EARLY ARRIVALS

stormfeather · Post by **stormfeather** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 6:22 pm

wtf?
No Idaho camps?!
Tell them there will be no french fries for them on the playa!

Dustdevil · Post by **Dustdevil** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 6:29 pm

I just received a note from Staff that there are more bar codes going out in the next 24 hours.

stormfeather · Post by **stormfeather** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 6:43 pm

That's very interesting!

Who is your placer? What city sector?
Inquiring minds want to know.

Dustdevil · Post by **Dustdevil** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:13 pm

It actually came directly from our team supervisor, I work for the Performance Safety Team.

Dustdevil · Post by **Dustdevil** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:17 pm

Here is an interesting note. One of my friends just an hour ago got her early entry. It was dated 8-14 @ 9:47 am. All may not be lost.

stormfeather · Post by **stormfeather** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:34 pm

yep, all of them sent out at once either Thursday, Aug 13 (like mine) or some perhaps last Friday, and then they ddd--rrr--iii--bbb--lll--eee--ddd in, one at a time, the flow stopping as of Sunday.

There were techincal difficulties, so they admit.

We did not get the number that we requested.

The annoying thing is that no one will tell us what we were allotted, and if we are getting any more, so that folks can make their arrangements for travel, ie: carpooling (we have a bus).

Our polite e-mails were ignored until, I took matters in my own hands a pulled the one string I had.

Then within minutes, I finally got a "we're workin' on solving this" e-mail last night.

Nothing yet, stlll hopeful, but very much in the dark.

Trying to keep edgy crew away from panic button.

littlewing · Post by **littlewing** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:37 pm

sooo, interesting... is there a common thread that connects all of us who are not getting our EA passes? hmmmm

stormfeather · Post by **stormfeather** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 12:07 am

perhaps...i'm thinking Center Camp

POWERCHAIR · Post by **POWERCHAIR** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 3:07 am

.........

littlewing · Post by **littlewing** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:02 am

I think the BORG shod inform thyme camp's how many early entry passes they get when accepted to be a BRC thyme camp.
To prevent logistic-lee crippling thyme camp's.
Give the thyme camp's 40 days of logistic PLANNING AHEAD TIME.

P.S. BMHQ pleas work with the camps on this thanks.
_________________

Well said.
We are in Berlin sector and STILL have not received any more passes, I agree- it would be a great idea to at least let us know how many we will get ahead of time so we can plan on that. It's a simple gesture of respect. If there are 550 camps with 11 placers, that's 50 camps each right? One person should be able to get information to his/her 50 camps, and not just those lucky few whose private emails get replied to. If they are out on the playa at this point working, well they should have taken care of this before they left. It's their jo for chrissakes.

pinemom · Post by **pinemom** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 7:05 am

tick tock tick tock....

5.5 days left...and no passes.........................................

Ruleryak · Post by **Ruleryak** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 7:57 am

I too had to contact someone I really shouldn't have contacted in order to get a response at all. At least I got the "you'll get your passes, don't worry" sort of response so I'm trying to make myself calm down. The problem is we're poor thanks to spending nearly every spare cent we had on our theme camp so if in the end we don't get as many as we requested we're screwed. There literally is no other way to get our crew into Burning Man if we can't all ride together (because we don't have other cars, don't have money to fly or anything, and we're 850 miles away in a place where pretty much no one's even heard of Burning Man).

Oh well, fingers crossed - here's hoping I hear something today or tomorrow. I was told almost two weeks ago I was getting exactly as many passes as we requested by my placer so it would incredibly rude of them to go back on that. They have to realize the planning that goes into pulling this off so I'm sure they're working as hard as they can. My appreciation still goes out to all of the placement team for their efforts - here's hoping we hear back and can calm down before it's too late!

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 9:32 am

My guess is that placement is running themselves ragged with everything else they are doing. And some may have limited access to the net. Sending multiple emails may result in their opening their boxes to find 100 mails when 25 would have done. I"m not saying it's not frustrating. Just maybe we shouldn't take it out on people doing their best to help us already.

Dactyl · Post by **Dactyl** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 9:58 am

One week to go....I'm sorry but 'they're trying their best' or 'lets keep our fingers crossed'? That's just sad. Has there been any explanation of why they need to hand out less passes? They can't even get mobility camp covered.

This behavior is inexcusable in any modern time since the advent of telegraph. A simple 'don't count on getting as many passes this year' could have been posted/emailed/sent by mule train months ago...

Dr Dilemma · Post by **Dr Dilemma** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 10:24 am

Dactyl wrote:One week to go....I'm sorry but 'they're trying their best' or 'lets keep our fingers crossed'? That's just sad. Has there been any explanation of why they need to hand out less passes? They can't even get mobility camp covered.

This behavior is inexcusable in any modern time since the advent of telegraph. A simple 'don't count on getting as many passes this year' could have been posted/emailed/sent by mule train months ago...

I can't speak to or for the people that have volunteered to take on this task, but I have volunteered for other, albeit vastly smaller, organisations and just to throw in my tuppensworth here ... the key word here is VOLUNTEER.

I know that planning even for a very small theme camp has consumed a huge amount of resources for months. Bitching about the people who are doing this work for nothing isn't really all that helpful. What would be more helpful is asking "how can I contribute MY time and energy to make this happen better in the future."

But again, I really have no clue what was involved in sending out the mailings, or the circumstances around the mailing hiccup, so I really can't add anything constructive to figuring out how to fix it.

mars · Post by **mars** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 12:05 pm

Absolutely Kestrel, it's good to have a How Can I Help Attitude. But that's for next year. Right now, we are in a serious time crunch and the people who are complaining are people who are putting their heart and souls and finances into big time gifting at BRC, and are currently left dangling, not even knowing for sure if they should start on plan B, or if anything can be done at all with so little support/communication from the ORG.

I finally heard something from my placer...he basically seemed to have no idea what's going on even though i've communicated our situation to him. His email said, "according to my records, you received 6 passes and you're asking for 2 more". No, we received 3 passes and are asking for 4 more.

The good news, for us, is that they perhaps they have approved 6 of the 7 passes we need. The bad news, for everybody, is that they seem to have no idea how many passes we actually received. I hope hope hope that they get on top of this and that we, and everyone else, will be taken care of. (Apparently, had I followed his earlier instruction not to contact him again, we would probably not even be on his radar.)

He also mentioned that they will know more this evening.

I'm writing this not to whine, but to disseminate information so that we all know as much as possible and can hopefully get this mess figured out in a way that meets all the early arrival needs for theme camp transportation and set-up.

There may be some camps that take advantage and ask for more passes than they need, but I'm pretty sure that those of us who are freaking out here are not of that variety...we really need all the passes we have asked for.

And Powerchair, once my own camp is set, if I hear of any extra passes, I will funnel them in your direction.

POWERCHAIR · Post by **POWERCHAIR** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 1:15 pm

Killbuck · Post by **Killbuck** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 2:18 pm

Placer said to keep my eye on my email inbox.

Nothing so far.

They did say they were gonna arrive, but I've got camps in the village that have thier earlies leaving from far flung lands in just days... and they gotta get em beforehand.

Please let's not hear:

"It was your responsibility to get the passes to your campmates in time..."

Yes. That's what was said the LAST time the passes arrived very late.

But they did say they'd be arriving, so I'll trust they are doing what they can.

Skye2kx · Post by **Skye2kx** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 2:28 pm

Kernul Killbuck wrote: But they did say they'd be arriving, so I'll trust they are doing what they can.

You know, it could become an interesting problem....

What if, as seems to be implied, all the EA passes HAVE gone out, but for some reason are hung up in the tubes somewhere? Can that even happen? I haven't heard anyone say that they're still being SENT, just that "they'd be arriving."

So what if when they arrive is now out of their hands? And they don't arrive in time?

Just speculating....

wedeliver · Post by **wedeliver** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 2:35 pm

My 2 cents..... just go if you don't get the EA's. Follow through on your plan, at the gate you will be provided.

Forward all email and communications to all camp mates who have planned EA. have your ID and TICKETS at the GATE!

If someone has to leave before the email with the early entry arrives, just explain that at the gate, have corroborating evidence!

Killbuck · Post by **Killbuck** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 3:28 pm

wedeliver wrote:My 2 cents..... just go if you don't get the EA's. Follow through on your plan, at the gate you will be provided.

Forward all email and communications to all camp mates who have planned EA. have your ID and TICKETS at the GATE!

If someone has to leave before the email with the early entry arrives, just explain that at the gate, have corroborating evidence!

That's what we had to do last time. Several of the passes did not get sent until long after people were on the road and unreachable.

At the agte I was told "sorry, they can't come in.. it was YOUR responsibility to get the passes to them on time."

The passes were sent too late I said.

The guy at the gate says: "...it was YOUR responsibility to get the passes to them on time."

But there was no way at all to do that!!

"...it was YOUR responsibility to get the passes to them on time."

And it went on like that.

NOT a prediction!!!! Just the way it was then.

Harinama · Post by **Harinama** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 3:55 pm

wow, i finally received the 4 ea passes we requested, after hammering our wonderful placement lady, hepkitten for a few days.

We'll be lucky to just get our main shelter up, however, by 12:01 am monday...lets hope they are kind and patient.

To all of you who haven't gotten your passes, maybe we need to form a list of all those theme camps who will need setup help late Sun nite..? Maybe a list posted at Center Camp?

I'm happy to volunteer..

This is going to be a great BM! Lets stick together and make it happen!

Dr Dilemma · Post by **Dr Dilemma** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 4:16 pm

sounds like they had a software failure, I believe they were using a custom written PERL script, but I could be wrong... part of the problem is that any useful mass mailing software is crazy expensive, like you can't get anything worth a crap for under $20,000. "Back in the day" you could, and I did, write a simple PERL script, dump it out to sendmail (or qmail if you wanted to happen today) and bang you are done. NOW with spam being what it is and you have blacklists and rate limiting and you have to have your mail server set up just so or you loose half your mail. For instance, most big mail services will set off automatic blocks if they see more than X mails arriving from a single IP in a defined period of time, and your mail will bounce. If you have say written your own PERL to send it out, you may not know that because return codes are very inconsistent. thats the primary reason they c an charge shit tons for the software, it has gotten really complicated to send out groups of emails.

anyway, I'm nerding out here, and doesn't do a lot to alleviate frustration if you haven't gotten yours yet.

it could be worse, just have a list at the door of names and when they looked up yours ...

Killbuck · Post by **Killbuck** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:06 pm

Meanwhile, somewhere in a parallel universe.....

Paperboy · Post by **Paperboy** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:07 pm

That's so beautiful, thanks for that!

regynalonglank · Post by **regynalonglank** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:16 pm

good one Kernul, but you fergot to include the dryer sox

Dactyl · Post by **Dactyl** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:19 pm

[quote="KestrelSF"]
I can't speak to or for the people that have volunteered to take on this task, but I have volunteered for other, albeit vastly smaller, organisations and just to throw in my tuppensworth here ... the key word here is VOLUNTEER.[/quote]

Um okay. Maybe you know more that I do...but I'm pretty sure that bmorg is part of the LLC or IS the LLC and that these people are likely employees. IF they are volunteers, yeah let's get some of the major theme camp leaders in there to help them or something. Sounds like you could prolly help them in the comp dept ...

Killbuck · Post by **Killbuck** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 7:07 pm

This is going to sound like an odd question...

...has anyone out there, who has recieved early passes, had those passes disappear from your email?

dragonfly Jafe · Post by **dragonfly Jafe** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 7:09 pm

Kernul Killbuck wrote:This is going to sound like an odd question...

...has anyone out there, who has recieved early passes, had those passes disappear from your email?

this does not sound good....

Dustdevil · Post by **Dustdevil** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 7:09 pm

My passes have shown up as pdf files with a unique number to each pass. I download and print the pass when it arrives and save the original letter. I am not certain something could vanish after it is downloaded unless you delete that file. BUT, I am certainly not the most knowledgable person on this subject.