While I'm sure that some number of people get dosed each year, and that it's terrible for some of those dosed, as a guy who spends most hours of the event working with the Green Dot Rangers (psychiatric services) with an ear to medical issues (ex-EMT), LEAL Rangers (Law Enforcement Liaison), and on ...

Playa dust will get into every opening, every data port, every place that moves, especially in a camera with a lens which moves forward and backward (which pretty much includes every in-pocket digital camera). My solution for the last few years has been the dustproof and waterproof Pentax Optio W10 ...

Late in the game? Bah, you wait 'til mid-August. That's late in the game :-) Seriously, check out the Theme Camps section of burningman.com and send some email. "Hi, we're newbies and think your camp sounds great. May we join?" Better to have a home before you roll around the city in your RV after h...

In 07 we had a camp-mate fined for attempting to bring in a stow-away. As the searchers entered the front of the RV she jumped out a rear door. She couldn't get a ticket because... (wait for it)... she'd left her purse in the RV, which by now was deep in camp. Sucked to be her. Gate and Perimeter an...

Yes, exactly.

But we need a better t-shirt.

I hate this meme. It's so completely off the mark that it's unbelievably disappointing. Even the original phrase piss clear, not cloudy misses, because people can't grok that we're not talking about color but about opacity from the proteins dumped into the urine while getting truly dehydrated. That ...

From the happy-go-lucky folks over at bikeforums.net, how to open a Kryptonite U-lock with a BIC pen body.

If you use a U-lock for your bicycle, or a circular lock for your laptop, this might be a really good read. (Videos included.)

Oh, it's going to be a fun time on the playa next year...

Not to rag on Larry's anti-vending thang, but Burning Man just hasn't been the same since vending (in general) stopped. In the good old days sanctioned vending around Center Camp just *made* the event. http://www.geektimes.com/michael/travel/usa/nv/burningMan/1996/06-black-rock-city/images/960830mcs...

I'll say it again, in case the broadcasters (and ex-broadcasters) haven't gotten enough Ranger Love: I missed you guys in 2003. Every year I drag a solar-powered radio up to the playa and revel in the multitude of offerings. It was sad having such a quiet and orderly radio scene this year. I think w...

There is a great magazine entitled "Accidents in Mountaineering" available at your nearby well-stocked outdoors shop. Every year the editors present self-reported accidents and commentary on what could have been done differently. It's an amazing read, esp. if you want to go up into the mountains you...

<OLD FART ACCENT>
Well, kids, when I was a boy school started the Monday after Labor Day! What is this crap I see now-a-days, where kids are in school in the freakin' middle of August? Right un-American, I tell you. Grrrr.
</OLD FART ACCENT>

Reno has been very good to us each year. Good food, receptive staff, nice hot showers, and restaurants open 24/7. We usually chow down at the El Dorado Chef's Buffet . Sleep at the Western Village, on the edge of town, right by the highway. The ribs and hot-rod car thing is just another theme camp, ...

Considering the <ahem> state of mind I was in the night I saw the burning bicycle man, I thought it was a real person with some sort of cool pyro-suit on...and I was completely at one with that "reality". I was high on nothing but life, and I figured the same thing. Hey, it's Burning Man. People on...

You can see a tiny (108 KB) version of what I caught on videotape.

I'm not proud, but there it is.

QuickTime. Ought to be cross-platform. Someone tell me if it's not.

Save As if you really, really want it.

The full-quality DV version is 21 MB; available to those who really want it.

And we missed you!

Radio at Burning Man is almost my favorite part. I've wanted to record a whole week of it and then assemble some "best of" CDs. The chatter in the 90s was priceless...

I hope you're broadcasting last year. Mmmm, gambalon.

telizas wrote:...as well as recieiving buns for our cheeseburgers from Kidsville - made that meal so special...

And it was fun for our camp to pass them on to you!

Mickey (that huge shade structure green parachute right next to the Kidsville common area).

$3000 Canondale? Yikes! The thing cost me $500 many years ago. It's still in good shape, but only because (1) I don't exercise near as much as I ought to and (2) I treat my toys well. Aside: I used to race bicycles, and never had anything "better" than a very light used bike which cost *maybe* $350 ...

Not just yet, thanks, but I did download the graphic and I saved it.

I'm sure it'll come in handy.

It's just amazing that others are saying "disneyfication" and using mickey ears; I've been using the magic kingdom as a comparison point to the ever-mellower BM for several years now...

Funny; I make a bet they were thinking the same thing.

Consumer,

Thank you a wonderful post, and for running what sounds like a great camp! I'll try to remember to swing by next year to see the magic.

Agreed. Performance art. Plainclothes (undercover) LEOs look like guys who are wearing "casual Friday" outfits: polo shirts, blue jeans, hiking boots. Uniformed LEOs frequently have windbreakers with their agency in big letters (DEA, FBI) or wear their service jackets. LEOs don't do a lot of running...

Just for the record, such as it is, we do keep an eye out for things like stolen art cars as we hear reports coming in over the radio. In contrast to what one sees on COPS, where a static city is shown, imagine for a moment what it's like to be on the lookout for a number of stolen / misplaced vehic...

...i wish that bmorg could explore a legal avenue to fighting the FCC on behalf of participants... I spoke to the folks at K-SVERT, a "pirate" radio station (albeit in the open on the Esplanade), about this FCC business. They checked, could find no complaints anywhere in the area in the past year, ...

I have a few seconds of him on somewhat blurry video, but if someone wants to host it I'll export it to a video... email me at mickey (at) rangers (dot) org.

There *are* a few LE females; a bevy of which I worked with in 2002 and a Sheriff's Deputy who comes back year after year (who wears a Ranger hat with the word "sheriff" on it and a "Question My Authority" button). All of them were a pleasure, nothing like the over-caffienated wonder described earli...

http://afterburn.burningman.com/02/bizserv/photos/cafe_logo.jpg From the AFTERBURN REPORT 2001 : "In 2001 Burning Man gave $41,000 in charitable donations to the town of Gerlach, our neighbor in the Black Rock Desert... This money is derived from ice sales. It was contributed to Gerlach Senior Citi...

Navigation is another issue. Don't get me started there. Grunt. And what is it with folks who feel that if it doesn't include JavaScript or Flash it's just not a proper site? In my professional life more than half of my time is spent convincing upper management that the important thing is getting i...

You got a pointer? I'm curious.

My Buring Man pages ought to display on most anything out there, save perhaps the most tiny of web-enabled phones. (Actually, it works on my Treo 180.)

I don't understand when folks bother setting up a web site and then make it near impossible to read or navigate.

1996 was an interesting year (my first at BM). http://www.geektimes.com/michael/travel/usa/nv/burningMan/1996/images/bm96-tix-obverse.jpg We were much farther out from the road, and so we had a long drive (12 miles east, two miles south) to the city. People were going about from 40 to 70 mph on the ...