KISS

NO blogging lately! Too much work lately - makes me grumpy. Whattodo? I am happy I have a job but this is starting to get on my nerves. 9 months of this and its just getting more Nutty McNutville. Eric took me to the KISS concert last night at Turning Stone. For a fan - ( which I am not...) it was a really great show. Eric's brother john and his son Noah also went and had a great time. Eric has some great footage of Noah jamming along with the band.

Eric managed to get us Second row seats. Which - for a fan..is a great thing. For a non-fan -
it presents a problem..... As opposed to sitting way in back and not feeling the need to hide your disinterest... sitting that close to the stage and the band ( 8 ft?) errr.. you are exchanging direct looks. I was trying my best to maintain a look of fun and interest.... but apparently was not doing a great job.

I know this because...well... Mr. Gene Simons himself let me know ( from on stage...) that I was not enjoying his show enough......

Mr. Simons ( I can confirm..) has "look" that I only thought was skill of my late mother...... And he gave it and I got it. The look basically translated as:

"What the #%$@# are you doing in the front row of my show if you think you have better places to be..?."

I was... embarrassed. and from then on tried to do a much better job showing how much of a KISS fan I wish I was. :O)

Defriend
The outing of the supposedly slick maneuver #34









It is interesting that now with Facebook becoming a near universal place for folks to connect ( at least here in the states..) - how former minor actions seem to become so much more socially significant. Just google "defriend" and it seems that this former insignificant act now justifies
major articles and public consideration

The emotions of a facebook defriending

I yanked the plug on an old friend 2 weeks back after a trip to the West Coast. I had a pretty full trip planned and had a little time flexibility - so I started thinking who I could look up while I was in town. Burning Man friends? Facebook friends that I has yet to meet in person? I chose to look up an old friend from High School who been in a tough spot due to illness in his family. So here's how it went on Facebook:






















If the above graphic is a mystery - it's an old maneuver - basically you do not respond until you know the person is out of range - there by saving you the trouble of honesty or tedium of doing something you don't want to do.

Sadly it is completely transparent and I have a hot button for being taken for stupid.

I mentioned on the phone to my sister mid weekend that I had not gotten a reply but "I am sure I'll hear back tomorrow after I have left town.." And sure enough - the reply note came Sunday afternoon precisely when I mentioned leaving San Fransisco.

So this post...while a bit of a rant - is also to maybe put to an end maneuver #34

Birthday boys

Eric's brother John and his family were up for memorial day last weekend. Also time to celebrate John and Noah's birthday with a BBQ at our house. Cookie cake and Cobbler. Yum Yum

Quick Camping weekend

Headed down to camp this weekend to help clean up our site. Not a big event - but sunday the weather was quite nice. I hope we have good weather for the 4th. Our friend Doug who owns the campground with his partner Steve showed us his birthday present! I think it is their 5th(?) trailer. Very neat.

Weekend Check in

( an overdue blog post that compensates in length and blah blah...)






















I had received an invitation to a BBQ at NIMBY in Oakland for Sunday (more on that in a moment..) , so it seemed a perfect excuse to spend the weekend with my friend Lynn in San Francisco. I ended up taking an evening flight on Thursday with Lynn "collecting" me at her local BART station around 12:00am and putting me to bed for the night.
Friday morning we set off to see non tourist parts of San Francisco Lynn wanted to show me. Aside from the BBQ - I had no specific agenda for the weekend - but I did mention "Food Trucks" and Lynn knows that Junk Shopping always makes me happy.

We set off Friday morning for Crepes and walking some very very neat neighborhoods of Glen Park while we caught up on life. A nice sunny day ( yet not warm....) while Mr Eric reported that it was 85(?) degrees back home. We ended up heading for "16th avenue Steps Project"




































An incredible art installation ( and a bit tiring..) From there - Lynn took me to the Rain Forest Exhibit with the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. An awesome living exhibit of rain forest habitat and its inhabitants. Highly recommended. We wandered from there to the Haight Ashbury neighborhood to grab some late lunch. Lynn and I parted ways as she headed to a Roller Disco Bachelorette party. From there and I walked myself over to the Castro neighborhood. I did not end up poking around much - my jet lag was catching up - so I grabbed a MUNI train back to Lynn's place and crashed for the evening.



Saturday morning - Lynn and I headed off on bike to the Framers market near(?) her apartment. I had some reservations about biking. It is Lynn's primary mode of transport in the city and enabled her to traverse the city fairly nimbly..but I am from the "strolling" old school of biking. The whole move-the-pedals-and-watch-the-scenery skool. ( insert bird song here) The idea of the Crank-the-bike-and compete-with-city-traffic mode ( insert heavy metal music here) I am not skilled in. It requires a mental trigonometry I find stressful. Did I mention I have not been on a bike in a year?? Lynn did a good job getting me safely through the city. After we left the farmers market - we headed to Lynns office space in an old warehouse in Bayview. A GREAT space for her freelance work and a neat facility.

Afterwards we headed to a House-parts-recycling place "Building Resources" to look for any interesting project starters. It was there that I told Lynn of my workshop FULL of interesting-yet-not-started project starters. The Room of Failure I like to call it. It going to get me on one of those Hording shows on TV soon I am sure.... We headed on bike all the way down to Valencia street to do some shopping after we tracked down some Food Trucks. These were on my ToSee list. Between numerious online articles, Friends blog posts and folks on Face book gushing... I wanted to experience Food Truck. So we found a bunch on Valencia street and we skipped the Filipino and headed right for the GARLIC NOODLES. yum yum.


From there - we started hitting up the retro antique stores. One place - Stuff - had lots of good stuff and I was trying very hard to stick to the script and not add to The Room of Failure. It helped that the store "does not ship" - bit I did find a great lamp for our house that Lynn is now going to act as shipper for me.

We then met up with Lynns boyfriend and headed out for Soul Food for dinner. After all the red meat - I called it a night.

Sunday - I returned to Valencia street to look at more stores and search for lost sunglasses. NO luck finding them but I got a chance to stroll over by Dolores Park and take pics of some great houses that...I would find acceptable to buy...... :O)


Lynn, Kenneth and I headed over to Oakland to tour Crucible. An amazing facility that is the number one reason I would contemplate a move to the Bay Area. Lynn's friend Steve gave us a great tour and Lynn kept telling me that if I lived in SF - I could make this place my second home. So Tempting!! Pics of the Crucible facilities...







We then headed over to NIMBY for a BBQ thrown for the fundraisers. NIMBY is another cooperative art facility. Very different from Education focused Crucible. Crucible - much more of an organized education facility and NIMBY - a more punk-based performance space.


The party was an interesting lesson in itself. I have noted the vibe before at Burning Man events. Whereas a group of folks advertize an event to the public or wider circle - but then remain in the smaller private circle mode. It ends up making you feel like you are crashing or intruding. No one in the original circle makes a formal effort to engage anyone outside the original group. I think it is fair to expect that if you advertize to a wider group than your own - that you sign up to engage the newcomers you invited. Otherwise everyone is just gravitates to talking to their friends and you are just standing around. My notion probably stems from previous experience with COAP in Rochester where new folks were always stopping in and we thought it was important to take the effort to make the people you invited actually feel welcome. I was not put out by the vibe at the party... I was happy to hang out with Lynn and Kenneth. But the party did crystalize a nagging impression from various Burning Man events. I think the new insight will be helpful in the future.

After a stop at another house parts place - Lynn and Kenneth drove me back to pick up my stuff, exchange farewells and it was off to the airport for the RedEye. A great weekend.

She blinded me with Science



The Felice Clan came to visit us in Syracuse for the weekend. My Niece Carolyn was competing in a Central New York Science fair here in town on Sunday. So after she set up Saturday afternoon for the Sunday competition - we headed to dinner. Afterwards, Mr. Eric gave the family a little spin in our basement disco.




Sunday afternoon - the family headed over to the local community college to support our brilliant 7th grader and see her science presentation on plant growth.



Way to go Carolyn!

TalksWithHands



Forget DanceWithWolves. Kevin Costner's got nothin' on me.

Van movie

"The Bus" Trailer from Damon Ristau on Vimeo.

I have not even watched this trailer yet .... but I wanted to post it so I did not lose it.

Escape from SyberiaCuse'
















We headed out for our annual winter escape with our friends Greg and Joe this past week. We decided to try Ft. Lauderdale this year and skip the West coast. So on Thursday, we all trekked down on separate flights to Ft. Lauderdale to stay at The Cabannas Guest house for a long weekend. We had beautiful weather - which was sorely needed. The long cloudy weekends tend to put me personally in a funk by the end of February. Combined with a rather extended nutty streak at work - I was really really ready to get out of dodge ( or the frozen gulag..) Our friends Gerry, Matt and Tom C also joined us for a nice calm weekend with no particular schedule - other than maximize use of the 3 pools at the resort. The weekend went a little too quickly, But Eric and i did manage to catch up with our friends Tom B and Eli as well as poke around some antique stores to look for "things" to use with the house.

Random pic for house ideas

Holidays in Syracuse.

Our first party in the new house this past December. Lots of friends and family helped us celebrate with the famous gift exchange and only one broken glass! My sister Cathy came this year to help me with the hors d'oeuvre production and our friends Allan and Ken arrived early to get caught in the pre-party whirlwind. ( Thank you!) Our friend Gerry was the evening photographer and did a great job capturing the night with both our party veterans and new friends!

( Click on any image to enlarge)









Thanks to everyone for coming out on such a cold night!

All the party photos on Flicker here

Burning Man Trip Reflection.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about the trip since my return. Heck - I was thinking about it the whole way home! I think as a whole - the trip was unsuccessful. And I plan to dissect it fully before I contemplate a return. So the following blah blah is more of a recording for myself to READ CAREFULLY before another trip. It is interesting how the memory fades and all that is left are cool pics..

Good things:

• I met many nice new folks at Buscamp.
• The van ( engine wise ) ran perfectly with the OLD engine.
• The route was staged better because I was on my own schedule.
• Wyoming was actually a nice drive!
• I took some great pics with the new recoh camera. I wish I knew how to use it better.

Bad things.... well .. I think several minor snafus snowballed to put a tarnish on the whole trip.

Blew the [ insert here ] budget

- 2 hours after I left home, Eric called to let me know the basement was flooding from the rain.
From there - I started doing a mental tally of effort, energy, time and $ i spent to make this trip happen and it became clear I really really blew the budget. I had not even crossed into Ohio and was thinking "WOW..what have i done...."

- I started working on the engine replacement in MAY and work went really slowly reflecting my learning curve. So 3 weeks before I left - it became clear that the engine replacement was not going to happen in time for the trip. SO the engine sits in the garage, along with a BOAT LOAD of new parts AND a rebuilt 5 speed transmission. A big investment in Time and $.

When it was clear that the swap was not going to happen - I quickly came up with a triage plan for the old engine and was working on it right until the day before I left ( which did not help the stress level...) So for all the efforts and money on the new engine... i managed to get the old engine running quite happy(!) after 2 years of grumpy grumpy and dicking around with VW garages taking money and not really fixing things..

Since the trip was going to be a long one - I short circuited most 2010 vacation planning with patient Eric for the whole year.

Multitasking failure

Work was quite busy when I left - so I decided to work "on the road" - thinking it would be easy
to drive 7-10 hours and day..and then pop open the lap top and pull another 7-8 hours of work out every day of the drive out and back. That was a cute idea - but it was really tough to concentrate after long drives. I DID manage to get some good sketches finished on the road that I was quite happy with but... very tiring and left little time to poke around.

This was ALL being processed before I even arrived in Nevada.

Hence -

Small snafus snowball...

My NEW Optima gel cell was dead the SECOND DAY of the trip. I think that my leaky subwoofer killed it. So even after a 2 day charge in Salt Lake with a brand new battery charger -
NADA. This snowballed further when arriving at the Playa - my new solar panel and charge control decided not to talk to said battery or anything wired to it. - thereby negating the solar panel investment and leaving me with no running water in the van. grrrrr

I had the propane topped up in Nebraska at a KOA. It was only 1/2 full from my 2007 trip and I wanted to be all set at Burning Man. Seemed OK later in Cheyenne when I cooked Chinese ( Yum!) But then the first night I went to cook at BusCamp - NO gas. Zero. Empty.
I do not know if the guy did not fill it right or whether I left the stove on(?) but there was no cooking half the food I brought..... :O( Nor running the fridge.

Driving alone had some advantages but also tiring draw backs. The cross country trip is something to share as an adventure, otherwise it becomes a fairly quiet transportation process.

Lack of Posse

I had spoken to several friends and Eric ( of course) about attending with me and had been VERY upfront about the harsh environment....and the interest level...always dropped off.
And to be honest ... if I did not have the VW angle to this adventure... it would have much less appeal to me as well.... Yet over the week I kept spotting events and things I knew Eric and friends would love. Especially the Disco roller rink....

But on arriving at Burning Man - I met a lot of nice Bus Camp veterans from the west coast who have all gotten to know each other from previous Burning Mans and other regional events. Very welcoming folks but sometimes it felt I was really on the outside looking in. This was definitely a reflection on me. I think that would be different next time around, but it made an impact. I am never that comfortable inserting myself into groups and had to fight the instinct just to solo the whole week. ( was not really successful with that one...) That also runs cross grain to the Burning Man experience of just plunking down with people you have/have not just met and having a good time. ( Not something I do easily...)

This was all magnified mid week when I managed to get all ready for a BusCamp event and then was literally left off the bus... no one to really blame - but definitely a funk starter.

From there it seemed like the daily event or component that I would be looking forward to always seemed to deflate right in front of me. And while there was amazing things going on right around me I should add...

Playa Factor

All of the above would be entirely manageable except for the Playa Factor. This component seems to fade from memory the fastest unfortunately. Camping on the playa is not easy...
Hot HOT HOT and very dusty. A tough camping environment that no one makes a secret of...
Literally from 12 - 3 everyday I was under my sunshade. The sun was too bright and i was risking sun poisoning. Other hours I was constantly spraying more sunscreen on top of whatever playa dust i was already coated with.. yucky.

The dust part drives me crazy. Which will make any BM veteran laugh. It is a part of BurningMan and it is futile to fight it. But I do. I really never thought of myself as a high maintenance person - but spending a week with a fine coating of dust on you and everything around you drives me NUTS. It is directly hitting an idiosyncrasy button of mine.

Apparently it is noticeable - as my friend Pavel at BusCamp made comment that it was entertaining to watch me in 2007 try to keep ahead of the dust... and all I could remember was wondering how anybody could be happy sleeping and rolling in Playa filth for a week. The daily dust storms happily defeat any efforts to fight the dust. Getting in a 2 hour dust storm after dark.... is a whole 'nother world. Especially when the only goggles you have are the darkest ones you could find for use in the daytime. I nearly walked face first into the Burning Man himself because i could not see 12 inches in front of me.

I kept myself together in 2007 despite the environment. But 2010 - with all the other stuff on my mind - I really let it get to me. Despite an actual shower at BusCamp and 3 boxes of Body wipes - by Saturday I really was mentally done with the whole event. I was not relishing the idea of trying to get out of the event Sunday along with 20,000 other people - so I left early. I knew in hindsight it would seem to have been not a big deal just to stay - but at the time - I told myself I really wanted to leave. So I did.

Rush rush rush

The trips out and back always seem rushed. Driving by so many neat things - always in a rush to get to Nevada and then after BM - just wanting to get HOME. And another memory lapse became apparent on the way home. In 2007 - I had just reluctantly sold my home due to unemployment. NO complaints - as I saw a fairly nice equity gain and the bank account was full for the trip. So I never did an accounting of the costs for the trip. Mistake.

All day driving in the van requires 3-4 tanks of gas. KOA camping comes in at $30 a night
and then there is food. Multiply that by 10 driving days and a couple of hotel stays and
that is a serious chunk of money in a short period of time. Paying for it Solo really can empty out a bank account fast! And normal bills do not cease because you are out of town. So my return to new york had a couple of $$ meters running on empty. Did I mention I maxed out my credit card on Van parts before I left NY......?


Participant vs Observer

I tend to run well in a participant mode at new adventures and settings. And for BurningMan there are LOTs of opportunities to do so. But the Cross country part of the adventure really makes that difficult... No opportunity to "Do" something for BurningMan because I am stressing out to make sure I actually get there... and my daydreams of cool art projects are not compatible with dragging across the country.... ( at least not yet... :O)


Now - after all this crabbing - if you look at my pics - you can see that I was surrounded by Amazing things..... hence the need to fix and analyze, fix and try again! :O)

Pics => Glowstick fun with Joel, Ramona and Matt

Pics => Fire Spinning at BusCamp

Pics = > BurningMan Art and trip


So! I am already trying to figure out a plan for 2013. Some could easily say to drop the whole idea - but that is difficult when it is clear the trek CAN BE an amazing adventure. and I just did not get it right. Further thoughts or directives for 2013

- The van must be squared away and not require the whole summer to prep.
- I need to bring Eric for a part of the trip and friends to share the experience
- I need to be a participant in this creative outlet ( already sketching that one out... :O)
- I need to actually budget for this trip
- I need to slow the trip down to smell the flowers

I am sure I will figure out more as the next 2 years unfold......




All of this recorded to contemplate before a possible return in 2013. I will need to plan around this experience or risk a repeat.

iPad = Blog Killer?

Curious change of habits since September. Mr. Eric bought me an iPad for our anniversary!

I totally scored on THAT one! :O) and I drag it all over the house now.... so a I rarely get down to my office to sit in front of the actual computer to photo edit and blog. So I will try and do some catching up.

Return Home

I made a point to stop back in Cheyenne on the way home from Burning Man. I caught a glimpse of the town on the previous trip and thought it would be nice to poke around on my return. Downtown has a nice Rt 66 feel to it. Lots of retro details and interesting architecture. The development phases of the town are quite evident. The central core on the main street is old Route 30 and you can see how the town developed and the turn of the century architecture gives way to the retro 50's features as you move away from downtown.













And typical of American discard culture - both the turn of the century and the 1950's architecture are in disrepair/ state of abandon and it all gives way on the outskirts of town to generic big box retail. It appears like the downtown is pretty much ignored. Very sad for a cute town.