Yesterday, we were wondering whether how Mirror Blaze was faring, whether we would be able to obtain the coveted FAST[1] approval.

But first, another trip to the portapotties. The dusty, dusty portapotties:

Some might wonder why I talk so much about portapotties. It might be because when I was growing up, it seemed like bathrooms were never discussed in movies, that it was significantly transgressive for Mel Brooks to have a bathroom scene in ‘Spaceballs’.

But it’s probably because when you’re trying to stay hydrated in the desert, and you’re drinking all the time, even though you’re losing a lot of moisture through breathing and just standing there, you’re also processing a lot of it through your kidneys.

On the way back from the portapotties, we took a gander at the Charnival signs:

And here we saw that we were in good company (not shown: The Bearded Sparklepony!):

Mirror Blaze was coming along, the ‘little big top’ was starting to look like it:

And the application of bunting was about halfway along (you can see the bunting-to-be-applied tied on the side of the lifeguard chair):

Then a kind person from FAST came by and told us that we APPROVED FOR FIRE! At first, we were excited.

Then it really hit us, and we were EXCITED! YEAH! LET’S MAKE SOME FIRE!

So, of course, we instead took a wander around Charnival, amazed at our good fortune[2], and took a gander at some of the other projects on the go, starting with ‘Flaming Clown Heads[3]’:

And FaIRE Hockey, here we can see Marc and Francisco discussing some of the finer points, along with the skeleton of the air baffles that they had setup:

A closer view of Marc tuning the tables on FaIRE Hockey:

And finally, to round out the day, what looks like a Mouse art car? Is that bicycle made of cheese? Do mice actually really like cheese that much? Maybe the bicycle is made of peanut butter?:

[1]Fire Arts Safety Team (I think).

[2]Apparently, fortune favours the bold and well-prepared.

[3]’Flaming Clown Heads’, or ‘Let’s Go Fly Some Flaming Clown Heads’ to its friends, apparently started life as ‘Let’s Go Fly A Bicycle’, which apparently was nixed for being too dangerous even for Burning Man.

Last time, we had just finished dealing with a windstorm, and had taken a break for dinner. Later that night, it was time to get back to work.

On the way, we passed a variable forklift helping to construct a geodesic dome, as you do.

We also ran into this sneaky guy:

While I distracted him, S snuck around behind…:

…and they became close friends (there were no survivors):

Last stop on our trek before the installation was the phenomenal ‘Medusa’ being constructed at centre camp. This picture does not do justice to the immense scale (there were dance parties all week underneath it):

Finally reaching the installation, we took a second to check on our fuel depot, but our tank was happy, as it had found a friend:

But what was that in the distance? A red swingline stapler art car?:

We got back to work putting up mirrors with our fearless build crew. Here you can see three of them hard at work (I think l-r Evan, Kosta, Greg) (Also note the ever-present camelbak. Essential for hydration, even at night:

Finally, after many hours, we were structure complete! All posts up, all mirrors up! All ready for fire certification tomorrow! All we need is bunting and wiring!

At the same time, Marc was hard at work on FaIRE Hockey, doing his impression of a human fire Zamboni:

Next: More of the evenings activities, and build day 4 (the last build day!) and opening night!

Yesterday, we showed the first pictures of what a 70km/h windstorm can do to an installation at Burning Man. Here are some more pics!

First, we went over to check more closely on Mirror Blaze. We found that the emergency door had blown in, but that’s fine, as the structure was sound, and the emergency exit is supposed to open easily, anyway:

Also, dunes!:

With Mirror Blaze under control, we continued on our quest to bring back information about the other installations. Next up was the wall that had fallen on one of the sets of propane storage tanks (my bike for scale). This was the worst of it (and really not bad at all). It just needed a couple of people to lift the wall up (it had gotten impaled on one of the fence posts). The propane tanks were in no real danger. The wood that had fallen was pretty light (looks like normal <1" plywood to me), but we were still very glad that propane tanks are designed well: [caption id="attachment_1866" align="alignnone" width="604"] This is why we build so many safety features into propane tanks and fire art installations.[/caption]

Zooming in, you can see why propane tanks have those metal guards on the top, along with the huge (guarded) regulator apparatus for the four 100-lb tanks you see:

Continuing on to Riskee Ball, we found a ‘deadman switch‘[1] which was attempting to live up to its name:

I checked the back side of Riskee Ball, and it looked fine (as far as I could tell) with the aluminum lane backing failing safe and blowing out to allow the wind to pass through:

Our survey complete, we decided to head back to camp to report our findings. We were guided on our path by the dirigible fleet:

Along the way, we found some booty blowing in the wind, which was appropriately claimed by the Totenkitten Empire:

Stopping in camp to rest and let some of the wind blow over, we received this useful notification:

We also ran into this hardcore niceguy:

Also, Magill and Carl were outside contemplating the wind and dust:

Next time, we’ll look at some things you can use to help you deal with dust storms!

[1]’Dead Man’s Switch’es are standard on fire installations. A human operator must be pressing on the switch at all times during operation, or fire will not happen. This is generally done through a mechanical switch or optical isolator to prevent an electrical short from circumventing the switch.

In our last picture post, we talked about the incipient windstorm. It turns out that winds had reached 70km/h overnight.

Waking up, we saw this sequence of bike-ominoes:

However, through luck or skill, our S’s trusty steed:

And mine:

were still standing, which we chose to take as a fortuitous portent.

(Also, the fact that you can see the Quonset[1] still standing in the background is also a good sign. In 2013, it was taken out by a windstorm a couple days into Early Arrival. Interesting Times.)

Taking a quick portapotty break, we saw this inspiring message:

Evan, Dug, and I set out to assess the damage to the Charnival installation:

On the way, we passed a chair that was clearly off its rocker:

The Playa can seem simultaneously desolate and beautiful. For me, in this light, the desolation seems predominant (though still beautiful):

Late last night, we had decided to test our luck with the windstorm by piling every dense object we could find (fence posts, socket sets, toolboxes full of screws, fire extinguishers) on top of our two yellow/black bins of tools/fabric/etc…

And it worked! It was all still there after the 70km/h windstorm! (Although, if you’d been hefting those fence posts all day, you would probably understand why.):

And then the moment of truth. Had Mirror Blaze itself survived, or would have extra days of back-breaking work to repair things? Luckily (or perhaps skilfully), it was still proudly standing, flying the flag[2]:

Riskee Ball was also okay, but the dirigible fleet seemed to have knocked over one of the Charnival walls:

More exciting wind effects (and non-effects) in our next installment!

[1]For those who care, the Quonset was a skeleton of 2″(I think) grey PVC piping bent into an approximate half-cylinder, with a skin of tarp. The skeleton pipes were held in place by rebar pounded into the ground (I think candycane, 3′). There were also multiple long ropes helping to hold things together. This is a somewhat similar design.

[2]It’s not actually flying the flag there. It’s a trompe l’oeil.

During build night two, we captured a few videos.

As part of our building, Kosta tested the emergency exit:

Then S & I toured the (mostly structure-complete) maze, also testing the emergency exit:

After these successful tests, Evan & S decided to practice their unicorn riding skills:

Somehow, one or more of the unicorns escaped their mooring and turned into art cars. They then decided that the Magic Carpet had offended it in some way, and an altercation ensued. Unicorn was triumphant, and retained possession of the field:

In our last post, we had just stopped construction for supper[1]. As we had much more to do, we went back to the Charnival grounds to build in the evening.

(We had also heard rumors of an impending windstorm the following day, so we also went out to batten down all of the hatches.)

We had also started to receive our first explorers, and our intrepid build crew was happy to bask in their adulation:

Here are some pictures to try to capture the calm before the storm. First, the calmness of the grounds, with the Man in the distance:

Here’s a side view of Mirror Blaze, complete with some wind bracing:

Here’s Riskee Ball, the backside of the Charnival entrance and barker station, and Fire Tetris (note the rather intense Fire Tetris wind bracing):

We were visited by an interesting arachnid-nose car:

Here’s our feisty build team for night two:

We then took a few minutes to explore some glowing unicorns we found before calling it a night:

[1]And a ‘unique experience‘…