Q.
A friend suggested I talk with you about RVs. I am exploring the idea of living in one temporary with my children, less than a year. It would be great to take road trips later. Not looking into anything new or expensive. There seems to be some for sale in the $5K range and less. Naturally, these are older models that require some work. Does this seem like a good idea? Or are these older models, generally, more work and money then its worth? Thank you for any ideas and suggestions.

A.
It depends on what you want to do with your RV. If you are planning on living in it, finding a place to park it (like in an RV park) is quite expensive – you can see prices upwards of $70/day, the average is around $50. If you are planning on driving it around, gas is outrageously expensive for it.

Then there is the issue of fixing it up. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. And it’s not cheap. TIres are very expensive, and I had my RV break down on me while it was sitting in the driveway. Older models are full of problems. It’s cheaper to stay in a hotel.

The other thing that’s expensive is parking the RV – plan on spending $100 a month. And you will need to tow a car behind you. Otherwise, once you’re parked, you have no transportation.

I have my own rules which should be added to the Ten Principals. They seem to be followed to the letter:

The Burning Man Unwritten Principals

11. Uniform for Men (kilts) – Jeans? You Newbie. Sure, some people actually get creative and wear costumes or unusual but cool outfits, but if you’re a male and you want to make SURE you’re you won’t stick out like a sore thumb, wear a kilt.

12. Uniform for Women (dress your tits to impress and wear some combination of fur, tulle and raver boots) – Shorts and a T-shirt in the hot sun? You’re instantly branded an outsider. The uniform for women consists of wearing tutus, fur boot covers, sparkly bra tops, sparkly pasties or go topless at burning man. There are actually a lot of gorgeous half-nude female bodies at burning man. Unlike nude beaches or nudist farms, the people without clothes here actually look good.

13. DJs – Thou must worship at the feet of any DJ, no matter how terrible or uninspired they are. For you men, if you have a lap top, digitized music, a couple of amps and rudimentary lighting system (like a flashlight), you’re pretty much guaranteed to get laid if you get a chance to spin. For some reason, whether the motivations be laziness or instant gratification, modern-day burning man “musicians” can’t be bothered to learn a musical instrument. Mixing up, or just playing other people’s works seems to be all you need to be considered one of the “great ones”. I equate being a DJ to playing golf – you don’t need much skill in order to be half way decent.

14. The Universe and its Influence on the Event – Thou must put positive intentions out to the universe, talk about getting rid of negative energy, maintain that everything happens for a reason, or that you’ve manifested at least one item brought to burning man. Even if you don’t pay lip service to this kind of twaddle, you have to put up with this talk. You’ll hear it a lot. Among the more sensible burning man participants, talking like this or subscribing to these beliefs is called being “universey-woo-woo”. Don’t ask me how this terminology came into being, but if you’re ever stuck listening to this type of verbiage, it seems perfectly applicable.

15. All Art at Burning Man is good, as a matter of fact, it borders on the divine. – Burning man literally has art everywhere, some of it quite good and occasionally astounding. But some of it sucks. Criticizing art work at burning man will manifest an astounding amount of negative energy – directed at you. If you can’t bring yourself to praise a piece of work you see, making no comment at all is probably the best way to go.

16. Thou must at least pretend to be interested in burning man art. – Officially, burning man is about the art. Unofficially, it’s about getting laid, partying and dressing in crazy outfits. I understand that if you’re really hammered and/or you’re talking up a potential sexual conquest, art does seem to fade to the distant background. Use your feigned (if that’s all you can muster) or genuine interest in art to your advantage – a great excuse to get away from whatever dull circumstances you find yourself in is that “I want to go look at the art.” This will invariably be met with solemn nods of agreement that yes, you must continue on your sacred journey.

17. Art Cars – Thine measure of coolness depends on the number or art cars you’ve ridden on. A night-time activity of many participants seems to be “let’s get fucked up and ride on an art car.” There are usually about 250-300 art cars at the event, some of them able to take on 30+ revelers. All you need to do is ask if it’s ok and jump on. Most of the time you don’t even need to pay attention to whether or not you’re given verbal permission. Of course, if you actually OWN an art car at burning man, your coolness factor pretty much goes off the scale. Your chances of getting laid are so high, they can’t even be estimated.

18. Fire Makes Everything Interesting Even if you’re camping in your own backyard with Evangelical Christians, that campfire is still hypnotic. With a name like burning man, you would expect that fire is everything and you’d be right. Things get blown up and ignited with amazing frequency. Is your art project kind of douche-baggy? Throw a fire effect on it, and people will coo at it like it’s a newborn. There are numerous fire performers – fire spinners, fire eaters, fire hoopers. You better stifle that yawn even if you’ve already seen the same act 100 times before. Fire at burning man is ART. Amazement and reverence are mandatory.

http://hacknmod.com/hack/twitter-controlled-led-ikea-table-using-bluetooth/
http://hacknmod.com/hack/led-light-box-thumps-to-your-music/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Music-LED-Light-Box/

http://www.americanspeedster.com

Did you know that theta brain waves are what allow you to experience the most powerful emotions from within? Each time that you feel very strongly about something, your theta waves are what kick in and allow you to feel your “feelings.”

Unfortunately, when some people’s brains are not able to naturally regulate theta, they may experience attention-deficit problems. People that have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder will usually be found to have abnormally large amounts of slow theta brain waves. This is not a bad thing at all, but it can impair their ability to turn off strong emotions.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Theta-Brain-Waves-to-Access-Powerful-Emotions&id=2729991

Ingredients:

• One small shopping cart from either whole foods or sunflowers
• Metal rods to make solar lights bigger
• Board cut to fit the bottom of the shopping cart.
• Solar mesh lights for around the side
• Material to cover cart.
• 2 6-volt batteries charge controller
• one 12V fan to blow the veil
• Various solar pole lights or just a string of LEDs
• One large star lit by LEDs
• el-wire

I may just go all battery operated or solar – we’ll see what I come up with. Then I need to figure out what costume I’m going to wear.

“As preparations for Burning Man accelerate I have moments where I seriously wonder what I am doing. There is so much of my effort and money going into getting ready for the playa that sometimes I think I must actually be insane. Why am I doing this?

I guess it’s because it is a marvelous thing to be part of a grand enterprise, something larger than myself. Burning Man is just such a grand enterprise.

Right now, around the world, 50,000 imaginative and dedicated people are working on something to make a city in the desert appear out of nowhere. No wonder it’s so incredible!

So, if the preparations are getting you down, if people are getting on your nerves, if you wonder whether you can get everything done in time, and you think, “This is not worth it.” Think again.

In less than four weeks we will all be there together in the largest playground in the world, and we created it ourselves! Black Rock City – a city of dreams made reality.”

I realize that many find it hard to readjust to the default world when we return and some folks take a few extra days to decompress. Sadly don’t have the luxury to ease back into work mode. We rolled into Phx on Monday morning and I was up until about 2am that night catching up on email (I opted to not bring a laptop and turned my phone off on Monday at BRC).

So here’s I suggest you do: You don’t leave Burning Man. Very simple – in your mind, in your daily tasks, and most importantly, in the way you treat your family, friends, and total strangers… be kind, be giving, do as you would at BM… within legal limits, and within reason. Gary, Grover, Scotto, NakedMike, Chromy, and so many others… they all live BM principals year round. For example:

• If someone is in need, help out without any expectation of receiving anything in return
• Smile, and greet people. So what if they don’t reciprocate. .. it’s their loss.
• When in the checkout lane, hang up your cell phone, and have a real conversation with the person running the register. They may be repeating their schpeil – but ask them a question and that makes them wake up from their stupor and talk.
• In a restaurant, look your wait staff in the eye, engage in a conversation as you ask for your meal. Don’t treat them like “servers”, rather as “people”… as fellow citizens
• If someone visits, invite them to join you for a meal.
• Find the clothes you don’t use and give them away to goodwill (and pick up some cool threads for the next BM event while you are there!)
• Volunteer at a soup kitchen… or an organization like http://handsonphoen ix.org/

The list goes on.

BRC is just a place. It is the attitude, the mindset, and the people that make it special… and you can bring that with you. Sure… there will be doinks in the default world. There are doinks at BRC. But you don’t have to be one. Nor do you have to sit and complain that others are doinks.

One year I flew out to BRC and on my way back at Reno airport I was so disappointed. There were many obvious burners (clean clothes but playa grey footware) who were back on their cell phones and avoiding eye contact. I was greeted by one burner – turned out it was Windpipe the Clown – and I was new to the AZB community then and didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me… but we smiled, waved, had a conversation. .. and years later I realized it was Windpipe. It was the way it should be.

So don’t mope about leaving BRC. Bring it, or as much of it as you can handle, with you back to the real world.

I’m not trying to sound preachy… so please don’t take this the wrong way. This is just what works for me… and I thought I’d share.

Cheers,

Ruvi

THINGS I WISH I HAD DONE
1. Gone to a few more of the scheduled events, like the Geek conference and the Solar seminar
2. Wish I’d known how easy it was to hop on an art car earlier in the week
3. Wish I’d just wandered into theme camps more and just checked out their stuff. Burners WANT you to use/consume/explore the events and substances you’ve concocted.
4. Wish I pulled around an ice chest with beers and snacks the whole time so I could give them away
5. Wished I’d given my unused costumes away to the Boutique camp, where you can just go and get anything you want to create a costume.
5. Wished I’d brought more neon to accent my bike and outfits.
6. Wished I’d had more cool-looking footwear
7. Wished I’d had more angel wings.
8. Wished I’d camped with a theme camp.
9. Wished I’d known Kirk was there so I could hang out with him.