Blog

Stunning evening!

I wish I had taken a camera out.

After an unsatisfying meal at the Commissary, I returned home to find Eva and Hollis finishing cooking an amazing BBQ chicken dinner. And me too stuffed to participate.

I focussed on leveling the RV, tying down the shade structure to the RV, adding outdoor speakers to the shade area so that the music can be better enjoyed by those enjoying the shade, etc. And I added my silly blue ground effect  LED lights under the RV.

Invited Eva and Hollis to hang out under the porch to watch an amazing full moon rise and lounge in chairs and hammock and listen to Thom Yorke followed by the new Underworld album. All so relaxing. We sort of mumbled to one another as we drifted away into half slumber. No breeze, maybe 75 degrees, slight cloud cover.

Of course, they rallied for bed and I headed to the Artery to write this. Wow! What a change in circumstances. In about 30 minutes the dead calm turned to 30 mph winds and intermittent whiteouts. By the time I rode my bike back home I found that the porch had lifted and dropped 3 out of 4 supports and was floating in the wind, threatening to take off. I brought Lampy’s trailer around to act as tie-down anchor and re-secured all four points. Seemed like that would do the trick.

I couldn’t light the hot water heater in the now gale force wind so elected for a refreshing cold shower and then to bed. Sort of. The wind was so strong that I couldn’t sleep as I kept awakening to what I feared was the porch flying away, tearing out its roof supports on the way. Not a great rest but much better than being in a tent.

Day of rest

Believe it or not most of DPW is taking the day off and other depts seem to be following suit. Not sure if this is actually a Sabbath observation or just that it’s been close to 104 degrees every day and everyone’s been working hard.

I was able to get all of the radios accounted for, cataloged, labeled, prepped for Artery operations and all tracked in my fancy new 3-ring binder that I hope to hand off successfully to Shift Leads next week. It would be really good for me to finally learn some basic MySQL/PHP coding so that I can throw all of this into a web-accessible database. Lisa has similar needs/issues in terms of tracking fuel disbursements. I think we all spend a disproportionate amount of time messing with Excel. Because it’s fast and easy!

Some GPS issues. Not sure if these are due to math, improper survey of perimeter fence or something with the Garmin eTrex Legend units. I thought this was all getting easier but now I think not.

Easy work

So, the first full day of Artery duties went super easy. The structure was already up. The office is not only up but has been properly connected to our properly sized generator pending grid power. All the radios were delivered and are (mostly) accounted for. I think I can figure out the two whose whereabouts aren’t immediately known.

Early Man burn is tonight: Otto has some new Durka-Durka Man (re: Trey & Matt) sculpture to torch for us.

On playa and Not Carp

Arrived alive and in time for dinner at the Commissary. A beautiful evening, perfect weather, only the slightest of breezes so no crazy whiteouts and the moonrise in full swing. Here’s the proof that Not Carp is happening:

Lampy refurb

Thank you, Michael Sturtz, for all of your dilligence in getting Lampy back in good working order. I was just looking for some help banging out the tail and fixing some broken welds that resulted in Dann Davis’ fateful Ramp of Death flight last year:

So, with a little work and a lot of skill, Michael whacked her back into shape, gave her a tune-up, determined the electric starter was a non-starter and re-worked the weed-burner flame effect. And the lights are working again!