Kimbal's Blog

Day 5: Our first party day

After 4 days of dust storms and digging holes, we finally had a day where we could relax and get our energy up for a night out on the playa.

Our first stop was the Ass-less Chaps party.  Thrown by a super fun group, who also repair bicycles for people during the day, the ass-less chaps party was a must.  We arrived with our asses fully chapped and they obliged us all by cutting the requisite holes in our pants.  I must say, the ventilation is quite nice.

Next door was the Black Forest Bar, with a DJ spinning electronica mashed up with traditional polish folk music.  Sounds wacked but it was awesome.  Kind of reminded me of when Indian music was first mixed in with electronica.  Very surprising sound, but fun as hell.

We got called away to flames erupting on the Playa.  A DJ bus had pulled up so we danced to flame-dancers and giant flame throwing all around us.  The DJ rocked and we danced our ass-less chaps off.

No night was complete without a stop at the Thunderdome.  That's pretty much what you remember from the movie Mad Max, except that people fight each other with nerf bats.  It's a giant geodesic dome with each fighter hung from straps on the ceiling.  They are then swung at each other by the Thunderdome dudes and they go at it until the crowds declare a winner.  It's freaking nuts!

Man, what a night.

Day 4: Digging holes

Waking up on Day 4 (Tuesday) we came up with a solution (we hoped) to the problem.

Given that the dirt was so soft the only solution would be to dig down until we hit solid ground.  The sensors and pods might be damaged, but at least we could run it through the end of Burning Man in some form.

We were up at 6:30am, ate a big breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast, and headed out to the Pool with our shovels.  For anyone who is counting, there are 106 pods in the pool.  That means that we had to dig 106 holes, repair and place 106 pods, hammer down 212 stakes, and cover up 105 trenches for the wires.

We were half-way done by 10am.  We were rocking! 

Then it got hot.  Really hot.  Damn, it got hot.  We tore through two 5 gallons drums of water staying hydrated.  As lunch approached, we tried to keep up our pace.  Nope.  By noon we had done about 10% of what we'd achieved in the early morning. 

We decided to break for lunch and get our energy back.  We knew that if we were still working in the late afternoon, we would be hitting the hottest part of the day (3-5pm).  Not good, but we were exhausted.

Our solution? Sweet, sweet Red Bull.  Oh yeah baby, we each downed a Red Bull and powered back into it.  We finished at 3:30.  It was brutal but we did it. 

We headed back and fell into our camping chairs and stayed there for about 5 hours.  I haven't been that exhausted in years. 

At 8pm we headed back out to see if it was actually working.  Yes, with all that work we could not even test what we were doing.  The sun is so bright that there is no way to test it until night-fall.  it was a stressful ride out there.  No one spoke.  Everyone just wanted to turn it on as quickly as possible.  If it didn't work, at least we'd know.

We got there, and we turned it on.  It worked, sort of.  About ten pods had to be re-done, but it did turn on.  We then started to play with each pod to test out the sensors.  Not so great.  The beating they took on Saturday night was serious.

But with the right pressure we could get some of them to work.  Which means that the day was successful.  Our standards were low.  Anything to not have to dig them up again the next morning.

Honestly, I do think it will work fine for Burning Man.  There won't be the interactive experience it was designed for, but for most people even if the pods just light up they got excited. 

We were pumped and when we got back, despite our exhaustion, we headed out into our neighborhood to check out the scene.  It was the first night we got out after being here for 4 days. And it was as awesome as ever.

Day 3

It was a very sad start to Day 3.  Just after midnight we got an emergency radio broadcast from one of the Pool crew. They were bicycling out on the playa and saw that the Pool was turning on and off.

We found out was that the generator was over-heating.  While that's a problem, it's not a serious one when probably 20% of the Burning Man population could rebuild a generator with a blind-fold on.  We went out to the site to turn off the generator and figure out what was going wrong.

While we were there we saw the crowds dancing on the Pool.  It was an awesome site, but something was very wrong.  There was a crunching sound come from the pods.  Not good. Really not good.

After checking it out, we found that this year's playa had much softer ground than anytime before.  It was causing the insides of the pods to separate from the outside shells.  Really, really not good.  We immediately turned off the Pool and went back first thing in the morning.

What we found was an unmitigated disaster.  about 80% of the pods were completed separated from their outer shell.  The sensors were crushed and the ground the pods were sitting on had turned to something closer to beach sand.

Then, to make matters worse, at about 9am a vicious dust storm hit Burning Man.  For about 20 hours we were subjected to 70 mile/hour winds pummeling us with a white-out of dust.  We hid out in the RV and moped as we tried to think through what we could do to fix the Pool.
The Dust Storm came in as we were leaving the site.

Maya doing her best to look good in a dust storm.

Day 2

After moving camp we headed out to our assigned area for the pool. They located us at the base of a 10 story building that was erected in 4 days.  It was for real because apparently it's by the Hilton family and they brought in their hotel construction crews. 

The pool is about 100 feet in diameter.  In Burning Man it looked so cute next to the other art pieces.

We brought out the Penske Truck filled with the equipment and pods. We started at 7:30am and finished up around 3pm.  It was 100 degrees out there, but the wind kept us a little cool (and brought the occasional dust storm).

As we were leaving a serious dust storm came through.  We had the good fortune of watching from the back of the Penske truck as we drove back to camp.

Checking out our location for the Pool.

Bill measuring for placement

Jen giving instructions

After trenching the wires, we started laying out the pods

8 hours of fun in the sun later, the pool is done

A view from the nearby Tower of Babylon

First view of it at night.

Some people playing with it for the first time.

It quickly got crowded...

Waiting in Line

Crappy internet coverage, but here goes what I can get out...

We arrived on Saturday afternoon at around 5pm.  The line to get in was about 45 minutes long, mostly due to inspections of the trucks and art cars coming in.  One of the favorite pastimes of Burners is to sneak their friends in underneath tons and tons of equipment in the back of un-airconditioned moving trucks.  Talk about a commitment to saving $250.

We found our crew and started setting up camp.  After a few hours, our neighbors came up to us and just wanted to let us know that they have a giant flame thrower in their camp.  They were really nice but it was hard to get around the 18 giant tanks of propane that arrived a few hours later.  They suggested we just move our tents a little further away from the flame hose. They thought about ten feet further away would do fine.  Just in case the flames get blown our direction by the wind. We held a vote on whether to stay or to move camp to avoid flaming tent syndrome.  We were so tired that we decided to stay.

That night more of our neighbors arrived and started to build their propane holding structure from 1am to 5am. Nail guns and all.  The next morning we moved.

The Greeters keeping us company as we wait in line.

Checking trucks for stowaways

Checking coolers.  Mmm... I guess you can't complain about the view.

Even Elmo comes to Burning Man.

The obligatory Porn collage on the greeter station.

Our first view of the Man.

The Pool Crew.  We are so excited!!!
    

We went out for a bike ride on Saturday before Burning Man officially opens.  It was eerily quiet.

The Man lit up as construction crews worked through the night.

Burning Man here we come!

We just arrived at Reno Airport.  Dude this town is a strange place.

The girls examining the strange machines with blinking lights and humans attached to them.

Burning Man is 3 hours away!

Gun4Hire

It's not that often I'm surprised by someone I see in Boulder.  We definitely have our eccentrics, from half-naked guitar singers to the Zip Code man, to guys who can squeeze themselves into a little box.

But yesterday I was surprised.  I was driving along and saw a military hummer next to me on the road.  No big deal, there are plenty of military bases around.  Then as the hummer went by, I saw that the license plate said 'Gun4Hire'. 

Awesome!  How many people have the balls to for that license plate.  Of course, it was a hummer and it was literally pumping dark clouds out of its vertical exhaust pipe, but damn if that didn't deserve some credit.

You can just make out the license plate GUN4HIRE

And in case you can't see this, the driver is wearing headphones with his cell-phone.  Military style honking big headphones with a microphone.

Friggin' awesome.

Me.dium's Myspace Toolbar

Me.dium just released it's Myspace Toolbar last week.  It's on the heels of the Facebook toolbar that has great success.  The Me.dium/Facebook toolbar was one of the top recommended toolbars when Firefox 3 launched in June.

It's awesome, and if you're a Myspace user you're going to love it.  In addition to the all the things you'd expect from a great Myspace toolbar, we've built a 'Simplify' button which cleans up Myspace pages with heavy design so that you can use them better.

We got a great mention today from Firefoxfacts.  While I'm at it, Elinor Hurst, a blogger from Belgium also gave us a great write up on Me.dium Search.

Falcon 1 Vehicle 3 Full Webcast

The full webcast of the entire voyage of Falcon 1 is now available.  It's an amazing video and I suggest everyone take the time to check it out.  I don't think there's anything out there like this.  The idea of being this open to the public in any company is amazing.  To do it in the space business, with such a high rate of failures, is especially noteworthy.

If you can't access it on my site (the link is a bit spotty), try heading here.

Mr. Toyota takes a ride in the Tesla

Turns out that Daisuke Toyota, great-grandson of the founder of Toyota, was in Boulder for a couple of weeks.  I bumped into him with my friend Bud Sorenson in downtown Boulder and we scheduled a time to go for a ride.  I thought it would be cool to get the reaction from the great-grandson of the top Automaker in the world.

We went for a ride up Canyon road.  I'd say he had a good time.  :)

Daisuke riding shotgun.

Thanks Bud for making the connection.