Re: The 2025 Burning Man Bar is open

[FIGJAM]

Common sense has become an oxymoron, and the more certain someone is about anything means they are probably somehow wrong!!!

[^Rhino!]

Common sense has become an oxymoron, and the more certain someone is about anything means they are probably somehow wrong!!!

Gee....Imagine that - oxymorons like:
Police Intelligence
Military Intelligence

But then again, FIGJAM. there are also redundancies like:
Criminal Lawyer

I get your point, though.

[FIGJAM]

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[Elliot]

Common sense has become an oxymoron, and the more certain someone is about anything means they are probably somehow wrong!!!

Hi, FIGJAM!
You may be onto something there, and you are in good company.

[burner von braun]

*pours drinks for all*

Happy Winter Solstice everyone!

Remember to step outside this evening after sunset and take a look at Jupiter and Saturn's Grand Conjunction toward the southwest if you're interested. It looks like clear skies here!

[ygmir]

hey BVB! *grabs drink* thanks!
clear skies here, too. I may check it out.
It's an interesting thought experiment for me:
Every day, something happens, that has not happened in 10,000 years, and won't happen for 10,000 more. I guess it's just what we care about, or what will make headlines, really.
*heads for ROS*

[lucky420]

Common sense has become an oxymoron, and the more certain someone is about anything means they are probably somehow wrong!!!

Hi, FIGJAM!
You may be onto something there, and you are in good company.

Wonderful quote, thank you

[Elliot]

Russell was probably one of the smartest and wisest people who ever lived.

[FIGJAM]

I've started telling people ...

I know a lot about a few things.

I know a little about a lot of things.

But I don't know everything about anything!!!

[lucky420]

Russell was probably one of the smartest and wisest people who ever lived.

I like this one too.

[Elliot]

... ... ...
But I don't know everything about anything!!!

This does indeed fit Bertrand Russell.
He was not perfect. But he was able and willing to change his mind when he learned more about something.
For example, he started out opposed to all war. Then, as he saw what Hitler was doing, he changed his mind to "sometimes, war is the necessary lesser of two evils".

Anyway... I came across a John le Carre' which I had not read before -- The Secret Pilgrim. It is full of philosophy. Lovely.

[ygmir]

... ... ...
But I don't know everything about anything!!!

This does indeed fit Bertrand Russell.
He was not perfect. But he was able and willing to change his mind when he learned more about something.
For example, he started out opposed to all war. Then, as he saw what Hitler was doing, he changed his mind to "sometimes, war is the necessary lesser of two evils".

Anyway... I came across a John le Carre' which I had not read before -- The Secret Pilgrim. It is full of philosophy. Lovely.

that's so key, IMHO. The ability to change ones mind, given new information. Especially when verified.
I lament how so many people have dug their heels in, not only refusing to accept information, but often rejecting said information, based on ego and prejudice.

[Simon of the Playa]

merry christmas and happy holidays and groovy solstice and whatever else turns your yule crank to all.

may the next go-round the sun be better than the last.

see you in the dust.

[Elliot]

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[Sham]

Due to a visit from the Board of Health caused by social distancing violations, we had to move our Burning Man Bar around the corner. Go down the side ally and you'll find an unmarked door. Knock twice and whisper the secret password---you know what it is: PINEAPPLE.

Welcome to the Burning Man Bar 2021. Make yourselves at home and don't forget to wash your hands after using the toilet.

Happy Holidays to everyone and wishing you all a much better 2021.

[Elliot]

Walt sent me.jpg

[Elliot]

Christmas 1983.

I was about ten months into my wasted years driving 18-wheelers, and I had left Northern California with a load going to the North-East – I-80 all the way.

Truck number 82 was a well-worn 1978-ish Kenworth cab-over with 3406 Caterpillar, 13-speed, air ride, and manual steering.
Manual steering is perfectly fine – you simply turn the steering wheel 'round-n-'round a lot more than with new-fangled power steering.

Until Iowa.
The steering became so hard it was difficult to change lanes on the freeway, and I barely made it down an offramp and into a parking lot, pulling on the steering wheel with both hands and both feet.
Safely stopped, I looked at the front of the truck.

Like all cab-overs, the cab was hinged at the front for access to the engine, and there was a gap of a few inches across the front of the truck, between the top of the bumper and the bottom of the cab.
And sure enough... the steering gear was right behind that gap, receiving the full blast of the bitterly cold winter air. The grease inside was probably close to solid from the cold – at least, that is how it felt.

I found a cardboard box behind a store, flattened it, and I probably used bailing wire, and I covered that darn gap.
By then, engine heat had thawed the steering gear, and the cardboard kept it from freezing up again. But I now had "a pretty good idea" this was a cold winter.

In Pennsylvania, at night, I was asleep in a truck-stop, engine humming steadily at high-idle, when I was awakened by a loud bang, followed by an ominous hiss.
To this day... I feel "I must live right", because the problem was inside the cab, in the instrument panel which opens easily.

An air hose had blown out of its fitting. I reassembled it, restarted the engine and watched the gauge – which headed straight off the scale.
The air compressor governor had frozen, and the compressor kept pumping until the weakest link blew. Again, "...must live right", for the weakest link to have been right in my nice warm lap.

I sure as shooting-match wasn't about to leave the engine off for more than a few minutes – and not be found until April -- so I might as well put it in gear and continue east.

To regulate the air pressure, I pinched the loose hose with vice-grip pliers, adjusting the leak to keep the pressure in vicinity of the normal range. Basically, I was steering with my left hand and managing the air pressure with my right – up to my elbow inside the instrument panel.

Come mid-morning, I found a truck-stop which let me park inside the shop until the governor thawed out.
They had little other business, since precious few trucks were trying to go anywhere. For one thing, the weather was the coldest they had known in "human memory". And Christmas was approaching.

No-one complained about the frazzled look on my face when I delivered the load. It may have been in New Jersey -- I do not remember exactly.

Dispatch then sent me to pick up a load of aluminum in the same general area – I want to say Baltimore, but it might have been Pittsburgh. The destination was a company called Rockwell in Southern California.

Rockwell... turned out to the airplane company, and this was the year they started their second production run of the B-1 bomber.
The load consisted of a handful massive aluminum extrusions in the approximate shape of I-beams.

And there were many trucks picking up the same aluminum beams going to the same Rockwell plant.
And we were all given strict delivery deadlines...

...At the same time as the newspaper headlines screamed about the whole freezkin' North Pole blowing into the mid-west and beyond. Christmas – only a few days away – was being cancelled left-right-and-even-south.

And all these trucks needed to high-tail it right thru the stuff, which was worsening by the hour – from the level of winter I have already described on my way east. Now it was "go west, young man, and quickly!"

So, I headed south.
Down I-95 all... the... way... down... to... Jacksonville, Florida, before I turned west on I-10.

My most distinct memory is of passing thru Houston, Texas, on Christmas morning. The temperature in Houston, Texas, on 25 December 1983 was 16 Fahrenheit.

I remember Houston specifically, because that morning I picked up my only hitch-hiker in 27 years of trucking – a man who was near tears, trying to make it home for Christmas. Not kidding. With practically no cars on the roads. So, truck 82 was it.

The radio told of Dallas/Ft. Worth and I-20 being a thick-and-solid sheet of ice and no humans going anywhere whatsoever up there.

Somehow, I gave no thought to the other trucks headed for Rockwell, presumably even further north on I-40. (They were found in April. Kidding. But only a little.)

My load of very-fancy aluminum beams arrived in Los Angeles on time.
A cheerful gentleman told me I was the first truck to arrive, and all the others were reported severely delayed. I told him the route I had chosen.

For the next hour or so, the gent gave me a royal tour of the plant, and especially the humongously long mill on which my massive extrusions would be machined down to "wafer" thickness, to serve inside the wings of the B-1.
To maintain the required precision, the bed of the mill had to be re-leveled several times a day as the temperature rose.
(I could tell you more, but you do not have high enough security clearance.)

When I telephoned and told my boss, George -- the owner of the truck and the man who paid for all that extra fuel for my detour to Florida -- of said detour, he only grunted, very much to my relief.

At home base a few weeks later, George walked up to me and handed me a letter. The letter was from Rockwell, and it was a commendation to truck 82 for service above and beyond the call of duty. It mentioned "professionalism" and that sort of thing.

Along with the letter, George handed me a hundred dollar bill – which was "real money" in 1983 -- and the keys to an almost new truck with power steering.

To this day, there are plenty of articles online about "the coldest Christmas ever" in 1983. One mentions 14 F in Galveston, which confirms my memory of 16 F in Houston.
Alas, I no longer have the letter from Rockwell.
But I can still "see" that entire trip in my mind.

It does not matter what kind of work you do.
What matters is that you bother to do your best at it.

And that you always carry bailing wire and vice-grips.
.

Huckberry_Krampus_Shenal_2 960.jpg

[ygmir]

Due to a visit from the Board of Health caused by social distancing violations, we had to move our Burning Man Bar around the corner. Go down the side ally and you'll find an unmarked door. Knock twice and whisper the secret password---you know what it is: PINEAPPLE.

Welcome to the Burning Man Bar 2021. Make yourselves at home and don't forget to wash your hands after using the toilet.

Happy Holidays to everyone and wishing you all a much better 2021.

this is an interesting thought exercise, for me as relates to #1:
I do put my hands, where I'd never put my junk, but I don't ever put my junk, where I'd not put my mouth...
so, washing before I pee seems to make the most sense...

[ygmir]

Secondly:
Happy (insert holiday, celestial event, or random day here)!
I hope folks are as happy and healthy as can be, and hanging on with both hands.
I'd like to thank the Mod. team here, for keeping this small forum operational, for the handful of us who actually use it fairly regularly.
Skal!!

[burner von braun]

A very engaging, well-written story Elliot! Thanks for sharing!

[^Rhino!]

'tis that time of year when I humbly submit to all of you my best wishes for your holiday season, and furthermore extend to each of you my wishes for a safe, happy, and prosperous New Year.

Gung Hei Fa Choy! Happy Chinese New Year to all as well.

[FIGJAM]

A SHORT HISTORY OF BAGPIPES.

Discovered in the early plasticine era, the pipes were used to summon "The Haggis".

The Haggis would respond to see what was making that infernal racket.

The pipers would then present the infernal beast with a claymore as an apology for disturbing the peace.

Having no hands or arms, The Haggis would shake its oatmeal disappointedly at how stupid humans could be, and leave the claymore behind returning to its sporran to hibernate.

The tradition continued till the dark ages when they couldn't see what they were doing, and gave up the silly business.

The pipes are still played today as nobody has figured how to get them to stop.

[ygmir]

I must say I do like "the pipes" at times.
But, this does clarify a lot for me.
can you now explain rap for me?

[FIGJAM]

I know it works great on doors.

[Elliot]

If this Bar has an official Bar Poem (the way a state might have a State Bird, and such), this is surely the poem in question!

[ygmir]

we'll need to build a chamber then, for a door to gently rap on?

[FIGJAM]

I you build the door, nobody will hear a rap!!!

[Elliot]

[Canoe]

Christmas 1983. ...

Cool story!
Cardboard up front is a frequent vehicle saver here in the cold.

... To regulate the air pressure, I pinched the loose hose with vice-grip pliers, adjusting the leak to keep the pressure in vicinity of the normal range. ...

lol
Not as difficult, but I once had to do similar in emerg with a blood-pressure cuff. Its hose was leaking and the valve lock broken, leaving me pumping continuously while reading the mercury to vary the pumping rate to keep the pressure where the Dr. wanted to keep blood out of a wound in a hand while he traced the nerves and stitched it up. Head nurse came in while I was pumping away and immediately wanted to know what I was doing. I explained and she watched for 20 seconds, which seemed like a very long long time. She finally nodded and left. Dr. let out a huge sigh when the door closed, as we both missed getting blasted. Pt. didn't notice, all was good.

[Elliot]

Christmas 1983. ...

Cool story!
Cardboard up front is a frequent vehicle saver here in the cold.
... ... ...

Thanks!
I grew up in Norway, so I knew what to do.

Now....
I stumbled across this image. We could make a contest out of it.