My good stuff, bad stuff and interesting stuff post for 2010

[Karma]

This year BRC had such a wide variety of dynamics to it I'm still trying to process it all. Here's a few observations.
The soft entry on Sunday. Opening the gates 6 hours early might've seemed like a good idea to the org at the time, but I imagine all it did was reward the people who DIDNT listen to all the posts about not showing up before midnight. And next year they're gonna have 1000's showing up early in hopes of catching it again.

My neighbors. As for the last 5 years, the amazingness (yes I made that a word) of my neighbors from Perpetual Virgins at 6 and F (Home of the crappiest lemonade stand in BRC 6 years running) make arriving at the event and the subsequent week ahomecoming like no other.

My "Other" neighbors. Sadly this year we had the misfortune of camping across the street from the ass side of Entheon Village. The front side of there camp (6:10 thru 6:30 and E) looked pretty cool and I'm sure they did alot of cool things for the people in their village and whomever dropped in to visit. But the backside of their village (6:10 thru 6:30 and F) was just one long wall of unadorned massive RV's that pretty much implied Fuck you and keep out !!
Now I dont blame the ppl in the RV's. I learned 1st thing Monday morning that they have no say in where they're placed in the village. My critique is aimed squarely at the organisers of the village.
How hard would it have been to set the wall 20' off the street and do something mildly creative on the F side of the village. Even a couple openings with something creative and inviting would've shown some effort.
Think about it for next year Entheon.

Center camp. I know alot of ppl complain about them. 'theyre too slow, better service, yap yap yap and whats with the whole thing of making ppl in line dance at 630am ?? Well, I think they kick ass ! Always have. My favorite part of the day is early morn run to CC for a Mocha and find a nice spot to sit facing the open Playa. So great !

BRC hardware. Bunch of hard workin helpful bad asses. I normally try to avoid camps like that cause I work pretty hard to bring whatever I need to fix the stuff we bring. But this year I was forced to ask for there help on Thursday and though you could tell they were tired and becoming a little jaded as one easily planned for problem after another came in, they still spent 20 minutes with me trying to suss out my problem. And when I brought them a couple bags of ice for the effort, they were pretty stoked. Thanks guys !

BRC recycle. After 5 years of getting the attitude from them, we decided to skip taking our cans to them and just recycle in Reno. Although we did see a couple ppl actually smiling in their camp this year and TWICE someone said good morning to me on my way to center camp. Maybe we'll try them again next year. ^_^

Exodus. I thought it was great !! Still the same wait. Thats never gonna change. Like someone said in another thread no matter how you do it, it's still dumping all those cars onto 1 lane for 75 miles. But being able to stop, turn off the car and meet your fellow travelers I thought was entirely cool. We had a tailgate party the whole time. Next year we'll plan a cooler of water, sodas and food in the kitchen for the wait.

And a quick thank you to all the people who kept there sense of humor about our camp sign this year and actually laughed with us under our shade and over a beer instead of riding by in a huff.

Lots of other stuff I could rave / rant about but the post is getting a bit long.
11 years and I'm STILL lookin forward to 2011. That's gotta say something.

Chris
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[Artemis]

But being able to stop, turn off the car and meet your fellow travelers I thought was entirely cool. We had a tailgate party the whole time. Next year we'll plan a cooler of water, sodas and food in the kitchen for the wait

Agreed - getting to meet people during Exodus was cool. I REALLY liked the pulse.

[theCryptofishist]

How hard would it have been to set the wall 20' off the street and do something mildly creative on the F side of the village.

It might be harder than you think. The heavy lifters in our village are having quite a serious, nuanced, detailed discussion about how we filled the large amount of frontage space we had this year.

Okay, maybe we are a bit more than marginally creative.

[Karma]

Crypto, are you one of the organisers for Entheon ?

[theCryptofishist]

No. I simply happen to have some idea of not just really easy it can be to put visually interesting stuff street side of your camp. During the planning process, I was privileged to "watch" people build frontage stuff. It took time, planning, work...
I came away from that process thinking that the people who did it were incredible, and that creating interesting frontage is not a week-end job. I think you're a little under-aware of what goes into such.