Denizens of Black Rock City:  I am nikOpeachZ, a 7 year vet of DPW, a Playa Restoration Lead, and humble servant to the greater kool-aid swilling cult of BRC.  A friend about to coordinate part of a 10 and Esplanade camp asked me to help her with their Leave No Trace plan.  After some thought, deliberation, and blatant theft from other online LNT proposals, I came up with this.

Before departing for Black Rock City:

1. Designate a LNT director to mobilize and organize volunteers for impromptu Moop sweeps during and after the event.
2. Retain at least 8 cubic feet (2’x2’x2’) of empty space in each vehicle for trash bags on your return.
3. Plan to haul out more than you brought into BRC.  Spend the extra money for smaller sized contractor bags.  The durability will save you broken bags of stinky mess, the smaller size will allow you to pack these efficiently.
4. Invest in a Moop-stick.  You want one w/ a suction cup end.  The money spent is worth not bending over for every piece of micro-trash.  ($10 at Harbour Freight)
   

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5. If you are bringing carpet, Duct Tape the edges before leaving for the playa.
6. Do NOT bring sequins, glow necklaces, feathers, cheap belly-dancer bangles, flimsy paper.  (Flyers left in Centr Camp end up in a burn barrel or on the trash fence.)
7. Remove excess packaging from everything possible.
8. Plan for and utilize advanced grey water evaporation ponds.
9. For each camp, bring at least one landscape rake, magnet rake, flat shovel, spade shovel, push broom, and numerous pairs of vise grips.
10. Bring mesh bags to dry out moist garbage, and 5 gallon buckets with lids for wet trash/compost (coffee grounds).
11. Plan easy to prepare/no clean up meals for less work, less clean up, less grey water.
12. Do NOT bring disposable plates/cups/silverware.  Do NOT give out cups at your bar.  Bring yer Blissware!  (if someone doesn’t have a cup, cut the top off a bottle or can <fold the sharp edge down> fill with beverage, drink up, be merry.)
13. Educate ALL members of camp about the LNT ethic.

Upon Arrival in BRC: 

1.  Clean Up begins when you arrive in BRC.  Don’t let it hit the Ground.
2. Utilize drop cloths/ground cover when unloading large vehicles/trucks.  (8x10 tarp staked flat.  Small stakes will suffice.)  It only takes 5 minutes to tack down, and will save you 30 minutes of crawling through dust later.  This catches miscellaneous debris that always disperses and sheds while unloading.
3. Secure everything against the wind.  Shade structures, tents, totes just removed from your rig, even your hat will want to blow away.
4. Cover the playa with ground cover wherever people gather.  Under shade, inside carports, in the ‘living room’ area between tents.  Use light duty tarps, recycled billboards, canvas, carpet (heavy and nasty when filled with playa), or weed barrier are options.  If you can sweep it, you can keep it clean and keep moop off the playa.
5. Place drop cloth/staked cardboard under fluid leaking vehicles and generators.
6. Place drop cloth under firewood piles (before unloading)  Wood chips are some of the most frustrating and time consuming of Moop Hot-Spots.
7. Transform empty 1 and 2 gallong water jugs into Moop buckets by cutting a 5” hole in the top, secure it by tying it onto your person or structure, carabiner this to yourself and carry it on excursions into the city.  Sharpie MOOP on it in clear bold lettering.  In every posse, carry at least one Moop bucket for trash and treasures discovered during your foray into BRC.  Be proud that you are utilitarian as well as fashionable in your accessory choice.

Throughout the Event

1. Pick up moop immediately when you see it.  You will have less energy and it will be less fun on Sunday/Monday.
2. Separate recycleables, burnables, and trash.  Burn paper trash as often as possible in a burn barrel/platform.  If you wait till Sunday then you will have a hot barrel to deal with on Monday.
3. Perform daily moop patrols and Line Sweeps in heavily trafficked areas within your camp and in all surrounding areas.
4. Smash every can/plastic bottle/trash as compact as possible before depositing in recycling… You will be grateful for the smaller trash bags.
5. Carry your own Blissware everywhere (reusable personal beverage cup, bowl/plate, and fork).  After use, rinse and scrub with water, drink water with food debris, rinse again, drink, and Voila!  Dishes Done!
6. Educate, Educate, Shame, and Cajole any messy members of your camp (and the city) to keep their shit/moop tight.  They make the mess that you will clean up later.
7. Bring regular deposits of smashed aluminum cans to Recycle Camp in the Center Camp circle.

Upon departure from Black Rock City:

1. Line Sweeps, Line Sweeps, and more Line Sweeps.  Best done after structures and tents are removed and your packed vehicles are staged in the road.  Line Sweeps are key to Leaving No Trace.
2. Pack each vehicle as efficiently as possible and make sure to send early departing  vehicles with as many trash bags as possible.  Don’t leave your friends on playa with spare space in your car because they will end up with piles of garbage bags that cannot be safely packed into their rig.  Secure your load to withstand 70+ mph winds if outside the vehicle.
3. Ensure that enough people stay behind to handle the footprint of your camp.  The best laid plans of LNT camps mean little when too few people are left behind to erase your trace.
4. To save space and weight for a long drive back to civilization, prepare a care package of beer, liquor, cigarettes, porn, non-perishable food, unopened mixers, full propane bottles, condoms, toiletries, lotion, sun-block, batteries, and things you don’t want the bad men with uniforms, badges, and guns to take you to jail for.  Load this box LAST and drop off with the kinder, gentler, better looking, and better smelling DPW at the Collexodus station immediately before gate road (6 and past L).  DON’T be fooled by imitations!  Accept only these surly black shirted hooligans as worthy recipients of your gift.  The DPW have spent one month on Playa by the time you leave, and the DPW will remain for another month to disappear the infrastructure of BRC and perform line sweeps over the entire city.  The citizens of BRC keep the DPW fed and clothed and drunk.  They Love You and also love our shared creation of BRC.  Fuck your day.
5. Strike big structures and trash piles as quickly as possible.  When the city begins to disappear, winds will create dunes around anything still standing and bury moop.  Landscape rakes and push brooms can be used to spread and disperse these dunes to uncover moop within.
6. Break up hardened grey water stains with landscape rake to free and erase micro-moop.
7. Rebar can be extracted with vise grips by twisting and spinning until it pulls out.
8. Broken off t-stakes can be dug out around the top, then clamp a vise grip as a lever point for the shovel.  If you can’t manage that, mark it with a traffic cone or tie a ribbon to it.  If the DPW can find it, they can remove it and keep it out of someones tire next summer.
9. After an area is cleared of ALL vehicles and tents, perform multiple line sweeps over said area to discover moop, treasure, money, and mystery pills overlooked.  (Line Sweeps are so important, they are worth mentioning thrice).
10. Bring usable lumber (stripped of hardware) and plywood to gift Burningman to build next years event at donation stations located near burn platforms along the Esplanade.
11. If you don’t have to leave on Sunday or Monday, don’t.  8 hrs of waiting in Exodus traffic is nobody’s idea of a good time.  Better to maintain a single shade structure and completely erase all signs of your surrounding area and camp.  Take your time and be satisfied that you have Left No Trace.  Then, take out your driver’s license, read the address, go there. 

That’s all I got.  See you back home in Black Rock City.

9:19 am  •  20 July 2011

Through the course of an afternoon, we became surrounded by friends.  The managers of the Bman Department of Public Works returned to this work Ranch for a spring meeting and a chance to take inventory of our stake. 

A burn barrel was lit, and company arrived through the night to eat, drink, and make merry until it comes time to get to work.  That is after all, why we are here… after some tequila and PBR wash down the flavor of many hours of travel. 

Living and working in one of the harshest environments on this planet tends to create a bond of friendship and camaraderie. The fact that each of us has evolved to take on responsibility for a segment of the whole makes this collection of souls quite unique.  Rarely do we all come together without major distractions like a 50,000 person event to coordinate in 3 weeks. 

So now, standing around a burn-barrel laughing and joking with those people who work together to burn a massive effigy… it is home.  Glad I didn’t have to drive to San Francisco to see them all. 

7:20 am  •  24 April 2010

With Odwally on my side… I’ll take on the world.

7:27 am  •  19 April 2010

In this country of destiny manifested stretching of Sea to Sea there remain massive tracts of wild.  Once settled then lost in the sea of commerce and ‘improvement’ old cabins and hundreds of miles of gravel and dirt roads span the hinterlands in a vast physical web of public works. 

For my birthday weekend, my sweetie, aka Pam-Purred, drove the 8 hours from SLC to my current desert outpost.  To satisfy my own curiosity I took her due north on the 34 towards High Rock Canyon.  Gravel the entire way, we drove 90 miles through mad max scenarios of sagebrush and cattle herds.  This easy gravel road required no 4WD or lift kit… it was tame as far as back roads go.  Just as my mind began to wander from an empty road and imaginings of my pirate comrades sweeping through the desert with Stickered DeePeeDub rigs, the local sheriff passes going the other way with a wave…  hmmmph.  Seems we’re not so far out after all.

Further north the road stretches straight arrow, gravel spitting behind at an easy 70 mph.  This is no stretch of imagination from the wild west where one Must rely radically on their own damn self.  Didn’t bring water?  yup… yer dead.  Cross the wrong fence… yup… that too… yer staring down the barrel of someone else’s precious stake. 

With no trouble and only a brief respite to refresh the vibrant connection between my sweets and I, we end up in Surprise Valley.  A fertile swath of land CA claimed before Nevada came into being.  Here, a hot spring resort offered us a themed room w/ private hot tub of non-chlorinated natural water Hot from the earths bowels. 

It is a surreal story, this modern life.  We holed up w/ a few period movies and plenty of… ah… tea and cards….  then time came to send her back to her life in Utah.  Driving south from Cedarville, this time on asphalt, just east the mountain range that separates CA and NV, a herd of cattle filled the highway, driven by mounted cowboys and a crew of mangy dogs. 

Coming back into modern connectivity, turns out Iceland burped and grounded most of Europe, streaks of light have lit up the mountain range at night in Empire (presumed military testing of bunker busters), and all around mayhem is striking wherever folks have gotten all comfortable w/ immediate access to all of the amenities modernity has to offer.  I miss it all not a bit.  My Now is more preoccupied with a bigger project and summer plans in the works.   Just because we become aware of the next great calamity to hit somewhere else on the planet doesn’t mean the sky is falling…  Chicken little called it a long ways back, and for her… the game was up. 

Breszny claims the apocalypse is now… so let’s dance. 

What are you waiting for?  Haven’t had your local area sky filled with volcanic ash lately?  Chances are one dire strait or another will occur to each of us… whether it be a family member dying or your cherished house and car repossessed, or massive explosive volcanic trouble will spew into the sky. 

If we are the ones we are waiting for (cuz frankly, i doubt FEMA is up to the task of herding us safely through 40 years of wilderness) then we can live vibrantly and well, prepared for the worst while still appreciating the best.  I’m certain that the best is already around us, as long as we choose to appreciate it.  Give thanks we’re not choking on ash just yet. 

7:25 am  •  19 April 2010

When the surreality of life becomes commonplace, I wonder why I allow myself to get sucked into the mundane.  It’s a palliative to numbness of remote locations and boredom.  Boredom is my fault of course…  not having materials to push on a few projects…  or inertia to continue Do-ing what I’m wishing and needing. 

Isn’t that the problem w/ cable and mundane life?  The lack of inertia keeps one static and stuck in whatever Rut is your challenge.  meanwhile, life is passing by faster than the gaps between commercials.  Soon enough we will find ourselves in that future we wished we were better prepared for. 

So enough w/ the stumbling through stop and go reality.  I got things to do… writing to edit… and life to lead.

9:04 am  •  10 April 2010

Is the apocalypse on in your leg of the desert yet?  For now, in this N NV outpost, we are prepping the emergency shelters for no rent housing.  I got the call after coming out of the hills for a weekend.  Q had left 2 voicemails on my phone… the first to call him, the second wondering if I was dead, or lost, or simply out of touch w/ civilization.  (yeah, what’s new there?) 

In another push to create housing in the most inhospitable landscape I have ever known, my corporate sponsor, Bmorg LLC offered me a chance to build out shipping containers into 2 bedroom housing structures.  These are intended for use during pre-and post event mayhem for those of us too busy to put up a tent destined to fill w/ dust in the first 6 hours.  Overseas containers can be purchased for a bargain these days, and a build out makes for a fine little domicile to be used in an emergency or for some desert festival. 

The benefits:  Dust tight, ready made, easy to move, insulated and tight. 

Drawbacks:  somebody’s gotta build it out—- cut steel, frame in doors and walls, then finish these industrial things into something that can be considered a home. 

Final upside…  I got a job for the next handful of weeks, and it’s kinda fun repurposing commercial excess into a completely new purpose.  Living inside the box, as it were.

As icing on the proverbial cake… when I’m standing inside one of these things, with a BFH (Big Farking Hammer) beating on a wall that has been punched a few times w/ a forklift, ears capped w/ monster earmuff audio protectors,  it reminds me of a massive Chinese Bell.  Each hammerstrike resounds w/ an intensely LOUD gong to give a desert Angel wings and invite in pleasant spirits to watch over us.  (sure enough… one was watching when a framing nailer missed the target, bounced off the steel of the container, and just missed my farking FACE in a rebound that didn’t turn ugly)  thanks Angels… 

Peace and Lust,

nikOpeach

7:04 am  •  7 April 2010

Traveling with a trailer in tow requires a hyper-alert vigilance for all of the potentials that could… just could go wrong.  It brings one to the state of NOW that involves, life, death, and catastrophic Ooops that could ruin ones day and economic status for some time to come.

I had about 420 miles to go from my NorCal refuge to the Northern Nevadan desert outpost where I just lined up a project w/ some friends.  The first and hardest part was getting out of the soggy Redwood forest canyon where I had my 2 horse trailer and all my gear.  With a V-6, 1500 Chevy pickup (rear wheel drive, mind you) I had about 1/2 the real capacity to pull any weight, especially up and out of a muddy 12 miles of mountain road. 

Most of my gear and tools were carefully loaded into my truck to give it weight and traction to get out of the canyon.  With a filled thermos of industrial strength coffee, I departed around 7:30, just as the morning mists had lifted and given enough light to move about with the confidence of day. 

With luck and some carefully planned approaches to steep ascents I get out of the canyon w/out a problem.  On the highway, one has to constantly check the trailer in the rearview, keep an eye on the tires for flats and watch the whole schebang for sway and any change in the situation from precarious to dangerous and a pile of OH SHIT!

No problems… I get to town, equalize all the trailer and truck tires w/ more air pressure, wash them both of the mud and salt accumulated to make me a target for anyone watching for miscreants on the highway.  And I roll along… 

About an hour from town, I’m on the highway 20, traveling on the North side of Clear Lake, a 45 mph stretch of post WWII americana Boom.  The road twists and turns, following the contours of the hills and Lake.  Numerous pull outs line the road for slower traffic (me), and I’m assiduous to use these to keep traffic flowing.  I pull off on one to allow another truck and trailer to stop, step out to empty my bladder from too much coffee. 

Walking to the back of my dual axle trailer,

One…

of …

my…

trailer wheels…

is…

GONE!

Missing… it worked the lug nuts loose and rolled away somewhere behind me.  I look back the curve on the highway… no idea when I lost it…  How I could not have noticed?  I’m fucking Eagle Eyes McGraw and so overcaffeinated I feel like a trucker on a handful of ephedrine.  The trailer didn’t show a sign of difference…. Ok… I can handle this… drop the trailer, go find a place to buy another wheel on the Saturday morning in small town rural america…  It might take me all day… w/ $2000 worth of tools in the unlockable trailer.  It’ll be fine.

I step around the trailer… empty my diuretic induced bladder, and the same truck pulls up that I had allowed to pass at this turn out. 

“Hey…  you lost your wheel a mile back…  on a straightaway by a big oak tree.”

I blink…  is he a guardian angel?  this can’t be really happening….

“Hop in, Let’s go get it.”

Ah…. Ok.

Sure enough… that mile back, the tire is floating in the waves of Clearlake… just on shore, my boots don’t even get wet in pulling it out. 

30 minutes, and 3 lug nuts scalped from the other wheels, and I’m back on the road to find a NAPA for some more lug nuts. 

350 miles later, I’m passing the Playa… Snow bedecked north of 8 mile, deep wet look south of that. 

home for a minute…  desert outpost and good friends for a while. Thanks Angel… I owe the universe some after this escapade. 

8:05 am  •  4 April 2010

ayes.

11:24 am  •  27 March 2010

It seems a great challenge when all of the wishes I’ve expressed to the universe come round way quicker than I had anticipated.  The challenge is simply stepping up to actually DO it.  Careful what you wish for, because you might just be called to make it happen.

Something/someone must be paying attention, because I may have the opportunity for 10 weeks of straight work…  taxpaying 9-5  (more like 8-6) push of a big project that is exciting and entertaining… and a whole lotta work.  Not in NorCal…  maybe better that I don’t hedge all my bets out that way.  Somewhere in NV.  yup.  Desert home.  We shall see how this pans out. 

Perhaps it has something more to do with my role as the websmith in the fashion of Charlotte…  That eight legged creature who lauds her surrounding characters w/ praise, pulls strands together into a whole that garners attention of the universal judge.  Glad the universe is paying attention.  

So why not?  Take the opportunity when it is there…  when the fruit is ripe, pick it.  The low hanging fruit is easy, yet with a little ingenuity and opportunity one can glean all of the ripe fruits off the tree.  Looks like harvest season is on early this summer.  I can stretch a bit and harvest enough to put up some for winter. 

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, Begin It!  -Goethe

Dream big, and one can garner all the richness available to the dreamers… Stifle your dreams and you are left with the shortness of life left to those who never venture into the orchard.  Out there, the gifts of this universe are within reach. 

Thanks to those listening… I’m reaching as far and as fast as I can.  Hope to help you attain that dream as well.

11:20 am  •  27 March 2010

robots…  or highly developed industrial Evolutions nightmare?

7:18 am  •  22 March 2010