RadioFreeNYC

MUSIC

I will be bringing my laptop to the playa to suppliment our sound system with digital music. Unfortunately, it's a big drain on the battery. If anybody has an mp3 player, CD player, or tape deck they don't mind getting dusty and possibly broken, please bring it so we can run the sound through it. Otherwise, bring your CDs and MP3-CDs for the Elation Station Discoteque!

Final questions...

1. Does anyone have any nut allergies because i plan to put nuts in the banana bread otherwise?
2. Water? Walmart sells water for 53 cents a gallon but i think it would be a bad idea for all 25-30 of us to have 1 gallon jugs. Teams are prolly the best idea but since we never came to a final agreement on it, i figured one last shot?
3. Anyone leaving monday (after clean-up) that can get me back to la at some point on tuesday? i do have quite a bit of stuff (pillows and blankets, etc.)

Lighting and Power

(this a repost of a message I sent to the burningmilk Yahoo mailing list)

I've volunteered to be responsible for electricity and lighting during our last meeting in SF. The system is mostly complete and partially handed off to Andrew (since he is going up on Sunday and I am probably not). I will complete the handoff this week.

Here are the components of the system:

• 2 heavy-duty 12 volt batteries
• Five compact flourescent lights, 13 watt (equivalent to 60 watt incandecent).
• LED and EL accent lighting
• Inverter to generate 120 volts for sound system

I am still working on black-lights and EL accent lighting. The rest is done.

There will be two power distributions - 12 volts and 120 volts. The lighting is all 12 volts. The 120 volts is for the sound system. If you were planning to plug anything in, please let me know. The battery capacity is very limited.

If you have any cool lampshades, please let us know. I am trying to get some funky star shaped ones with colored plastic windows on them.

(see full entry for design and advantages)

(this a repost of a message I sent to the burningmilk Yahoo mailing list)

I've volunteered to be responsible for electricity and lighting during our last meeting in SF. The system is mostly complete and partially handed off to Andrew (since he is going up on Sunday and I am probably not). I will complete the handoff this week.

Here are the components of the system:

• 2 heavy-duty 12 volt batteries
• Five compact flourescent lights, 13 watt (equivalent to 60 watt incandecent).
• LED and EL accent lighting
• Inverter to generate 120 volts for sound system

I am still working on black-lights and EL accent lighting. The rest is done.

There will be two power distributions - 12 volts and 120 volts. The lighting is all 12 volts. The 120 volts is for the sound system. If you were planning to plug anything in, please let me know. The battery capacity is very limited.

If you have any cool lampshades, please let us know. I am trying to get some funky star shaped ones with colored plastic windows on them.

These were my design goals:

• Light for 10 hours (night)
• Sound for 8 hours (more if volume is not at max)
• Recharge once a day by connecting to a car and running it for 1.5 hours

Advantages:

• Zero noise
• Can be extended to a solar system next year
• No messing with fuel

Water

Water is the single most important Burning Man item (and the most important thing in life in general) It seems that there is a question pending on what our decision was with the water. I believe that we were not in favor of getting the hugeass things of water, because of the hassle. Perhaps we should just repeat what we did last year (how many gallons were those). I think that worked pretty well. Did we get it at Costco last year? Where is the cheapest place to get water? The second question is, are we getting it as part of the camp? I believe the answer is yes, but not sure.

YIPE!

so my monetary situation just collapsed before my eyes. don't worry, you can bet your ass i'm still coming. here's a question, tho. will there be room for me in a car leaving san fran on sunday because i really doubt my ability to buy gas to get to that golden city let alone to the playa. if i can somehow scrape and beg my way to san fran, can i leave my car there and ride with someone else (and chip in what i can, of course)?
oh, and we are buying our own water, is that right? i'm confused on that.

outstanding money

Hi campers,

I still haven't received camp fee money from the following people. Please let me know when I will be receiving your cash. Once again, you can paypal money to me at monica.scott@gmail.com, or you can send me a check and mail it to: Monica Scott, 451 7th Avenue, Apt. 2R, Brooklyn, NY 11215.

Here are the folks who are slacking:
Paul
Reid
Jeff
Richard
Lisa

If you are on this list, or one of your friends is, please pay me or tell them to pay me ASAP.

Peace,
Monica

See Ya'll Soon

Within the next hour or so, I'll be getting out of NY & closer to BM. I'll see some of you in SF and the rest of you on the playa. Yay!

Stuff pick-up

We are coordinating the pick-up of the final items needed for the camp (to take place Saturday or Sunday the upcoming weekend). Here is the list as far as I see it. Anything else you think we need?
1. couches (2)
2. folding tables (2)
3. cushions (as many as possible)
4. coffee tables (1/2)
5. big trash can
6. milk crates
7. lamps (especially halogen lamps)

Speak Now Or Get A New Piece

This Thursday night (the 18th) or Friday morning, I'm going to begin trekking out along the country. If you any West Coasters would like something from the East Coast, or any East Coasters would like something transported to the West Coast, let me know soon. As far as people staying in the camp -- the current plan right now is to drive to Las Vegas [I'll continue to SF afterwards], where my road-partner will be staying & then flying back home (he can't do the BM experience, ufortunately), so we won't have any extra folks in the camp. If that changes, I'll let someone know.

Camp Colors

Hey All,
Jyoti has been kind enough to take on the task of painting a sign for us. So far she's painted a white-on-blue sign that will glow extremely brightly under a black light at night. The dimensions of this picture are hard to see, but it's painted on a full-size bed sheet that we can tack over an 8'x4' piece of wood. She's going to make another sign that we can hang on the other side of the same piece of wood that will look better during the daytime (more funky colors). We'll have extra paints and perhaps more sheets, so we might consider making another sign to place out on the Esplanade to bring people our way.

In addition, the two of us went fabric shopping today to find fur for our bikes. We're going to use a combination of bright neon green shag and bright purple (almost NYU purple) that for some reason looks like blue in this picture. We got some extra fur for those of you that want to decorate your bikes, but we also got a fuck-ton of same-colored ribbon.

Here's the idea, tell me what you think:

Purple and Green will now be our camp colors. We're buying about a half yard of ribbon for each person to do as they see fit (wear it as an armband, hairtye, put it on your bike's handlebars, etc.) and we might have some fur left over as well to strap around your boots or whatever. Anybody wearing purple and green will therefore be associated with our camp; if any of our bikes are lost, we can find them. If there are 50 people over, they'll know who to talk to if there's a problem. Despite my pose and this picture, these colors look great together...particularly in the sunlight. What do people think? Does anybody want us to buy some extra fur for them?

Click the link below to see the pictures:

Food Stuff

Yo, this message was sent via yahoogroups as well:

Hello everyone,
This message is the outcome of a Los Angeles meeting between Ruth,
Anya and myself. This contains information about "whole camp" food things,
so if you know of someone who is going that is not on the list...please
disseminate the information. Thanks!

Ok. so the camp will provide 4 dinners and 1 breakfast in the following
schedule:
Dinners - Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat.
Breakfast - Sunday morning
ALL FOOD WILL BE VEGETARIAN - sorry meat eaters, but it'll just be too much
trouble trying to keep stuff from going bad - you can always just bring your
own and add to your meal yourself.

In order to enjoy these meals you will need to provide yourself with a
recepticle and utensils. Since we are trying to be eco-friendly - we aren't
doing masses of paper plates. Please bring your own thing or you'll have to
share with your buddy, when they are done eating.
recommended: large plastic bowl, fork/spoon/spork, knife, thick plastic cup
(coffee mug)

We are going to have a kitchen area set up. This area will be accessible to
everyone. THe main rule is "you use it - you clean it". We will have 2 large
pots, Ruth's small grill and a gas stove. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE THE GAS
STOVE FROM LAST YEAR WENT? PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

Dishwashing shoudl be done in our makeshift sink. just a couple of notes
associated with that:
1. Please don't leave your dirty dishes by the sink expecting someone else
to wash them. there will be no communal dishwasher.
2. Its OK to leave CLEAN dishes in the common areas.
3. If you are not inclined to wash your dish - you MUST KEEP IT IN YOUR
TENT.

Failure to follow these rules will result in nagging from the food crew
(Ruth, myself). We don't mind:)
I know this email may seem a bit extreme, but I have a lot of personal
experience with people being unable to take care of their own mess, so I am
trying to rid our camp of that problem as much as I can.

And now for the menu:
Monday - Burritos mex style
Wednesday - Lasagna
Fri - Chickpea/Indian Wraps
Sat - Stir Fry --> HOT MEAL!
Sun - creppes with nuttella and banana bread

About hot food: the meals will be served cold except for the Stir Fry. THe
meals will take place about half an hour to an hour after sunset - so if you
are hanging out somewhere - the sun goes down - COME HOME! It'll be nice for
the camp to gather becuase other than we will all likely be in different
places at different times.

If you need to warm up food, please feel free to use the stove or the grill.

Other than what is mentioned above everyone should worry about their own
food.
easy recommendations: P&B&Jelly sandwiches, Powerbars/Luna/Whateverbars,
GORP (good old raisins and peanuts).

Ok, i'm done now...sorry for the lenghth. And once again, please pass this
on to people who don't read the list. Cheers, and I can't wait to see you
all out there.

Matvey

Status Report

Allright, as we get closer and closer to Burningman, it's looking less and less likely that I'll be able to go.

At least for the whole event. I'm going to try to work something out with my boss, but at the moment, it looks like at most i'll be able to show up for a weekend.

Most likely. What i need to know is this:

A) Does anyone feel comfortable picking up the scaffolding at home depot? This would require you to basically double check to make sure ever single piece that is supposed to fit together, does actually fit together, and that we have every single piece on the little checklist sheet they give you. You'd also need to get 2 foot rebar spikes( total number in the realm of thirty to fourty) , a sledge hammer, 2 rolls of duct tape, 8-10 foot long PVC pipe of fairly substantial thickness( thicker than last year, we had two pipes that were about the right thickness and we'd need about 10-15 of them). A bunch of Tennis balls, and some pvc tie-ems (you know those plastic things that cops sometimes use as makeshift handcuffs during riots, you put one end through the little square hole and pull it through and it makes a "ziiip" noise...)

B) I need someone who is familiar with our setup last year, and who i can talk to about some plans to improve on last years design. It's mostly just minor things, like using our final design for the pvc poles for every pole. I'm going to write a design document about what i think would be the best way to use what we got, and link to it up here, so everyone can be on the same page, and whoever is taking over the setup will be able to work from there, and come up with even groovier solutions.

C) If anyone would feel capable to take up the job, please let me know asap.

I'm going to start working on the design document, and should have something either tonight or monday morning. I'm also going to talk to my boss, and see what we can work out. I'm fairly certain, that if necessary i can come out for the setup weekend, or the final "The man burns" weekend. I'd like to be able to set up camp, because i've said i would, and plus, i really enjoy building stuff like this. However, that means I'll only be at burningman for a night, and someone will have to drive me out to reno.

This really sucks, and i feel really bad about this whole thing. I'll work it out somehow, and I'm sure it'll be an adventure.

Knots and Naughty-ness

A Non-Fiction Primer in Friction.

Knots you need to know!

Click on the linky-thingy below to see the rest!

Get shoelace, or a bit of string, and try these out. The more comfortable you are with these knots, the easier set up will be once we get to the playa.

Also, everybody needs a pocket knife. A little swiss army knife, or something. They are tremendously handy. Can't have enough of em.

Bowline: All purpose. Attach a rope to something else. Strong as hell, easy to undo. Gotta know it.

Square Knot Connect one rope to another. Solid. Good. Second most important.

Truckers Hitch The knot that was made for buringman. Use this know to attach a line to a pole, and then tighten it. If you want a taught line, you want this knot.

Taughtline: Another Burningman special. Kinda like the truckers hitch. But a bit tougher to do.

All the knots you need and more

Remember, when you tie a knot, you should always secure it. Tie a second knot, could be a simple "make a circle and put the end through the circle" knot so that if the first knot wiggles free, there is a second line of defense.

When you are securing something, anything, particularly heavy things, remember "tight is right". The tighter the rope, the less leeway there will be for the rope to move, and the knot to become undone.

If you've got a tangle, the last thing you want to do is try to pull rope out of it. Knots work on friction. The more friction, the less the rope will move. The way to deal with a tangle is to try to get rid of all the friction. That means massaging the tangle to loosen it up. Remember Lisa and I last year, with the huge tangle from the parachute cords. Gotta love the tangle out. Pulling will only make it worse.

That's all i've got to say about that for the moment. Seriously, try out some of the knots. try to attach your piece of rope to something, and see what they are good for, and what knot works best in what situation. Remember, we've got a bigass parachute, and a huge tower. They're going to need to be tied down. Think about how you'd tie something that the wind was pulling on.

Cheers,
Cromie

Tips, and alternative energy site

Alex asked me to post this URL. Check out the Desert Camping tips section.

http://www.ae-zone.org/

Lighting and power

(click below for the open-house announcement)

Hi all. Here is an interesting open-house this weekend about lighting. I'm out of town this weekend, so I can't go.

As promised during yesterday's meeting, I will be responsible for power and lighting. I am looking into battery-powered energy efficient stuff (e.g. compact fluorescent and LED). I'll keep people informed about my progress. If anybody else had plans for this, let me know and we'll join forces.

Hi all. Here is an interesting open-house this weekend about lighting. I'm out of town this weekend, so I can't go. (see below)

As promised during yesterday's meeting, I will be responsible for power and lighting. I am looking into battery-powered energy efficient stuff (e.g. compact fluorescent and LED). I'll keep people informed about my progress. If anybody else had plans for this, let me know and we'll join forces.

SF Meeting, August 4th

Hello everyone. Just wanted to relay the contents of our San Francisco meeting that took place last night. Here are the main points that were discussed:

* We talked about getting camouflage netting. Everyone at the meeting agreed
that they would like to pay for camouflage netting out if our camp fees
* The truck-for-furniture-pick-up problem has been solved, whereas Alex has
kindly volunteered her truck. The pick up of the remaining iotems will take
place on the weekend of the 19th/20th. I will coordinate locating the furniture
on Craigslist, and Andrew and someone else will take Alex's truck and pick
up the furniture. Here is the list of stuff we still need. Please add whatever
you think we missed!
1. more couches!!!
2. folding tables
3. cushions
4. coffee tables
5. trash can
6. milk crates
7. if go with oasis idea, then: green carpet, kiddie pool, tree
Do we like the oasis idea?
8. Chistmas lights
9. lamps (especially halogen lamps)

* Some other tasks to be done:
1. making 2 highly visible signs (large, bright colored) - Joyti has volunteered
to do this
2. Making a large penis for the Golden Shower - I will take care of this :)
3. Working on misting station (i.e. research surgical tubing options) - Andrew
and I will look further into that
4. Researching quiet generator (Miron will look into this)
5. Amplifier - does anyone have one? (i.e. Yuri)
6. Finding large water tank that is clean but not too expensive (Andrew has
been looking into this, I will research this wonderful topic as well) :)

Comments? Things we forgot?
Everyone have a great weekend!!!

Camo Net and adverts

The San Francisco meeting went extremely well last night, I'm proud to say we have a great group of people coming out this year. Helen took notes, so she'll relay them when she gets a chance. In the meantime, I'd like to bring up two things:

1. In a recent email announcement (see extended entry below), Abdullah menitoned we can promote our camp event (banging on lots of pots and pans and making a whole lot of unnecessary noise at once) by sending an MP3 to be played over and over again on Burning Man Radio. Does anybody want to make a commercial? You have until August 22nd.

2. Here is an online supplier of used miliatry camo nets for cheap ($30 for a 10' by 20' plot). The San Francisco group feels it would be an appropriate use of camp funds to provide an additional large shade area for tents by hanging several 10'x20' strips between the length of the truck and a series of poles, thus producing a large area (ideally 30' x 20' of shade using three strips side-by-side, or maybe even 30' by 60' using three strips on either side of the truck). This would be a nice, cheap form of shade for mass sleeping areas. It would cost about $100-$200. What do you think?

PROMOTE YOUR CAMP'S PARTICIPATION ON BMIR 94.5 FM

It's that time of the year, and BMIR 94.5 FM wants to publicize your
psyche-shattering event or theme camp on-air to the entire Black Rock
City community. But we don't want to announce it only once; we'd like
get it out over the radio waves repeatedly throughout the entire
week. So crank up that home studio, record those MP3 spots, and send
them to
bmir@burningman.com.

Be sure they arrive via email no later than Monday, August 22 to
guarantee they get on the air. Or, if necessary, drop by the station
during the week to hand deliver your hunka hunka burned CD into the
receptive and waiting hands of your friendly BMIR DJ. (We'll also be
open from noon to 5pm each day of the event if you'd like to come by
and record your announcement on site...)

BMIR: It's not just a radio station. It's a radio station programmed
by you, a bunch of radical, celebratory self-expressionists living in
the middle of one of North America's harshest environments for seven
days, creating the single greatest people-produced miracle ever to
grace the face of planet Earth.

ticket authenticity???

Hey everyone,
I'm about to buy a ticket from some dude over craigslist...and i mean, he is probably chill and all that...but i'm still a bit paranoid about it not being authentic. do you guys know how to check that kind of thing? Thanks!!

matvey

So confused...

As previously pointed out, I have a tendency to disappear for days on end. Let's just say I know of a secret wardrobe of DOOM!

Anyway, I don't really know what's going on anymore. I have 2 predicaments:

1. My 4 friends are coming in from Reno on Monday, but they don't know whether they should rent this monster of a RV they have reserved. It's 30 feet long and will cost them $3500 for the week. Can our camp even accomodate such a beast? Please let me know so I can tell them to rent it or not.
2. I don't know whether to fly into Reno or San Francisco. Do you guys need help in SF? If not it would be easier for me to fly into Reno (guaranteed ride to and from airport).

Anyway, miss you all and hope to hear from you guys soon.

cars count

Yo everyone, this seems to have come up, so i'm starting a new entry so that we don't all get lost in all the entries and comments etc. Please comment HERE about cars.

I have 1 sedan bringing 4 people (including myself)

Word!

San Francisco Meeting

It's great to see so many posts today, and I'm sorry for adding to the fray, but the San Francisco people need to meet soon. Many of us, particularly Alex and Myron, have never met the group. It's also important that we bounce around some ideas amongst ourselves so we can bring as much good stuff as possible to the Playa. When's good for everybody?

Casa Grove (Denise's appartment on Grove and Ashbury near the panhandle) has generously invited us to meet there this Thursday the 4th. Does this work for people or would the weekend be better?

Filling the space

I wanted to start a new conversation concentrating on how we are going to fill the extra space that we now have. So far, we have the mesh/camouflage netting. I still don't get quite what that is, so please elaborate. Perhaps we can create a mini-oasis? i.e. green carpet (provided I can find that) and a mini-palm tree and a few plants (obviously, ones that can survive the desert - not cactuses, though, because some people may hurt themselves). We could also put in some sort of mini sprinkler in that area or place a few spray bottles there (that we would only have on a little of the time, so it wouldn't take too much extra water). Anyway, other ideas?

Monica's headcount

Here are the names of people that I have in my spreadsheet

Alex Korsunskaya
Andrew Shubov
Anita Tipirneni$
Anya Drabkin
Claudia Lopez*
Helen Pakhnev
Justin Weiner
Jyoti Srivastava
Matvey Farber
Miron Cuperman
Monica Scott
Paul Vladimirsky*
Reid Kay$
Ruth Grayson$
Sam Berlin
Simon Smundak
Yuri Kvichko

*=maybe
$=confirmed but not paid yet

I know that Anita mentioned over the weekend that she had 4 additional friends who were coming, which would bring us to a total 22.. and if you add Yura's friends (I think there are three of them, that would be 25.

I don't think we should have any additional people in our camp. So unless someone knows these CT girls we should turn them down..

Head Count, Part II

i got an email this weekend from two sister from CT. They're interested in joining our camp. So I told them, Brandi and Ally, I'd run this by ya'll and that's the purpose of this post.

Now, I spoke to Simon about this and we decided that we REALLY need a head count to see if we really do want or have the room for two more peeps. So everyone please post a comment on Matvey's previous post and let us all know who is definitely coming and who's still a maybe. This is pretty important cause I don't want to leave the girls hanging and it'll also help Ruth's cooking extravaganza team so please do this as soon as possible.

Simon and I think that we got about 25+- people in camp right now, so we might not want any more cause it'll get more difficult to organize. Let me know what ya'll think... yeah or nay on the girls. Let's get on that headcount...

head count

Yo Everybody,
since food is rather important please pay attention to Ruth's message below!!! We need a headcount of people in the camp so that we can gauge the amount of food we need as best as possible. Please post a comment to this message to say how many people are coming with you/in your car/ etc.

I'll start:
Matvey
Anya*
Reid Kay* (homeboy from Chi)
Alyona (a.k.a. Helen)
we'll be arriving on Wednesday late night.

Please put a * next to people who are veggie only:)

It would be nice for us to have the number of people by the next weekend, since we are planning a meeting with Ruth regarding cookin' it up.

THanks!