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Life, the Universe, and Birthdays
Thursday, September 30th, 2021 11:13 pmFor many years I've assumed that when I turned 42 I would throw a big party, invite a bunch of hoopy froods, and see if everyone knew where their towel was. As it turned out this week, I had about 2000 people at my birthday party, I didn't have to plan the event, and I didn't see many towels.
Element 11 is a long-standing regional Burning Man event in the Utah desert. It's normally held in July or June, which tend to be prime busy-in-Colorado times, particularly since Apogaea—Colorado's regional burn—is the second weekend of June. This year the organizers moved Element 11 to the last weekend of September, maximizing the amount of planning time in a year of chaos, minimizing the number of excuses for people to not be fully vaccinated, and balancing days which aren't too hot with nights that aren't too cold. Since Burning Man itself was cancelled and I didn't want to go to Plan B/Renegade Burn, I figured I'd have plenty of spoons for a regional in another state. Plus, I didn't have to plan a complicated themed birthday party.
It felt really good to be able to wander around, meet strangers, give hugs, dance to big sound, and share food. So far, it seems the policy of "proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test" was successful as I haven't heard that there was any COVID spread at the event. The fact that almost everything was outside certainly helped. I've now got a bit of a scratchy throat and some sore body parts, but my home-COVID test was negative, so I think this is just my immune system having forgotten how to deal with other people's garden variety germs, plus a depleted sleep schedule. I feel significantly less lousy than I did after getting back from a summer road trip.
The month leading up to the event was pretty jam-packed. I spent a bunch of time researching and ordering components for a solar and battery system so that Kelly could sleep with a CPAP, but I didn't give myself enough lead time and the project failed to come together before the trip, culminating in a comedy of errors including a brand new multimeter that needed aluminum foil shoved in the battery compartment in order to operate. Fortunately I've now got months to get things right and up my electrical game before our next camping adventure.
In addition to wrangling electrical components I spent a lot of time in the last month and a half playing with Colorado Redistricting Commission maps. The state has a new citizen-focused redistricting process, ideally reducing the political maneuvering involved, and anyone could submit their own maps and comments. I'm disappointed the commission and staff didn't follow my advice to (a) split census blocks in more natural ways so that neighbors stay in the same district and (b) allow slight variance (order of hundreds) in district size, following the "must be justified" portion of the law. Overall, though, the process seemed to work really well, and almost everyone at the hearings I attended was polite and on-topic, a rarity in the political world these days. There were a lot of "We don't want to be in a district with those people" comments, which make me sad as a collaborationist, but are understandable given the trend in the last half century for people to self-segregate politically.
I also spent a bunch of energy the weekend before Element 11 first picking apples and then helping press them into cider. We ended up with way more fruit than we could process and at the end of the day had more liquid than anyone could take away, particularly when the cooling system failed a few days later. I've got a cider brewing with wine yeast and a cyser (honey + apples) brewing with ale yeast; I'm hoping these turn out better than my last round of cyser which—three years later—still has a harsh flavor. This was a total blast, but cut way down on event packing and prep time.
Element 11 is a long-standing regional Burning Man event in the Utah desert. It's normally held in July or June, which tend to be prime busy-in-Colorado times, particularly since Apogaea—Colorado's regional burn—is the second weekend of June. This year the organizers moved Element 11 to the last weekend of September, maximizing the amount of planning time in a year of chaos, minimizing the number of excuses for people to not be fully vaccinated, and balancing days which aren't too hot with nights that aren't too cold. Since Burning Man itself was cancelled and I didn't want to go to Plan B/Renegade Burn, I figured I'd have plenty of spoons for a regional in another state. Plus, I didn't have to plan a complicated themed birthday party.
It felt really good to be able to wander around, meet strangers, give hugs, dance to big sound, and share food. So far, it seems the policy of "proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test" was successful as I haven't heard that there was any COVID spread at the event. The fact that almost everything was outside certainly helped. I've now got a bit of a scratchy throat and some sore body parts, but my home-COVID test was negative, so I think this is just my immune system having forgotten how to deal with other people's garden variety germs, plus a depleted sleep schedule. I feel significantly less lousy than I did after getting back from a summer road trip.
The month leading up to the event was pretty jam-packed. I spent a bunch of time researching and ordering components for a solar and battery system so that Kelly could sleep with a CPAP, but I didn't give myself enough lead time and the project failed to come together before the trip, culminating in a comedy of errors including a brand new multimeter that needed aluminum foil shoved in the battery compartment in order to operate. Fortunately I've now got months to get things right and up my electrical game before our next camping adventure.
In addition to wrangling electrical components I spent a lot of time in the last month and a half playing with Colorado Redistricting Commission maps. The state has a new citizen-focused redistricting process, ideally reducing the political maneuvering involved, and anyone could submit their own maps and comments. I'm disappointed the commission and staff didn't follow my advice to (a) split census blocks in more natural ways so that neighbors stay in the same district and (b) allow slight variance (order of hundreds) in district size, following the "must be justified" portion of the law. Overall, though, the process seemed to work really well, and almost everyone at the hearings I attended was polite and on-topic, a rarity in the political world these days. There were a lot of "We don't want to be in a district with those people" comments, which make me sad as a collaborationist, but are understandable given the trend in the last half century for people to self-segregate politically.
I also spent a bunch of energy the weekend before Element 11 first picking apples and then helping press them into cider. We ended up with way more fruit than we could process and at the end of the day had more liquid than anyone could take away, particularly when the cooling system failed a few days later. I've got a cider brewing with wine yeast and a cyser (honey + apples) brewing with ale yeast; I'm hoping these turn out better than my last round of cyser which—three years later—still has a harsh flavor. This was a total blast, but cut way down on event packing and prep time.
