Burning Man 2008 - iPhone

Our theme camp was a complete success and we couldn't have gotten a better placement! This year we were a registered theme camp (for link - search for Circus Boot Camp) with classes teaching various circus arts and we got placed on a corner lot! We offered training for slack line walking, unicycle riding, juggling, trapeze performance and hoola hooping. I'm pretty amazed at how many people showed up for these classes. We were darned busy. People really love to learn this stuff! (I'll put more pictures up when my campmates come out and I get ahold of their pictures; this was another year where I didn't take a single picture.)

The especially cool part of it all is that many people who already had some skills would often help out those who were trying to learn. So we ended up having a really good trapeze arts teacher, even though nobody in our camp had much experience with it.

My honeypot and I arrived on Saturday, Aug 23rd around 6pm or so. We were so lucky to get the placement we got because we were pretty close to the action, but not so close for it to be annoying. The weather was so perfect, except for a couple serious storms. The storm on Monday started around noon and lasted well past 8 hours or so. It was the worst storm I've ever seen in my 7 years of Burning Man. The only other storm I saw this year was also relatively bad. It started yesterday afternoon, Saturday. I left during that so I have no idea what the weather was like today. I hope it was perfectly clear for everybody that was still there.

I left on Saturday afternoon before the man burned. For me, being there for 7 days was long enough. I had an opportunity for a ride out, and I took it. My honeypot is still out there and if the temple burn hasn't started yet; it will in minutes. Even though I missed the burning of the man and the temple burn by leaving early, I don't really mind. I enjoy the earlier days of the week more, as it's more mellow and there are less "lollipop raver kids". I like the "old school" crowd a bit more. Also, the playa was very loose with deep dust, so riding a bike was very challenging out in the open playa. You'd be riding along on a bike and then hit one of these loose places and come to a screeching halt while fish tailing and struggling not to fall over. It wasn't very conducive to exploring via bike. And the distances are really large to be walking everywhere all the time.

In other news, I finally went and got my iPhone. I've wanted one for a while and agreed to wait until the second version came out so the hardware and software was a little more stable before dropping so much money. I dropped by the store today and walked out about 10 minutes later with my new iPhone. It was easy as pie. So far, I'm pretty impressed with it. Of course, I haven't really gotten deep into the software yet. I'll let you know what I think in a couple weeks or so.

17h 20 mins until we leave

Last night I got my v2 prototype LED hoop done. It's a harder plastic so it was much harder to get the electronics in side.

The hooping action is much better because it's stiffer.

The downside is that because it was so much harder to split open the tube, I wasn't able to hot glue the leds inside. So basically if it has any force on the leds, they're going to pop into the tube.

Oh, well. It's what I can manage given the time left.

4 days and 13 hours

Until we're on our way out to the playa. (For some reason blogger has a config issue and is failing on image uploads..)

This past weekend was a whirlwind of activity. There was the birthday dinner for Marc. And friends hanging out crafting until 3:30am in the morning. There was breakfast with Rose and her Mom and sister at the new restaurant down the street. And then so many things to prepare for Burning Man.

This is the first year that I will not have a day off before leaving for the playa. It makes it quite a bit more hectic getting everything together because I have to squeeze it in around work. Add to that the fact that I can no longer go to stores that have short open hours - like fabric stores. It's a little more planning ahead than I'm used to.

The picture is of a hat and cape I made for this year. I'm really excited about the hat (and all the other flair pieces I'll soon get to wear.) I think having the shoulder protection will really help me get out during the day. It can be so sunny out.

Erika's a human backpack!

Whirl Wind Weeks

It's been a really busy couple of weeks, and it will probably continue to be until we are out on the playa. No time to blog!

My friends Mari, Nathan, Dora and Amelia arrived on Thursday the 7th and stayed through Wed the 13th. They are a really cool family! They were making the rounds visiting friends and family. They arrived early because they were passing around sickness and didn't want to infect some of the older folks at one of retirement communities that was their previous stop. It's tough being a kid and being sick, but they seemed to handle it pretty well. They're really sweet girls!

Yesterday I went to our new Colo and helped rack a bunch of our new servers. It was lots of fun. I really enjoy hands on stuff besides the programming that I do. It was also really cool and interesting to see all the parts of the Colo on the tour that I did. They have 9 generators that each generate 2.2 Mega Watts each. And there's a 50,000 gallon tank of diesel underneath the building. It's pretty crazy, indeed. I think that place could power a small city. I'll try to get some pictures up when I get them. They're trapped on a co-workers iPhone currently. Here's a tour of a Colo I found online - they're probably all the same.

Next up is trying frantically to finish up all the projects I want to do for Burning Man. We're leaving in 8 days and I'm going to be working for 5 of them. Tick Tock.

I finally got to start drinking my last brew batch last week. It's good. I'm happy with it.