Okay, I admit it. I’ve been back for a few days and I’ve been procrastinating about writing this blog. Burning Man was such an intense and different week for me that I know I’m either going to write this incredibly long blog about it, or give up entirely and fall over dead before I finish writing about it.

First of all, pictures are here. Have fun digging through them. I’ve tried to rotate them and add titles and descriptions wherever possible. Enjoy!

Where the heck do I begin? I carpooled up with Kristen, who is one of Andrew’s friends. We were running late and didn’t get there until Tuesday morning around 2:30AM. That night sucked, to put it mildly. I got blasted with a super soaker from some random crazy drunk guy; I couldn’t find the tent I was supposed to be borrowing from another camp member; I had a horrible fear of porta-potties; and I slept badly.

The next two days or so, I slowly adjusted to life without email, phones, toilets, money, air conditioning, or running water. The first day was by far my worst; I started coming out of my shell after that and getting more adapted to the environment. I walked around with Andrew and went to see tons of great art installations. The really cool thing about Burning Man is that all of the art installations are interactive. I found everything from a giant drum set to a big blue head with an entire room in the back of it to a bookmobile that roamed around the playa to a giant magnetic poetry wall to lots of tiny art installations that did something interesting and unique. In the meantime, I was also slowly adapting to the weather (hot during the day, really cold at night, and with random dust storms.)

Burning Man really is an indescribable experience. It’s about so much more than pooing in portapotties and living with little or no modern amenities. It’s even about more than just going around the playa and playing with huge interactive art pieces. The best way to explain it is simply that you have freedom to do absolutely whatever the hell you want to do (within the confines of the environment.) Want to walk around naked? Sure! Want to dress up like the opposite sex? Heck, you’ll look normal. Want to tell people you’re something you’re not? Have sex or make out with someone you normally wouldn’t? Take any kind of drug you’ve ever wanted to try? Go to a rave that lasts for 5 straight days? Yep, you can do that. At Burning Man, you can be whoever the heck you want; try on new personalities as others try on clothes, and take risks you probably wouldn’t take in everyday life. In short, it is true freedom.

Oh yeah, and you can play Dance Dance Immolation, a DDR clone that requires a flame-proof suit and an oxygen line, because you will be shot in the face with a huge flame if you miss more than 3 steps.

Pure insanity.

I actually wasn’t too daring at Burning Man; I didn’t go for the hard drugs and didn’t run around naked. I did meet someone I really like, though! I’ll name him R for the purposes of this blog… he is a total cutie, and he and I hit it off amazingly well, so I’ll definitely be writing more about him in the future! 😉 (Fortunately, like most of the people in our camp, he lives in the Bay Area, so at least there isn’t distance to contend with.) I also definitely have some highlights: I participated in a huge pillow fight; I was spun around on a platform while watching trippy visualizations (which was one of the best highs I have ever had without drugs being involved); and (one of my favorite parts of the trip) I listened to Paul Oakenfold spinning live through the night at an outdoor club, complete with shooting flames that erupted at climactic points in the music!

I had a really incredible time and I will be back next year, although for next year I’m going to get some sort of camper so I can sleep through the noise… I’m such a light sleeper that I got awakened many times throughout the night by thumping music or freezing cold temperatures.

For those of you curious about Burning Man, and since it’s nearly impossible to describe to someone who hasn’t been there, Morford sums it up pretty well. That column was written in 2001, but remains fairly accurate.

Back to the “real world”! Phew, I’m exhausted…

I decided I wanted a burrito for dinner tonight, so I got on Citysearch to find the best burrito place near my house. Turns out there’s some place called “Burrito Factory” a couple miles away, and it’s rated a 9.1/10, so I decide to try it.

I walk in and order a burrito to go, then sit down at a table. Next to me, two guys are talking animatedly about something. I listen in on the conversation. One of them is talking about hacking a HD-Tivo…something about the serial port…and then complaining bitterly about FreeBSD’s lack of Serial ATA support for whatever chipset he’s using with his SATA card.

But seriously, my favorite overheard geek conversation has to be the following. This happened a few months ago. I am out with a friend at the Country Inn off Saratoga. (Country Inn is like Denny’s, but a bit better and locally-owned.) This place is called “Country Inn”, so I am expecting old people ordering the senior citizen specials, right?

There is a loud argument going on at the next table between two guys. Turns out one of them is a PHP programmer and one of them is a Java programmer. And there is war happening at that table. I hear words like “enterprise” and “beans” and “object-oriented” being bandied about. Still in a heated argument, they pay their bill and leave, not pausing for a second to look up at the rest of the people at the restuarant, who are watching them with mild curiosity and amusement.

I love San Jose.

(Oh, and Burrito Factory was really good. If you’re in the area, check it out. It’s on Camden, in a strip mall, just to the west of Union.)

Oh man. I pretty much killed myself at BARCamp last weekend. And by “killed myself” I mean “killed off that pesky immune system.” That’s right; I’m sick. A cold is my body’s way of telling me “SLOW DOWN FOR A MINUTE AND GET SOME SLEEP, WOULDJA?!” I guess sleeping 4 hours Friday night and 6 hours Saturday (and that was a fragmented 6 hours; it was more like 4+1+1) was not enough, despite the fact that I slept most of Sunday to make up for it. I took yesterday almost completely off work as a “recovery day” and I took another half-day off today to take another nap, toss down some Sudafed, and relax a bit.

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, vacation!!! Okay, so my silly friend Andrew (yes, Andrew, you are silly!) is a 9-year Burning Man veteran, and he told me such great stories about it that I just had to try it. Why Burning Man? Well, apart from the obvious why-NOT-Burning-Man-as-I-am-one-of-those-crazy-people-who-will-try-almost-anything-once, a lot of my friends have gone and really enjoyed it; I need a vacation; and I really need a vacation where I don’t have to be awakened by my cell phone. Since there are no cell towers in the desert, that problem is solved (thank God.) Brandon & Ben have agreed to hold down the office for a week while I am gone and report back to me with a “Erica, please hire someone with X, Y, and Z skills so we are not running around like crazy people when you decide to take a vacation” post-mortem when I get back.

So Andrew and I went to a Giants game last night, where we watched the Giants stomp the Phillies 5-0 and sat there talking about Burning Man the whole time. I bought my ticket today ($240; craigslist saved me about $18 over the list price!) and found a ride, a tent, and bought some weird/cool/funky clothes (the pics that come out of this are going to be freakin’ hilarious!) I still need to buy more clothes, and get together some “essentials” like dust masks and water before I go.

I am fabulously excited about Burning Man, as I already know it will be completely unlike anything I have ever experienced, and please God let there be some hottie guys there, cuz I need some’o’dat. I’ve put Forex training on hold for a couple of weeks (until I get back) so I can devote my full attention to making sure Burning Man rocks my freakin’ world. This week is already completely crammed full of stuff to do; I have something going on every single night, and conflicting engagements most of those nights! I have become a social butterfly and I am lovin’ every minute of it!

Until next time… I’m preparing to PARTY!!

I’m live at BARCamp, which is what I would term an offbeat but fun “meatspace” networking event. Back story: Tim O’Reilly, who is the founder of the O’Reilly publishing house, holds an event called FOO Camp every year in the woods in Sebastopol, CA (read: middle of nowhere) which brings together a bunch of geeks (200 or so). The geeks get together and brainstorm all weekend on new technology. This is considered the “A-list” party for geeks to attend every year.

However, there are many more geeks who want to go to FOO Camp than who actually get to go due to the limited space at Tim’s hideout in Sebastopol. So some geeks decided to do an event here in the Bay Area instead. The premise: FOO Camp, only without the woods, and without the “exclusive invite” strategy. SocialText donated a 2500sq.ft. office in downtown Palo Alto, several sponsors (including Simpli!) donated money for food, and the rest is history… an all-weekend, goofy geek party with free food, tents in the office, people camping out under tables, and lots’n’lots of laptops and interesting people. Oh, and in the spirit of things like Burning Man, you’re supposed to give or participate in a conference or demo session of something cool that you’re doing.

I stayed here last night till about 4AM, went home, slept for about 7 hours, and came back to an already-packed house full of weary (or, in some cases, caffeine-buzzed) geeks. I’ve attended several fascinating sessions on everything from “How to succeed at Google AdWords” to “Women in technology” to “Why our pluralistic voting system sucks, and which voting systems don’t suck.” I must say that the conference sessions are amazingly well-done considering people signed up for slots on handwritten pieces of paper on one of the walls!

My goal here was to walk out with the conference attendees knowing what Simpli was all about and that we offer dedicated servers, colocation, and shared hosting here in San Jose. I started off by talking to Andy Smith, one of the organizers, about doing a hardware sale of some of Simpli’s old hardware to raise money for food. A couple of us in irc.freenode.net #barcamp thought it might work even better as an auction, so Ben and I spent 5 hours on Friday labeling old equipment and hauling it up to Palo Alto for the auction. I would definitely consider the auction a success! Most of the items (which are old hard drives and computers with prices starting at $5) have received at least one bid, and a few have even had multiple bids. We’ve gotten rid of some old hardware and raised about $200 for this BARCamp (or the next one, if this one already has all of the meals bought.)

I definitely think BARCamp was executed quite well for having been planned so quickly. I’m also celebrating being able to meet other women who are in this industry; geek women are so rare and it’s great to meet some who live close by. I definitely think BARCamp will be happening again, and I also think it will shape the direction of the next SuperHappyDevHouse. (One example: The presentations really do add to the event and “gel” the whole thing together, as opposed to it just being a weekend-long water-cooler hangout.) It has been a great weekend so far!

A. Like this! (click here)

I have said before that I can fit just about any item into a Miata. I fit a BBQ grill (I mean a big Weber one!) in it and I fit a 7’x1’x1′ curio cabinet into it. This time, though, I had a real challenge. I IM’ed my friend Zack and asked him if he wanted to do something in SF tonight, since he lives in the Mission district. He said sure, but the problem was that he was at work in Redwood City, which he takes Caltrain and a bike to. I told him we’d figure out how to fit the bike in the car, but I didn’t let him know I had a Miata. (hehe!)

Anyway, after about 15 minutes of work, we got it to fit, and we tied it down pretty securely. It stayed that way during the coooolllllld ride to SF. (Actually, it wasn’t that bad, as we were both bundled pretty warmly, and Miatas have good heaters.) We went to dinner at Tommy’s Joynt, which has to be one of my favorite places in SF to eat (fabulous food and cheap, too.) Then we wandered across the street to the AMC 1000 Van Ness, where I decided he really needed to see the SpongeBob SquarePants movie. (YAY! for SpongeBob!) The movie was hilarious; we saw the late showing so there were no kids, and David Hasselhoff made a rather…unusual…cameo. (See the movie; it’s great.)

Tomorrow is kung fu! I will update once it’s over with my first impressions.