OMG - I can't believe its PLAYA HUMP DAY!

I have been pretty much unable to blog since arriving on playa last Saturday (very poor internet access where we are camped).  This is just a quick note to let everyone know I am here, alive and well, and as always Burning Man is proving to be another fantastic and crazy experience!  I will post my blog entries for the past five days to update blogs when I have more internet access tonight!  Lots to report, crazy week, but awesome!

Bleurose/Jon

T-Plus 6 Hours : And ALMOST Outa Here!

It is after midnight on Friday, and we are SO FUCKING FAR BEHIND!!! But we are ready to go!!!

PLAYA HERE WE COME!!!

Bleurose/Jon

T-Minus 12 hours: Holy Crap, how do we ever get ready on time?

This will be very short because I'm using my phone to post on blogger :-) . Seriously how did anybody get ready for Burning Man? I have a lot of excuses but then I always have a lot of excuses and the fact is that no matter when you start you still won't have enough time! 

Be that as it may we are heading for the playa at about 8 o'clock tonight and we'll have what we have with us and what we don't have or can't get along the way we'll just have to do without. I guess that's why they call it radical self reliance :-) 

I'll see some of you out in the dust and the rest of you will just have to live vicariously through this blog LOL!

Bleurose/Jon

T-Minus 24 Hours: My Past Burns (part one)

Hmmm.... This is only the second year in seven playa visits I will be attending that I do not have a romantic partner.

1987: Baker Beach Burn #2

My first "burning man" (although most of the 800 or so of us didn't really understand it at the time) was the June 21 burn at Baker Beach in San Francisco.  I was in my first marriage, living in Los Angeles but I was in Northern California for my company doing some work with a client and I decided to spend the weekend, go to Berkeley and maybe see a baseball game (the Giants were playing the Dodgers and at time I was a Dodger fan).  A friend of mine called me up and said "hey, this guy I know is going out to the beach tonight like the did last year and they are going to have a party and burn down a 15' wooden man. Want to go?"  It sounded like fun so we headed down there, and arrived about 8pm.  The party was going, with various alcoholic beverages and an abundance of joints being passed around, and some loud music from a boombox. Finally they lit the man and it burned and we danced around and then we went home.  Ho-hum.  My first "burning man" ;-)  I had no idea what it really was until almost 10 years later when I picked up a Time magazine article about the Nevada Burning Man (which was now in its 8th year) and they talked about that long-ago burn on Baker Beach.  I called my friend and asked him if he knew anything about it and he said "oh yeah, its the same folks, they had to stop doing it on the beach in San Francisco so they changed it to Labor Day and went out to the desert near Reno." But it wasn't something I was likely to do in my first marriage and so I didn't.  Then I got divorced in 2001 and my life began to change.

2002: Floating World

I had just met the woman who I would later marry (my second marriage). We had gone on a date to the Hollywood Bowl and it looked like it could be "the real thing". I told her about Burning Man and she got very interested, but she couldn't go because of her kids. However, I was already committed.  I went with my roommate Peggy who gifted me a ticket in exchange for a ride to the burn and back. Because I had already fallen pretty head-over-heels, I did Burning Man 2002 (my first real playa burn) as if I was already in a relationship (which to some extent I was). 

2003: Beyond Belief

By 2003, I returned this time with Barbara, who I married just several months later (and although we continually tried to go back home to the playa together after 2003, we never ever did make it back out as partners). 

2004-6: Nothing

These years were missed for various kid's school/parent's birthday issues that made it impossible for us to go.

(to be continued...)

T-Minus 36 Hours: Quick Shots

Okay, just a few brief notes this post.  Its about 8:30 am on Thursday and I plan on being on the road between 6 and 7 tomorrow evening.

Who Am I? My name is Jon Rosen and I am Director of Release Engineering for a database company called Actian (it used to be Ingres).  I live in Hayward, California right across the San Mateo Bridge. I am 61 years old (and still going to Burning Man woo-hoo!) I love directing musical theater, playing piano, writing songs (I recently wrote a flurry of songs inspired by someone I was very much in love with, but alas, that ended sadly), singing karaoke and going to Burning Man! Oh yes, and although I rarely drink much, I have recently acquired a taste for Jack Daniels. Go figure :-)

Why Burning Man? Ten years ago, as my first marriage was ending, I had moved in with a female roommate named Peggy who had an extra ticket to Burning Man 2002: Floating World. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I had been to the 1987 Baker Beach burn (although I didn't realize that it would become "Burning Man" at the time) and Peggy told me that if I would give her a ride in my truck, she would gift me her spare ticket. That sounded like a fantastic idea and so in 2002 on Wednesday evening, we drove out to the playa arriving at 4am.  I can only remember that as we went through the greeter gates and headed to camp (Hair of the Dog) I was stunned by the amazing things I saw around me. The next five days were an incredibly eye-opening experience and my life was altered in major ways that remain to this day. I have become part of a global community which doesn't only exist for the 7 days of the festival, but year-round.

Who Am I Going With? This year, for the first time in several years, I do not have a partner.  I am going with my friend Nadine, a "birgin" who will be my camp mate. It is fun to take someone to Burning Man who has never seen it before (I have done that twice before, in 2003 and 2007) and I look forward to the vicarious excitement that comes from seeing someone else discover all of its treasures on their first visit. 

Where Am I Camping? With the Hair of the Dog camp, at 5:30 and Alyssum, on Rod's Road near Center Camp. Very central location, I camped with HOTD in 2002 and also in 2003.  I camped across the road from them at 6:00 and D in 2009 when they were part of Silicon Village (they have since split up again although the split was amicable).  There are people there from all the way back 10 years ago who I remember, including Mark, Jarvis, Billy, Lisa, Michael and others. I am looking forward to renewing old friendships.

Until next time, I'll be looking for you out in the dust!

Bleurose/Jon

T-Minus 48 hours: A ton of shit is GONE!

Its early Thursday morning and I am starting to get antsy to get going!  I wasn't even sure I was going this year.  But so many things have happened in 2012 that I decided I needed to go.  First of all, it is my "10th anniversary burn"!  My first burn was in 2002 (not counting the fact that I actually went to the 2nd burn at Baker Beach in San Francisco in 1987, but at that point, I didn't even know it was "burning man", we just gathered on the beach, smoked some dope, drank a little, danced around the man as it burned and then went home in the wee hours.)  

No, 2002 was my first REAL burn.  It was post-first-divorce by about 20 months and about 1 week after I met my second (later to be ex-)spouse. There will probably be some asides about my past burns as I proceed to blog.  Please enjoy/endure.  This is not just for you, it is also for me, and one thing I have found is that blogging can be very effective therapy.

The "ton of shit" that is gone is all my heavy stuff.  For the past three years, I have brought my trailer (affectionately named The Groove Tube by Lillith K, my very good friend, and also the master painter of the beautiful trailer I still own - thank you Lillith, for your amazing and hard work) to Burning Man.  I also brought a huge shade structure (20x30 last year, only 20x20 this year, but still big), and as many people know, I am a tool freak so I bring lots of tools and fasteners and stuff too (I have managed to save a few peoples' bacon by having the "right" screw or bolt or tool to do a weird job out in the middle of the playa).

Forrest hitched to beautiful Groove Tube.
Definitely no weight there yet!

Now all of that shit weighs a TON!  My poor 1999 Ranger has to haul two people (and me usually at the higher end of the 200-300 pound range, although now, I am in the lower range, thank goodness!) plus the trailer PLUS all that shit (not to mention water, food, clothing, bikes, etc., etc., etc.).  Its surprising that Forrest (that's the Ranger's name LOL) hasn't pulled up lame yet.  I wish I had a picture of last year's load, the trailer hitch was just a couple of inches above the pavement.  If it had been an airplane, I would have been in HUGE violation of the weight and balance FARs! 

Thanks to the camp I am with this year, Hair of the Dog (better known as HOTD!), Forrest is getting a break!  The HOTD camp truck took up six boxes of my heaviest stuff plus most of my tools, which probably, together, weighed over 500 pounds!  That is a BIG RELIEF on Forrest's springs, shocks and suspension.  Forrest has 191,000 miles on him, and frankly I wasn't sure he would make it over Donner Pass this year with the trailer and a full load.  Now, I don't have to worry!  

I'll keep posting as often as I can.  I hope you enjoy it.  Feel free to comment (its open to the public) and thanks for checking in!

Bleurose/Jon

The Ticket You REALLY Need, But Didn't Know It!

Welcome to the DEFAULT WORLD for Burning Man 2012. This is my blog and I am using it for two purposes: to communicate with the people who I know and care about concerning my trip this year to Burning Man: Fertility 2.0, and also to communicate with all of my newly found friends who I gifted a ticket to the Default World: Futility 2.0, for which you paid a LOT less than you paid to get into Burning Man this year (even if you DIDN'T buy your ticket from a scalper!) 

This is my tenth anniversary burn (although I've only been there seven times counting this year - plus my brief sojourn in 1987 to the second burn at Baker Beach). I invite you to read about my "long strange trip" from 2002 to now. Please feel free to comment about my experiences or yours: it is all relevant. I think every Burning Man experience is important and I hope you let us know what you plan to do for the next 51 weeks while you wait for that time to roll around again when you can finally click your heels together three times and chant: "There's no place like home!"

Bleurose/Jon