Bruise Update, Snake Update

The weekend has passed and it's time for a bruise update.  For those following along, big news from the underside of my left thigh.  Now it has purple striations and I have no idea what that means.  Here's both with and without the Sunset filter:

Sin

Con

Are they bad?  Are they good?  Are they just a way for my leg to express itself?  Why won't my leg just talk to me and tell me what it's feeling?  It's been years since we had a good conversation and it hurts when I think about how distant we've become.  Sure, we're both busy, but it doesn't mean we can't make time for each other.  Were we just friends by proximity?  Friends because there were no other friend options around?  Wow.  My leg's really giving me a lot to think about.  Maybe this just isn't a friendship worth reviving or pursuing.

In other news, holy shit are there huge snakes in New Jersey!  Damian and I hit Gloucester County today for a little late morning MTB, and while normally only concerned with poison ivy and ticks, I now know to watch out for giant Black Racers.  While zipping down Swoopy Trail, I thought I saw an exposed hose across the trail, or some similar drainage/erosion control device.  I didn't think twice, and rolled over it.  While over top, I looked down and realized the thick hose was actually a thick snake, so I slammed on the brakes about ten feet later.  Damian bunny hopped the monster and then parked too.

Upon further inspection, it was a 4-5' Black Racer and it was about as thick as my wrist.  Being a muscly constrictor, the snake didn't even flinch when I ran it over, and didn't really move until after we got close to it and it started to feel either threatened or shy.  I don't have any photos to prove this, but I do have a grainy video from Damian that I will gladly show someone at a bar even if they politely ask me not to.  In any case, I now have one more thing to watch out for on that trail system.  Next time, I'm taking my phone.

Photo from AnimalSpot.net

Look at my Bruise

I got hit in the upper thigh with a slapshot Monday night.  The inner upper thigh, specifically.  In an area where hockey pants have no padding, and for good reason, since most people are facing the shots that they are blocking.  The fronts of hockey pants have plenty of padding in the front for just that reason.  I didn't get hit in the front because I had been turned looking at the right-side point, and when the pass went across to the left-side point, I turned my upper body, but not my lower.  I didn't think there was going to be a shot.  There was.  I blocked it.  It really hurt.

It felt like someone had slapped down on my inner thigh as hard as they could and then squeezed with all their might for the next five minutes.  A Ukrainian Horse Bite that lasted far longer than anyone should have to endure.  There was a great deal of cursing after we cleared the zone and I reached the bench.  It was ok, though, as things could have been way worse had the shot risen higher.  Count your blessings, right?

Anyway, now it's Friday, so I want to share my bruise with the world.  The camera on my phone sucks, which may have to do with the scratches all over the lens, so I enhanced the image contrast slightly using the Sunset filter in Fotor.

Inside

Backside

I have no idea how the back of my leg looks so much worse than where the puck actually hit, but I'm not a doctor, so I'm just going to assume this is normal.  It is, right?  If it's not, I'll be sure to post updates from the hospital.

Birmingham Trailer Park

You guys!  Great news!  For any of you that have not been going to Burning Man because it's too difficult, too hot, or too stressful, it's not anymore!  It's super easy now, and you should all go!  I agree that in the past, Burning Man used to be this totally exclusionary event where you had to know somebody that went to even find out about it, and then when you got there it was really gross desert weather with dust storms and sunburn, and the event organizers didn't even provide bathrooms and you were supposed to take care of yourself and it was impossible to find your way around because there were no permanent location markers and privacy was nowhere to be found so you had to spend a week with people up your business even when you showered if you could even call it a shower since you at most had a rubber bag with a watering can-esque nozzle to sprinkle water on you.  But now it's not like that (there've been well marked roads and port-o-pots for years)!  Now absolutely anyone can go and have a good time! Isn't that great?!?

First off, let me tell you about how Burning Man now radically includes everyone.  Before, if you wanted to learn about the festival, you really needed to know someone who went, be an esoteric (poor) artist, or a reader obscure zines.  That's not the case anymore!  Any semi-savvy online-media enthusiast knows all about the festival just by following their favorite celebs on Instagram.  This is a very camera-friendly event (and why not, since everyone looks so fab), and it has really opened the event up to a whole new world of attendees, and I think it's great.

Secondly, BMorg has done a great job of making tickets available for everyone.  Not only have they steadily increased festival capacity (38,989 in 2006 vs. 70,000 in 2016), they've created special ticket tiers so that the people who really want to go to the festival actually can!  This year (2017), aside from the free-for-all ticket lottery that sells tickets for $425 a pop, there was a pre-sale of tickets priced at either $990 or $1,200.  Isn't that great?  Now the people who aren't just passive attendees, people who really care and need to be at Burning Man, have a chance to buy a ticket with a price as great as their love for the festival.  Here's a link to ticketing information if you want to learn more!

Third, the desert has been conquered!  Listen, only a sucker doesn't take an RV to Burning Man.  Don't be a sucker!  After you get your ticket, the next two things you need to do are: 1) get your $80 parking permit, and 2) get your hands on a sweet RV.  Once you have an RV, life is magical.  No more roasting in the sun, no more lack of air conditioning, no more dust storms, no more public toilets, no more mandatory interaction with neighbors, no more conditions unbefitting of a vacation!  Great!

Image taken from Van Fleet News Blog

Fourth, and kind of a big one, there are public showers!  Two years ago, there is usually a dance party shower camp, and two years ago there was even a Dr. Bronner's foam party shower camp!  Sure, they're a little creepy because people get to see you naked, but still, you get clean and you don't have to worry about disposing of gray water.  Great Win-Win-Slight Lose.

Finally, and maybe news to some, the hippies have taken over with their friendly-first attitudes!  Most people think Burning Man has always been a hippie festival, but it didn't used to be.  People used to aggressively protect assholery by calling it their "freedom of expression", but now there's a passive calm permeating the desert.  I'd like to think this has something to do with ticket price related gentrification, but it could also have to do with increased accessibility in general as most people are good people, so the more people at an event, the more good people there will be to spread good.  Right?  There's no more need to worry about someone calling you out just because you didn't have time to make a costume so either you didn't bring one at all or you just bought one on the way.  Just do what makes you happy, even if those things are visors and polo shirts!  The event really couldn't be more greatly welcoming and accepting.

Some would say that a trailer park is always a trailer park, and that no matter how much you polish that turd, it's still a trailer park.  I believe that Burning Man has proven those people wrong.  👍👍

Fairy Shrimp: What are you trying to tell me?

Fairy Shrimp, aka Anostraca, are weird little critters.  Weird not so much in their appearance, as animals at the bottom of the ocean are far stranger, nor in mechanism of survival, as locusts do that whole seven year thing that I find bonkers.  Think about how much can happen in seven years!  Say you're a little larva that buries itself deep in the ground and then seven years later you decide to come back up for air, but you can't.  Try as you might, you keep gnawing and pushing, but the dirt seems too hard to penetrate.  What happened?  Oh, that's right, progress happened.  You now live under a highway whose pavement was laid three years prior and are going to die before you figure out how to get around it.  Dumbass cicada.

No, Fairy Shrimp are weird because they send such a mixed message symbolically!  What are you trying to tell me, Fairy Shrimp?  What's your deal?

I should probably pump the brakes for a minute.  Ok, here's a little background.  In the precambrian era, the ocean ran through parts of the Pacific and Mountain timezones.  Eventually these waters receded leaving lakes that were reduced to ponds then puddles and finally to waterless deserts.  This is why Utah has such awesome natural rocky structures and why the Black Rock Desert is so alkali.  With Utah, arches and hoodoos were carved by flowing water, and in the Black Rock, living organism turned into dead organic matter with high alkaline content.  This is why skin can seem to get burned by the dust in the Black Rock Desert.  High pH, Low pH, All Bad pH.

Now that we've established the Black Rock Desert is really just a dried out lake bed, we can move onto Fairy Shrimp, the critters that once thrived in the now desiccated lake.  Anostraca are non-domesticated Sea Monkeys (Brine Shrimp).  And just like Sea Monkeys, Fairy Shrimp are able to maintain themselves in an egg state for years (up to eight, or so I hear) without dying out.  But unlike brine shrimp, they aren't sold to children in this dormant state.  No, instead they lie just below the top soil, if you want to call it that, of post-lake drylands.  Those eggs lie there in waiting, resisting the heat of the sun and dry of the air, in the hopes that one day, rain will drench the barren landscape, providing them with enough swimming room to hatch and get their freak on with another Fairy Shrimp before the sun turns their happy home into a fine mist floating through the air.

Actual Size

And that's exactly what's been going on for centuries.  Those little buggers lay dormant for years, heavy rains eventually hit the desert, they hatch, they feed, they breed, they lay more eggs, they die, the water evaporates, and the cycle starts anew.  This takes me back to the start.  What are they trying to tell us with their life's story?  Is it a tale of resilience?  A story with a moral rooted in the importance of persistence in an unpredictable, uncaring, inhospitable environment?  Proof that life is important and strong enough to overcome any obstacle given time and patience?  Or is it an example of the futility and meaninglessness of life?  Their lives are brief and they accomplish nothing other than creating more brief, meaningless lives.  Are you trying to tell me that life is hard but entirely worth the struggle or that to spend time struggling is foolish and that life is an unfair joke?  Seriously!  Don't leave me hanging like this!  Ugh, stupid Fairy Shrimp and your cruel ambiguity.  Fine.  Take your secrets to your grave and see if I care.

Breezy: Air Scared

One of the perks of working at 88NV is the chance to get to go up on a flight.  Most pilots don't fly into Burning Man with the intention of parking their plane for the week.  No, their plan is to be up in the sky as much as possible in order to see the city in action.  And also because they love flying.  Why become a pilot if you don't love to fly?  And unless a pilot has a single-seater, they're willing to take people up with them.  Because of this, the airport is clamoring with festival attendees trying desperately to get up into the air with a pilot sporting an empty seat.  Since I worked at the airport, I wasn't going to have to try, all I'd have to do was ask.  Enter the Breezy.  

Do you know what a Breezy is?  I'm assuming you looked at the picture below already, so yes, you know.  Prior to this year, I had no idea that such a thing existed, so I'll describe it for those of you that are the me from last year.  It's a cockpitless plane that is somewhere between an airplane and a horrifying psychological torture device.  It's a flying floorboard.  Paul, one of the pilots and airport crew members, had a Breezy, and while parked innocently in the parking lot so carefully staked out the week before, I had an interest in going up for a flight.

Photo Courtesy of Paul the Pilot

I don't know if I've ever had so much fun being so terrified in my life.  I've gone sky diving and scrambled down rocksliding mountain sides, and neither compared.  The rush was exhilarating, the view spectacular, the experience overwhelming, and the whole time I was convinced I was going to die.  I was letting loose a mix of "holy shits" covering every possible intention of the phrase.  Even though my first impulse was cling as desperately to worst case scenarios as I was to the bottom of my seat, there was a bit of me that was pretty sure that we weren't going to crash.  For starters, Paul was a professional pilot.  On top of that he had a primary interest in not crashing for his own sake, regardless of mine.  My survivalist brain was convinced that I would go flying off the little platform seat, something that really wasn't possible with how tightly I was strapped in.  Maybe the whole seat would just go flying off?  Also not likely since Paul's wife usually occupied that seat on their flights.  Each gust of wind further reinforced the fact that this was going to be the last thing I did on this Earth.  It wasn't until after we landed and rolled to a stop that I finally accepted the fact that I was not going to die.  How ironic would it have been if I had an unrelated aneurysm later that day?  I would've felt like such an idiot for being afraid of the Breezy in the moments preceding my sudden death.

In any case, thank you, Paul!  If ever I get the chance to fly with you again, I can guarantee that I will be just as terrified the second, third, fourth, and n-th time we go up into the sky.  That's probably half the reason I want to go.  Just ask anyone who's watched a horror film with me.