I arrived at Black Rock City on Sunday 8/27 at 12:30am.  After a delay getting our laminates from Ranger Dirtwitch at the gate due to a cranky laptop, we friends and rangers of thermal shock camp proceeded in slow dusty convoy to our street address in the city where Ranger Beavis was waiting.  We passed a couple of Raves going full blast and the bare beginnings of 9 or 10 theme camps but for the most part the city was empty and dark as the official start of the Burning Man festival wasn't for 4 more days (on Thursday).

    The only people here so far were folks preparing their camps, artists erecting their installations, a scattering of Rangers and the Black Rock Dept. of Public Works which had been working on the City for 4 weeks already.  The temperature was around 50 degrees and the wind was in 30 mph gusts from out of the south west.  After getting our tents set up we turned in.  We being Rangers Crazyhorse, Toecutter, Rigged, Nightside and Myself.

    The Milky way was so bright and beautiful that I had to sit in the door to my tent for another hour admiring it before sleep would come.  The stars were bright enough to cast a shadow of my hand on the playa!!  As I drifted off, a thin sliver of a ruddy crescent moon rose in the east and what appeared to be a mobile discoteque syncopated by trimmed in purple christmas lights.

8/27/00    The next morning I awoke at 7am and began to unpack my van "Frankenvolks" in order to get at my food and sunshelter materials before I was respectively starved and cooked.  The wind was calm and the temperature mild at first but by 11am it was around 100f and the wind was once again gusting out of the southeast at around 35mph.  As John had to cancel out at the last minute I needed to get the sunshelter assembled on my own.  Once it was assembled it seemed that everybody in the vicinity came running up to help me erect it.  Good thing too cause it took every one of them.

    Once the Sunshelter was up I was struck by it's obvious strength and simplicity of design (my own).  I'd used Silver Tarps, aluminum electrical conduit, a combination of electrical and plumbing fittings, nylon parachute cord and half inch rebar stakes.  Before that moment I didn't even know if it would stand and now here it was standing steady in this terrible wind.  I already despised the wind (little did I know).  Nightside and myself walked the mile to center camp and the Ranger HQ to check in and pick up our Radios and Hats.  Everybody we saw was smiling (and squinting from the dust and sun) and though the population was light the camps going up were already amazing.

    With the shelter erected I proceeded to park the van beneath it and set up the tent in its' shade.  That done, I shifted the vans' load from my original parking place to my new and cozy camp.  I then had something to eat and turned in for a nap as my first shift as a Black Rock Ranger was to begin at midnight.   I drank 3 and 1/2 gallons of water that day.

    When a campmate woke me at 11pm I felt generally crappy.   Headache, flushed and exhausted.  I figure it was a mix of the altitude and the days' unfamiliar labours beneath the sun.  The result was that I begged off my shift and returned to camp to sleep the rest of the night away.

8/28/00    I awoke at 6am rested and refreshed.  Our camp, Thermal Shock had filled in a bit over night with the arrival of Ranger Eyeliner and his lovely goth friend Adrienne.  It was quiet and for the moment the wind had dropped to nothing.  As the morning wore on the camps woke up and folks throughout the city turned to building their camps and shelters, decorating and guying mostly.

    I spent the day straightening out my camp and helping neighbors setup theirs.  For the most part Monday was a hot day with occasional high clouds and a high of around 95f.  The wind gusted to 30 mph out of the southsouthwest.

    At 8pm I turned in for a pre-patrol nap and at 11pm Ranger Nightside woke me up and I put on my ranger costume and hoofed it to ranger HQ in the center camp in time for my midnight eight hour shift.  The Shift Commander was a crazy dude named Digger.  I was paired for my first shift with another 1st year 1st shift ranger named LongPig (from Hawaii).  We were told to mentor each other, oh.   Our beginning post was the southside.  With center camp as the dividing line, Black Rock City was divided into two parts.  The northside was dustier and held most of the really loud art (Raves, Stages, Deathguild) and a generally younger crowd.   The southside was mostly made up of older (30+) folks desirous of some sleep each night for health's sake.  All LARGE SCALE sound art was relegated to the extreme arms of the city with the emitters (speakers) pointed out into the open playa.

    We rode our bikes around for an hour or so tripping on all the pretty lights and people until around 1am when were were directed by Digger to the Front Gate to direct traffic.  There I met the traditional gate leader, a fellow called Iceman.  Pretty cool.  We spent a couple of hours there saying Hi and directing folks to the ticket office or the gate.  As our shift was half over, digger had us go to the center camp cafe where we had a hot chocolate that couldn't be beat.

    After our break Digger had us go to The Man to relieve two half frozen rangers for their relief.  Our main job there was to keep folks from smoking on the Hay Bale platform that the man rests on and as there were apparently shorts in the man's electronics to keep folks from playing with the wires.

    Through the night there was a steady stream of folks coming to and leaving the man but a dawn there was a solid crowd of 50 or so present to witness the spectacular sunrise that is apparently a given on the playa where the weather is mentally ill.  At 8:30am Digger got our reliefs out to us and I went to Breakfast at the comissary tent where I had a meal that couldn't be beat (without cups for the juice or forks for the food).  After eating I was tired in a drifty sort of way so I decided to walk the bike home and soak up the waking city on the way.

    People were very cool.  I was told thanks for keeping us safe by at least 20 people.  I had some fresh pineapple and was offered all sorts of things like food and water.  Folks were so enthusiastic and positive toward the idea of the rangers that I half expected to see some of them whip out little ranger flags and begin shouting Viva La Ranger!  I realized  that I loved this place in an almost sexual way.  I returned to camp and slept until 11am.

More will be posted soon...bed time's upon me 12/12/00.