
Hmm...interesting article. However, it doesn't implicate that BM might ever be declared an environmental hazard. Where did you get that idea?

Oh, from the first paragraph......."a group of San Francisco scientists is busy calculating how much the event contributes to global warming. "

But I guess that would depend on how one parses global warming and whether it is considered an environmental hazard.

But you are quite right in that there is little or no pollution as a result of BM.

Anyway, I posted the article as general interest, not as anything anti-Burning Man.

Why would someone go there if they leave no trace that they were there.

Man if I was out in the middle of the desert for a couple weeks like that and survived I would erect a big monolith out of carbon fiber, (so it would last)and lay claim to the place.

I would first have Orkin or some such company come out and remove or kill any undesirables...you know what I mean...I know you do.

Then I would move in the heavy equipment and before long.....Palm Springs

Dave:

Fun post, a bright spot in my morning.

Dave, people do leave things out at black rock, it is just the burn people that don't. Heck feather boas are not used anymore because of the feathers we left behind.

If you leave something at black rock you have to put it in a place they will not find it for a while and in black rock this is not too hard, it is the middle of nowhere. For exapmle the wagon tracks left by the 1800s wagon trains are "good" but the tracks left by the car that broke the sound barrier are "bad".


Now here are some thoughts on Burningman.

I love the burn, it has changed but it is still a magic place.

For reason known only to themselves people spend a year or more and lots of money to bring something into the middle of nowhere that can fill others with wonder and awe; this is Burningman. The culture is so strong that by the second year I was doing the same thing, the burn is what I make it, not what you make it.


There were two “tribes” at Burningman. One we’ll call the Anarchists and the other the Brigadooners. This is the Black Rock desert and even with the passing of the Anarchists the ticket clearly reminds people that August in the desert is not forgiving and if you act like an idiot there are real consequences, thank God even the city kids get it; there is lots of repetition .

As the gathering moved from a few hundred to a thousand to now several thousand things changed. The Brigadooners now run things and the Anarchists with their black powder cannons shooting stuffed animals off into the desert are no more, the fur-seal stuffed animal was my favorite. I have not seen the trebuchets hurling bowling balls or the 60 foot land sail boat without breaks in years. To more than some degree I relate to and sympathize with the Anarchists but with thousands of people in a small city that only lasts a few days strong-shared cultural values appear to have a positive effect on the society. There is no more driving over the dry lake at night with your headlights off at a truly exuberant rate of speed, we now park our cars and ride bikes or walk.

The idea as things are structured these days is that you come in do your thing and when you leave it is as if you were never there, spiritual and heck I grew up on “take nothing but photos and leave nothing but foot prints”. At the burn I put down plastic drop cloths and for the public areas at our camp plywood covered with canvas drop cloths on top of the plastic. When we leave the only trace of our being there are the tire tracks in and out of the camp, we don’t even leave footprints. Besides this keeps the dust at the camp down and the Barth less filthy; it is not clean, just less filthy.

People build and share things, wonderful things, one group brought a laser and at night the hills twenty miles away became illustrated, a Physicist for UCSB built a teslacoil and danced with lighting, one year I drove in and saw a full size model of a submarine surfacing from the dry lake bed. Walking one year we found an installation of props that allowed you to build Salvador Dali paintings and photograph yourself and friends through a frame set into the lake bead. There is a twenty foot high goat, I think or maybe it was a mule, that you can stick you head into, don’t ask where, and be given “sage” advise.

How about a swing with rods and a counter balance that allows 360 degree swings, or you can ride on a merry-go-round made out of bicycles.

Take the kids to the 80 foot teter-totter; the kids get bar bell weights on their end to help. The delight on the face of a 6 year old kid who has just sent dad "Way, way up in the air" is a gift. Getting the kids to get off so other people can play is sometimes a work out, this applies to big kids too.

There is dancing at night, no one at this place can really dance, so I love it my wife and I can move as we wish. I suggest doing tango to the techno they play out there, it is a hoot.


The wonder is everywhere, however:

Do not get into thunder dome with the 90 pound girl. I hurt for two weeks.

When the Black Rock Rangers, a volunteer group at the event, suggest that you carry water and that activities that may cause you to forget you are in a place that can kill you are really dumb, listen to them.

The mountains are 30 miles away no you can not walk there after dinner I don't care how close they look.

No there is not a hotel with hot showers "over there" in the middle of this 100 mile long dry lake so get in the cart and we'll take you back to your camp. By the way how long did it take you to walk five miles and why did you ignore the signs on the trash fence that encircles this place?

On the night of the burn when the Rangers ask that you not stand under the 60 tall wood thing filled with lots and lots of fireworks that has just been sloshed with some flammable liquid and is about to be ignited by a device made up of a scuba tank and a big vat of kerosene that throws 20 foot diameter flames 200 feet into the air telling them “I want to feel the energy of the man” is the wrong answer.

Sunday if they still have the spiritual burn of a big plywood building walking into a 40 foot long glowing ember pile is not a good idea, yea some one did this.

Go Darwin.

Timothy

P.S. So to continue the chain yanking here is my take on "San Francisco scientists work out Burningman’s contribution to global warming".

Words almost fail me but be aware there is a culture and more than some of it is in San Francisco, I mean where else would you find a feminist arguing in favor of installing a government based on empowering men with patriarchal tribal sensibilities and doing it with a straight face.

If my post script is not clear take a look back at "I want to feel the energy of the man".

Because it is San Francisco I am sure this study is being done with my tax money and I'll bet they need a nice boat to complete the study. There is a relationship between Fur-Seals and Burningman, again see above. They need the boat.

quote:

Originally posted by timnlana:
P.S. So to continue the chain yanking here is my take on "San Francisco scientists work out Burningman’s contribution to global warming".

Words almost fail me but be aware there is a culture and more than some of it is in San Francisco, I mean where else would you find a feminist arguing in favor of installing a government based on empowering men with patriarchal tribal sensibilities and doing it with a straight face.

Because it is San Francisco I am sure this study is being done with my tax money and I'll bet they need a nice boat to complete the study.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. My childhood Iowa next door neighbor is the editor of the Bay Guardian up there. Wierd place.

I was thinking the same thing as you guys and I live here. Anyway, I know Jen and I will have a blast. I'll report back and keep your fingers crossed that the beloved Barth will make the trip in fine style. joe

Dave, I got a great laugh out of your post.
Timothy, thank you for such a lovely evocation of the magic that is there every year. Joe, have a blast. I look forward to your report when you return.
perhaps next year we'll see you there.

San Francisco IS crazy. unique. magical. weird and wonderful...

you're so right, it is great.

A few years ago before the circuit board industry went to China and kid became college age we had some money. We spent 7 days in this house on Stinson Beach. Every day was sunny and 80 and several times we drove into San Francisico (which is a hair raising ride in a rented minivan) But we loved it and will remember it as one of our great vacations.

http://www.10kvacationrentals.com/oceanfrontparadise/



By the way, a week after we were there a kid was attacked by a shark right in front of the house.

Dave:

What a nice place, with my parents and then with my children and grandchildren we have also been fortunate enough to have some times like you describe together. Given the global shift of things like you we have adjusted what we do based on a negative growth in our buying power. We do live in interesting times.

Going to the burn can also be a multigenerational positive time. My suggestion to JenandJoe about butter being OK for a week is something I am chuckling about, I envisioned a place like the beach house you rented or on the boat, not in a place where the butter will turn into a pool of glop in 15 minutes.


Life is not risk free, the shark you talk about reminds us that there is so much that is outside our control. If we use your model we can show that Burningman is safer than the beach however this does not mean I was going to let my grand daughter climb the wildly oscillating tower made up of scaffolding so she could ride down the cable into a pile of old mattresses.

I thought the mattress ride camp was fun if poorly engineered however it did hold up for the year it was there so maybe it was my preconceptions that defined it as poorly engineered.

The posting Bill H. found about greenhouse gasses and the burn is as I read more carefully also a camp at the burn, while the theme is different than Barbie Death Camp and Wine Bistro or the cable ride into mattress camp it is typical of what people do. They work toward a presentation, assemble a camp and bring it to the burn to share with others. As I used the Greenhouse camp calculator, a cool tool that someone worked hard to assemble, the numbers for Biodiesel suggested more of a political calculation than one that would hold up under rational peer review. None the less the points about burning wood I found well focused. This is just my take on it.

I think the burn is actually two gatherings, one is from when it starts and ends sometime Wednesday, the second starts Wednesday and ends Sunday morning. The camp returns to the original mind set by Sunday evening.

The reason I say this is that there is nothing on the ground until Wednesday but by Sunday morning there are more than some empty water bottles and other FOD to be found moving with the wind. By Sunday afternoon those that remain have picked most of this up, some people stay quite a while to get smaller things that may have been missed like fire cracker paper and the like and another group shows up later in the year after the rains to see if anything was hidden below the surface.

Geoffrey, I saw a burning carpet, it was Sunday afternoon three years ago and our neighbors that had made papier-mâché coverings for their bikes, one Wiley Coyote and the other Road Runner were burning their art. The bikes were a hit, I thought is was inspired art. As they stood by with bags to pick up the ashes and pack them out we discussed that nothing is forever and the memory of what they did had more value than the objects themselves. At this point four people came by with a large rug they had used as a ground cover and chucked it on the burn platform. We suggested that the idea was to pack this sort of trash out but they held different views. We put the carpet on top of my trailer and I found a dumpster in the industrial part of Reno, I did not discuss leaving the carpet with the people that had paid for the trash service least you think I am without fault.

Oh by the way the burn generates lots of trash. Four or five years back when we hung out a few day to pick up there were 12 HUGE dumpsters full of stuff next to the highway waiting to be hauled away; this does not include the stuff packed out by other burners. So there are lots of things at the burn that are cool and many good ideas are put forth and brought to fruition but this place has never been ecotopia. There is an awareness of the current situation and a strong effort to make people aware that what is done by each of us adds up, I do like that.


Timothy

quote:

Anyway, I know Jen and I will have a blast. I'll report back and keep your fingers crossed that the beloved Barth will make the trip in fine style. joe

Jen and Joe:

How was your trip to black rock?

Was your Barth a hit?

Have you found the Barth again under the layer of dust?


Timothy