Burning Man 2011

People ask me "What is Burning Man", and it always takes me a moment to even try to answer it - what do they really want to know? What aspect of it would resonate for them? What is it that they would see as remarkable, so that they might glean a little of what Burning Man "is"...

If you watch the news, where 30 second sound bytes is how everything is conveyed, Burning Man is about partying, lots of music, drinking, drugs, some art, and lighting things on fire.  Each of these things is an aspect of Burning Man, which some people find important, and help to define their "Burn".

There are those people that go with expectations - they want to "See Everything" (good luck...), want to try this or that experience, find romance, or whatever.  That can be part of Burning Man to. 

But for me, most of all, Burning Man is a series of individual experiences - each unique, each remarkable - strung together over a period of days... It is a moment by moment existence, of fully appreciating and consuming each moment - living IN that moment while it lasts, and moving on to the next moment - to live it in, as it lasts... It is about being wide open to experience - to sights, sounds, tastes, talking, discovery, being ok with emotions and letting them flow through you.  It's about absorbing experience without judgement, but more in wonder of the diversity of humanity - of what people find interesting, what drives them, what is their passion...

Every year is different.  Every day is different. If you go with an open mind, and a child's wonder, with a healthy dose of adult reason and planning, you will have a remarkable, even for many people, life changing experience.

For me, this year was the best "burn" ever for a number of reasons:
  * The weather was cooler in the days, and warmer in the evenings than most years.  Though there were some sand storms (really, more like dust storms - since the playa sand is more like talcum powder in consistency), there were no "white outs" this year.
  * The ground was "hard packed" - a rain relatively soon before the arrival made for a mud crack consistency to the ground, which was very easy to push bikes over, compared to the deep sand of some previous years.
  * The Temple was absolutely stunning this year. This is only our 4th year, but this structure was by far the most amazing Temple ever.
  * We had no significant technical glitches.  Even the blown bike tire (and wrong size spare) didn't happen until the last full day.

  Some highlights of the experience - moments that bubble to the surface...

Line on the road

Line in the sand

  Though officially, Burning Man doesn't start until 12:01AM on Monday, for the lat few years, and again this year, they let people in early - starting about 6PM on Sunday night.  We anticipated this, and so arrived a bit after 7, and made it through the entry line in just over 3 hours - another record.  They added additional radial roads on the outer ring roads, so it was easier to find our preferred camping location this year at 7:30 and the outer ring - this year "Liminal"

 Monday, wandering around, in our early explorations, we wandered into a Bar (a western getup, complete with the swinging gate doors, etc), and found us a bunch of interesting folks - including a gal that seemed a little down. Being the friendly folks that we are, we started chatting with this gal, found that it was her first Burn, that she couldn't find the camp that she was supposed to meet up with, was missing her boyfriend, etc - also found she was from San Diego, and especially since the folks that were going to come with us didn't this year, we decided to offer to adopt her.  She promptly accepted, and Rachele became our camp mate for the burn.

From there, a ride on a double decker art car and some of the fun sights:

View out from near center camp

And environmental pictures

 Some of the camp space - stretching for miles.

Our camp, on the outer ring - note the new "Green and Yellow Sunflower Parachute" that worked nicely as a shade structure.  Rachelle set up her tent under it.

Our neighbors at 7:46 - they kept at least one of the pilot lights on their flame bikes on all night, which made for a very nice "street light" for us in the evenings.  They came in from New Jersey...

And the view to the West of camp, what we call the "Exo Play". People head out here to find silence, to meditate, or for some alone (or in some cases, together) time.

A stunning sunset

One of the few structures with enough light that I could get a good pict with my cheap digital camera. Cheap cameras are good in dust. Not so great for night shots - but that said:

You can just make out Barbara's Cowgirl hat as the character in front and to the left of the flare.

One of the "big" parts of Burning Man is the Art Projects.  There are many significant installations - if one wanted, they could spend their week just touring the art.  For me, the art is a lovely flavor of the whole experience.  A few highlights:

Aliens on the far Playa

Pool, anyone?

A typical (whatever that means) Burner at an "Art Plant" installation

Many of which you could walk inside of, climb on, ride, or otherwise interact with.

This one was sort of a "prison" that you would lock your self up in.

An amazing Human Powered Skeleton Zeotrope. At night, a strobe light fires to Sync the skeletons which is the River Boatman on the river Styx, pushing along with a stick... Amazing, mesmerizing and creepy.  I spent quite a while staring at, and interacting with this, night and day.

A stork made out of petrol products

Another significant aspect to Burning Man is the Art Cars, which dot the playa, provide transportation for goers, and create their own themes on the fly.  Some of them provide other services, such as drinks (I had a "Homohito" from one rolling bar that included fresh picked mint - the finest Playa drink ever...) or food (a hot dog stand, or roast your own s'mores), or mobile dance party...

A favorite returns - the cupcakes

The Nautilus

A Land Speeder

A Conestoga Wagon

Various art cars creating a micro traffic jam

The "Homohito" Stand was actually two cars - one for the fine drinks, and one was their DJ.

Unicyclist. Obelisks, and Trojan Horse (which was like 4 stories tall)

Another aspect of Burning Man, is the Burning.  It's intended as a cathartic process - of letting go of stuff. Grief. Expectations and dreams that didn't go. Relationships. The Temple is a structure that is built, with the intent of receiving these messages - either written on the structure by hand, or pieces of paper shoved in the cracks, carvings left to burn, pictures pasted to the wall.  In The Temples brief life (remember, it only exists for one week), it receives these, it is so imbued with feeling, with intent, that it is a holy place... It is profound how much feeling - love and loss and hope and wonder - is pushed into its walls.

This years Temple was spectacular. It had elements of many cultures, wound aesthetially into one stunning structure.  It had many elements - different towers connected by bridges, each tower multi level, and each level ornamented.  It had dozens (perhaps a hundred) laser cut pieces depicting different aspects of life "Right of Passage" was this years theme. 

This years temple was the largest temporary structure ever constructed...

Inside, was an e-gamalan that played music on dozens of cymbals, bells, gongs, and drums. As each instrument played, an LED would light up - it stayed lit for the duration that the instrument contributed sound to the performance.

View from the second story of the temple. Note one of the wires going down. This was part of the "Earth Harp" - they designed the Temple to also be a Resonator for a giant harp that sounded like a cello on a grand scale...

This was the "head" of the Earth Harp, where the fellow played it from

And here you see some of the wires going from the head to the temple, with weights on them to tune.

A detail of the center tower.

And of course, Burning Man is about the people.

Matching his and hers propeller pasties

Sunset

Our camp mate Rachelle being modest, as usual

And of course, me :)

Summer in the Complex - 2011

Summer in San Diego is pretty hard to beat. And I've got to say, our particular spin on living here is definitely a plesant one.  We have been so fortunate to have lovely souls that have connected with us, and frequently visit, our periodic potluck dinners, and so many activities in the area to enjoy.

We joined the zoo again, after a few year hiatus, and have enjoyed visiting there - particularly during summer evenings, during their extended hours where you can see some of the nocturnal critters doing thier thing.  The "new" elephant exhibit is great, and we look forward to visiting more often.  With our little electric car/golf cart, it's an easy and amusing trip there as well as the adventure of the zoo. That is, when it's operating properly! Going to convert it to full solar charging soon here...

We've had lots of activity in the 'hood. The house next door had fallen into sufficient disrepair, that when the renter of the front unit moved out, they were unable to rent it.  Later, the back unit, which had no security lighting, was broken in to, and the theives took laptops and gear of the student renters - they moved out as well.  With the place unoccupied, it quickly became a gathering spot for neighborhood vagrents. There were several advenutres with having to call the police, with the finally being the 5 cop cars, and a chopper over head, doors broken in, and the whole thing.  That finally got the landlords attention, and they proceeded to renovate and tweak the place up, as we took maters into our own hands, and installed security lights to light their house! Our friend Kaiko later rented the back unit, and another friend Jon also moved in just a few houses up - we're glad to have them in our growing microcosm of community here.

Delilah has found new friends at school, including Sophia, whom lives near by - and we've enjoyed both their play, and also the ability to swap overnights, which has let us do several fun weekend adventures.

One such adventure was an anniversary escape for Barbara and I up to Monterey area. We did a power drive up, stayed in Carmel area, enjoyed walking at the beach and staying at some cute bungelow sorta places.

One of the folks with a "Birdhouse Backpack" out taking his feathered friend for a walk

Barbara at Carmel

My niece Melissa got married, and Delilah played Flower Girl in her wedding - as Melissa did in ours. Just days before the wedding, my mom had an episode where she tripped, and though she caught her self, there was a "crunch"- which was a vertabrae breaking... She was eventually able to have the surgery for the disk, but has had subsequent complications, including pneumonia - so still not back to snuff.

Delilah turned 8, and we had a fun party for her also - both kids and adults in attendance enjoyed the festivities.

A few pictures from the July community dinner - thanks Chrissy :)

The Piano Project

People know that I play piano/keyboards, and also have an aesthetic sense. The problem is that "digital piano"/keyboards/synths have an aesthetic that works better on a stage, or on a space ship, than in a 100 year old house.  So, somewhere along the way, I came up with the idea of converting an old upright piano into a music workstation.
Originally, I was going to find and buy a piano through Craig's list, take the company truck and a few helping hands to heft the 600lb beast into the truck, take it to work, pull out the keyboard, the hammer assembly and the harp (which ways 200-300lb all by it self) with the crane at my work, somehow dispose of the assemblies, then transport the piano case to my house again, with more helping hands.
Well, beyond the obvious "what a pain in the rear", there are also problems like that in removing the harp, there are somewhere around 7-9 tons of force across the harp - if it breaks, people get hurt.  To remove the harp, you need to de-string it. If you do it in the wrong order, the harp breaks. If a string breaks, it's like a flail.
I started thinking my way through and in searching on Craig's List, found an interesting ad that read "If you don't want your piano any more, we'll remove it free".  I immediately groked that they were doing restorations and reselling the pianos... Hum...
So e-mailed and got in touch with a really nice and piano knowledgeable fellow named Aaron, who found a suitable piano which they would then pull the guts out of, and deliver the piano. POOF! problem solved! Ok, at least some of the problem...

The piano - in it's original glory. Keys were damaged and would have needed significant restoration, which made me feel better about tearing it apart. It was probably from the 1920s.

The harp and keys, with the hammer assembly removed.

 The gutted piano with panels and key cover removed (below)

Key cover, bottom cover plate and top cover plate.

Removing the keyboard plate. My keyboard was too thick, so I had to router out 3/4" of the plate to make it fit in. Two hours later...

Routing out the cutout on the keyboard plate. About half way through the multi hour process.

 Mounting the LCD for the computer to the back of the piano, where the Harp used to be.  This is the hardest, most dense wood I've ever worked with.  Harder than some metals for sure...

 

 In order to fit the speakers in each side, I had to remove many of the tuning pins.  These are amazing little pieces of steel - tiny little threads, like 60 threads per inch or more, and threaded into the very hard wood in the back.  The first pin I took out by hand, and it took over 5 minutes. I needed to remove like 50 of them so quickly figured out how to mechanize... Ended up using a pair of bits back to back, with the 1/4" drive being the "socket end" to pull these suckers out.

 To fit the key cover over the keyboard, I had to router out a few compartments for the knobs and sliders that sat up on top of the keyboard.

  The "almost" finished music workstation in a piano all closed up above.

A pair of detail shots, showing the music keyboard, the computer keyboard, the speakers, LCD and mixer.  I still need to finish reconfiguring the pedals.  I already have the left one toggling the power to the keyboard and amp, but need to finish up the sustain and volume pedal mods. Otherwise, it's a pretty nice little setup! For normal use just playing as an instrument, I don't need to flip the front panel up at all - just kick the power switch. I only need to lift the panel if I'm recording or mixing stuff.

A new blog - Dave's poems, songs and musings...

Ok, so I've decided to start putting some of my poetry, lyrics and musings out there in the ether.  I've created another blog to that end - check it out if you're so compelled at http://musingsofdavecox.blogspot.com/

Comming up next - "The ex-piano music workstation" :)

Spring in The Complex

It's Spring - and that means life and death and rebirth here in The Complex.

Just a note here, to any official trouble makers, that anything below "might not be true, but may be a work of fiction, about what it might be like to be someone like me, but different" - hows that for a disclaimer?? :)
That started with finally transporting our 5 pet goldfish, which had spent the last year in hiatus at my work, to the clawfoot tube converted to pond that I'd created for them in our side yard.

 They had lived for more than 10 years at our old suburban house in an open pond, without even a scratch, and I figured we were in the city now... Of course, the possum and raccoon that we saw in the trees out back a few weeks before got my radar up a bit, so I put a weighted net cover over the pond and figured we'd be good.  Then a few days later, I got a hysterical call from Barbara, asking where I'd put the fish... Investigating, I find lots of tiny long paw prints from a masked bandit... From that point on, it was open season for Raccoon.  Delilah, on returning home and hearing the story, shook her tiny fist at the tree where we had seen the 'coon, and yelled "I hate you Raccoon!".

We called animal control, and they said they couldn't do anything.  Our tax dollars at work. Go talk with Trapper Rick.  Trapper Rick wanted $250 to set out a couple of traps for 5 days - no guarantees.  Well, for that much, I figure I can buy a trap and deal with it my self.

So I buy a trap from Amazon, read through the instructions, buy the special "Raccoon Bait" (definitely don't want to catch a skunk instead), bait it, set it, and hope for the best.  In the mean time, Barbara has worked herself into a lather, and wants to make a hat out of the coon.  I tell her that's fine, but she has to kill it her self - which she decided that she could convince someone else to do with her feminine wiles...
And the trap sits.  Nothing. After a few days, the apple starts to look less appealing to me.  I figure I'll have to re-bait it at some point here, and give up but leave the trap out.  Barbara and I were going out of town on Saturday for an overnight to Palm dessert, and had our morning tightly planned in orchestration, and of course - that's when we discover that we've caught an intruder... But instead of the raccoon, its the possum.
Ok, so I call animal control again, figuring "we'll, I've trapped it, they can just take it".  Hum, not so simple.
"I've trapped a possum, and need to know what to do with it."
"You need to release the animal."
She obviously didn't understand me.
"A critter ate our goldfish last week, and you told us to hire a trapper - so we trapped it..."
"Sir, you need a permit to trap an animal, a permit to transport an animal, and a permit to release or euthanize an animal.  You need to just release it..."

Hum, so this is where the seeds of civil disobedience are planted, eah?  In my own back yard!

So, I break out my heavy leather welding gloves, toss a towel in the car, and a blanket over the cage, and put it in the back of our little Mercedes, thinking to my self "I wonder how many possums have driven been driven around", and head out to a distant corner of Balboa Park.  It's already after the time that we were going to depart, and instead of having suitcases in the car, I've got this possum... Driving into a remote corner of the park, I discover that apparently all the rangers actually do their work on a Saturday morning.  I've never seen a ranger in the park, other than doing trash duty.  They were everywhere that morning.  I orbited around for a while, and finally found a little path leading down a canyon at the end of a road.  I pulled out the cage (which of course was backwards, so had to spin this mysterious blanket covered box around, with leather gloves on), opened the door, and then proceeded to spend several minutes to coax out the possum.  When he finally got the idea, he was off like a shot...

Take two of the fish pond will be an aquaculture system with a heavy planter on the top to prevent critters from getting in...


Because, I suppose, life isn't complicated enough already, we've decide to at least try the "urban chicken" thing, and because I don't like to do anything half-arsed, I've been doing some research.  Bought some books, talked to some folks, even took a workshop.  Some of the take homes were:
 a) Chickens are dumb.  They don't care what their coop looks like.  So make it out of as much stuff as you have around to reuse.
 b) They do need space, theoretically like a coop and a run, roosts, a nest box, and a dry and relatively draft free space.
 c) Your neighbors probably do care, both what it looks like, and what it smells like - so make it aesthetic, and easy to clean and service.
 d) Critters, such as the rat-bastard raccoon above, would like to make a snack out of your chickens.
So, make it durable, with latches that can't be easily jimmied.

So, we start off with a 12 foot section of cedar fence, a bunch of old lumbar, and a few trips to Home Depot and Lowe's for the finishing touches, and...

And with help from many in our little community (John, Steve, Beth, Chrissy, Barbara and Delilah included), we end up with something like:

And the happy chickens which we are trying to keep under the radar, so as to not annoy any neighbors with them...


The planters are blooming as well -

 Our "east" planter, mostly lettuces and a giant Artichoke plant (we won't grow that again) -

alloe in bloom, with hanging tomatoes, and Fox glove (one of those plants that sneak in along the way, and need a more permenant home...)