Burning Man 2002 – Incredi-Dome

Last night Alex and I finished the dome.

Thank you, thank you. No, you are too kind. Thank you! Everyone sit down please!

I loaded up all the cut and smooshed conduit into the Jeep and headed for Alex’s house after work. We had to take a short detour to the hardware store for various bits of wood, metal, nuts and bolts. We were also forced to stop by 7-Eleven and get gallons and gallons of Slurpees. MMmmm.

Anyway, once we got everything settled we got down to building jigs. We needed a jig to hold the pipes as we drilled them and we needed a place to mount a vise to bend the pipes. Alex described it in more detail than I want to bother with here so go read all about it.

Finally everything was drilled and bent and assembly time was at hand. There was a minor moment of panic when we decided to make a test pentagon on the ground. We put the 5 spokes in and started hooking the bounding struts up. We got to the last one and it was about a foot too short! We ran upstairs to look at the picture and everything looked fine. After a few minutes I realized the problem was that we didn’t bend at all. The spokes that meet in the center needed to be pulled up and then it was perfect.

The actual assembly went very smooth and was fairly easy. We built from the bottom up and had no real problems. The dome is a little taller than I can reach but Alex is able to stretch to get the top layer of struts affixed.
Once we were done we painted some of the vertices to make things easier next time and we walked away. Saturday we will try to come up with a suitable covering and then tear it all down for next weekend.

Many thanks to DesertDomes.com and The Home Dome for providing tons of valuable information.

Photos of the events are available from Tessier.com
Final Dome Construction
The Finished Dome By Day

Burning Man 2002 – The Mermen!

I just discovered that The Mermen will be at Burning Man. This is perhaps the most exciting thing so far to me! I went to Java One in 1999 and saw The Mermen at a party hosted by Sun. They were instantly one of my favorite bands and I stood mesmerized the entire time they played. I bought all their music when I got home and I have been addicted ever since.

Unfortunatly, they are a fairly small band and they don’t travel far from the west coast so I have not been able to see them in concert again. Now I will. This is great!

Burning Man 2002 – A Dome Is Born

While reading Alex’s destroyed Burning Man plan I was inspired by his mention of a dome. I did some research that discovered that making a cool geodesic dome isn’t all that hard or expensive and would allow me some small bit of style at Burning Man. That’s really all it took to convince me.
One of the biggest problems people seem to have with making a conduit dome is flattening the ends of the conduit so that holes can be drilled for bolting. Some people recommended a vise, which really doesn’t work well. Some people recommended various hammers which they said would be hell. Some people used a arbor press which worked well but broke often. Everyone said a hydraulic press would be THE WAY to go.

These are pictures of my new hydraulic press.

I went to Home Depot after getting the press and bought 36 10′ pieces of 3/4″ conduit. This will give me all I need to build a 2v 8′ raduis dome. That gives me about 200^2′ to live in at Burning Man which should be nice and comfy!

Burning Man 2002 – Excitement

I just keep getting more and more excited about Burning Man. Every day I read someone’s story or see someone’s pictures and the idea that I will get to participate and have my own story thrills me.

I have never really done any serious camping (that I can remember) so the idea of being tested in the desert is both exciting and frightening. Reading accounts of 70MPH wind and “eyes caked with acidic dust” makes me hope that I will be prepared but I know I won’t be.

It’s unfortunate that I decided so late in the game that I wanted to go this year because I think I would really have liked to have a more serious camp. Alex had previously planned to build a nice dome before his plans fell through which I think would have been cool. I am concered about having a suitable structure for shade during the days so I think I will probally try to at least take some kind of pre made structure. Coleman sells some cheap, decent things that will surely be destroyed by the wind, but hey… cheap.

As it stands now I will either have a tent of my own purchasing or be borrowing one of Alex’s uber tents. I’ve been looking at a Marmot Equinox which is a nice tent and is on sale at Galyan’s but I wonder if I will be happy with it for normal camping and not just Burning Man. Fortunatly a monster size, regular, non Burning Man tent is like $39 so if I need another that’s no big deal.

I realize you don’t care about my ramblings but I have a lot of nervous energy to burn 🙂

Burning Man 2002 – Pre-Burn Notes

I am really terrible about losing things and forgetting things so I am going to take some notes here since I will always know where they are. You are welcome to read them if you like.

[/] = Partially Obtained
[X] = Obtained
[*] = Packed / Ready To Go

Food

Rice
Ramen
Bagged Tuna
Mayo packets
Pitas
Salt/Pepper
Canned soup
Jerky

Stuff to Take

[X] Coleman 2 burner stove
[X] (6) Coleman propane tanks (have 2)
Pots / pans including something to steam rice in
Fork and spoon
Can opener
Spray on SPF 5000 sunblock
[X] Umbrella (ha!)
[X] Sandals
[X] Asprin
Earplugs
Goggles
Q-Tips
Deodorant
Liquid hand soap
[X] Face mask (handkerchief or dust mask)
[X] Hand lotion
Chap Stick
Bike lock
[X] Hat (bald heads burn, burn, burn!)
[X] Strike anywhere matches (Got lighters)
Rope (lots, for dome)
First Aid Kit
Sponges or something to clean cooking gear with
Glowsticks

Ticket

[X] In filing cabinet under Living/Burning Man

Things to Do

[X] Buy or borrow tent (Alex will let me borrow)
[X] Bike rack for vehicle (Alex has)
Figure out what to barter with (seems to be important!)

Road Rage

So I am driving home from work in the center lane of College Blvd. A woman in a silver car in the lane to my left kind of drifts over a bit in to my lane, just barely crossing the line. I move over a bit just to be safe and wait for her to notice. I glance up and see she’s on the phone. She continues to drift over into my lane, very slowly like so I give a friendly “You are in my lane dumbass” honk and look over. She doesn’t even flinch. Now she is more than half way into my lane and I am more than half way into the right lane so she doesn’t hit me. I lay on the horn and she finally glances up. She gives off a “What is your problem” kind of vibe and then glances ahead finally noticing where she is and moves back in to her lane.

We end up going the same direction onto 435N. I get in the left lane so I can get the hell out of there and she gets in the right. Before I take off I see her merge into the exit lane without looking, cutting off a car which swerves into the right lane to miss her.

She’s still on the phone.

Burning Man 2002 – Tickets Shipped

======================================
Burning Man Tickets Shipment Notification
======================================
Hello Jason Von Nieda,
Your ticket(s) have been sent for:
(1) $200.00 Burning Man 2002
Your Airbill number is 313XXXX8172

Woot!

Tessier.com

I have taken a lot of design ideas and inspiration for my site from Alex @ tessier.com so the least I could do is plug his site. If you like reading about other people’s lives that are more interesting than yours, looking at excellent photography or are looking for a IRC channel you can join to be fiercly abused, tessier.com is your one stop shop.