Geek - Fairfax Journey

energy basics

Jan 092025

Even though I’ve studied energy work for eight years, I realize I haven’t written much about what I’ve been learning, and how it’s changed my life. In 2016 I quit my career as a software architect, and now lead a very different existence. So let’s talk about human energy fields, and some “basics” that enable energy work. If you want to learn about universal and human energy fields, I recommend starting with Hands of Light, by Barbara Brennan.

First, understand two things:

Energy follows Attention. Wherever you place your attention or thoughts or will-power or intentions, energy will move.

Our personal space is sovereign to us. One of the gifts of incarnating into a human body is that our human energy field, our auric space, is ours to manage however we wish. Generally, this extends a few feet in all directions from our body, although some systems map a much larger field.

I will also add that I believe in reincarnation, and my personal belief system is buddhist. Some of that training will undoubtably seep into how I share this!

When I studied with my first energy class teacher, Lynda Caesara, she taught five-step process for clearing and orienting our system and preparing ourselves for energy work, or indeed preparing ourselves for anything. Lynda has no web presence, however she did a podcast in 2023 and an online class on Basics that I strongly recommend if you want to learn more. This Basics process is rumored to come from the Rosicrucians, and is taught at the Berkeley Psychic Institute and perhaps other places. I’m sharing it with you now, with deep gratitude to Lynda and her teaching.

The Basics

Ground

Grounding is connecting our personal energy system to something larger than ourselves, giving ourselves a stabilizing feeling. Usually, we ground to the earth however we can also ground to water, air, or large objects. I’ve found ground in the nighttime sky, for example.

Grounding energetically happens through the body. Thought and intention are necessary, but ultimately it is your “light body” or energy system that grounds. Deep grounding comes in as an embodied “felt sense” or feeling. So dropping into your body is helpful before grounding.

I use visualization to ground to the earth. Our minds can help us connect to feeling. First notice your spine, with large vertebra near the bottom. Follow it down to feel your pelvis, your biggest bone. Follow that down to your leg bones and feet bones, noticing them at the center of your legs, and also follow your spine up to ribs, clavicle, shoulder and arm and hand bones, then up through your neck to your skull. Your framework of bones is made of earth materials, in resonance with the earth. Allow yourself to feel that.

Then notice the planet we are on, the faintly-curving horizon falling away in all directions, immense, giving a felt sense of the size of the earth, the weight of soil and rocks giving a feeling of density. Allow the felt sense of earth and ground come in, remembering your body is made of the same elements as the earth, and let the resonance between your body and the planet bring in the feeling of grounded connection.

Me/Not Me

Once grounded, the second step is sorting out what is ours and not ours in our personal energy system. Use your name as a mantra to call in all the bits of our energy that are elsewhere, and push anything out of our field that is not yours. You can release energetic (fiber) attachments from others, for example, or other people’s projections, expectations, and attachments to us

This practice can be challenging, as it’s sometimes difficult to sort out what is and what is not us. Family expectations, behaviors from the patterns that we run, habits we developed from childhood — these all take time and vulnerability to identify. Chant your name a few times, and see how the sounds resonates with the felt sense of you. Focus on your felt sense of yourself, and allow that which is not you to fall away, absorbed into the ground to be composted and converted into life energy for earth.

Edge

Now, notice and strengthen your auric boundary, an arm’s length away from your body in all directions, above and below and behind you too. This is your sovereign space. You strengthen it by noticing it and placing attention upon it.

Feel free to color and decorate your personal bubble so it truly feels like you. I personally like mid-century modern furniture, and spacecraft sensor and control panels 🙂

Core

The center of your body’s energy system is a column that runs in front of your spine, from your perineum to the top of your head. We call this the “core”. There are seven chakras or energy centers distributed along this column. (There are additional chakras above and below your body and in your joints, but we’re not going to focus on them, to keep things simple.)

Your core is essentially your energetic identity, containing seven kinds of intelligence and awareness. Some people have a naturally strong core, which helps them to have a strong sense of themself and what they are feeling at all times. Others have a core that is more ephemeral, or perhaps “wobbly”, allowing their sense of themself to collapse under stress. Some of us naturally orient towards other people’s feelings and experience, and in turn have a less strong sense of our own.

Like all things, attention brings energy and strengthens our core. It has a felt sense, and we have a felt sense of ourselves emanating from it. Our core is where we ground to the earth, and connect to whatever feels spiritual or divine, including our essence. We are the meeting place of grounding from below and divine from above, in our core. At the center of the chakra system, behind our breastbone, is our heart chakra, where we find compassion and love for ourself and others. So breathe into your core, allow yourself to feel your full range of identity and awareness and capacity, your body’s “gut sense” of the world around you, and your heart awareness as well as your mind.

Chakras

The final step is to balance our chakras, which can be energetically strong or weak, overdeveloped or underutilized, and/or extend in front of or behind our body. One by one, scan and breathe into your seven chakras, feeling the special awareness and capacity and unique felt sense and intelligence that each provides. Start with the root chakra, and proceed upward through all seven to reach the crown.

Seven Chakra Poster Chart © chakraplaza.com - serenaking.com — *(source: ChakraPlaza on Etsy, click to purchase)*

In addition to these chakra descriptions, I feel that the first chakra represents our identity, the second is a source of power and vitality, and the third is the seat of willpower. Our heart chakra is the seat of compassion, our fifth chakra is the center of communication and hearing and music, and our sixth is the place of vision and imagination. Breathe several times into each chakra to feel and clarify what it does, noticing overactivity or under activity. Again, our attention moves the energy.

Here is a short guided Basics meditation I recorded for a friend.

You have now completed the five steps to being in your Basics. It can take just a couple of minutes, and with practice can come in almost instantaneously. Practicing daily will help stabilize your system, expand your awareness through your heart and body, and help you notice some of your energetic habits. For example, you may find you leave your body frequently, or feel others’ experience more easily than your own, or use your willpower to do everything. I’ll post another article soon about patterns 🙂

wildlife

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Nov 262024

One of the aspects of my home is location…on what is called the “wild land/urban interface”, or WUI. The western side of Fairfax is surrounded by open space, as the town is at the head of the Ross Valley, surrounded by hills on three sides. This means I get to co-exist with a lot of critters.

Most are delightful, like this fox who explored my deck this morning. A gray fox, Urocyon cinereoargenteus, known for its ability to climb trees. I’ve seen fox a handful of times up on the hill behind my house, but never this close.

What I mostly see are coyote and deer, with the occasional bobcat, raccoon or rabbit. There is a pack of coyote in the area, and I’ve heard them howling at night less than a hundred yards from the house. Sometimes I don’t hear them for months. Other times it’s a nightly serenade.

I’ve written about an annual spring parade of turkeys. And also about cougar in the hills. I’m sure the cougar, bobcats and coyote keep the turkey population under control.

And then there is the rattlesnake population. This 30″ northern pacific rattlesnake has been hanging around my house for years, probably in the drain system (which is a blessing, as it ensures the wood rat population is under control). The second one is smaller, perhaps 20″. I’ve seen both of them this year, crossing the street to hang out in the creek bed, entertaining/terrifying passing cyclists and dog walkers. They may also tuck themselves into the large rocks in the front yard landscaping, I’ve spotted them there too. I’ve considered posting a “rattlesnake crossing” sign.

Wood rats are a problem, as the creek bed is their ideal environment. In 2022, we found two the size of small cats had built a nest in a corner of a garage, churning out little rats that became a nuisance. A live trap solved that problem, as I was able to catch them on subsequent days and release them several miles away near San Geronimo creek, over the hills to the west. Strangely, there was a story a few weeks later from someone in Woodacre reporting that two huge rats had taken up residence in their garage. Coincidence? In any case, that solved the rat problem for a while.

Then I found our pet rattlesnake in the corner of the same garage digesting a big meal last summer. And we found and cleaned out another rat nest with dead offspring, yuck. Shooing the snake out of the garage, I installed a better sweep on the bottom of the garage door, and we seem to have eliminated the wildlife in the house. At least for now.

Every June, the Ross Valley school district imports a herd of goats to clear excess vegetation for fire safety. Not exactly wildlife, but a very entertaining presence for three weeks. Not only does this become a huge petting zoo attraction, but the two dogs that accompany the herds make their presence known all night. Of course the goats attract coyotes, so June is a particularly musical month, sometimes annoyingly so.

(I appreciate the fire suppression! One of the risks of being in the WUI is that a wildfire in west Marin could get blown over the ridges into Fairfax, and we are on the front lines of fire defense. In 2022, the fire department did amazing work up behind my house to eliminate down wood, and we all weed-whack our properties every summer to reduce the hazard.)

The most visible and frequent wild neighbors are the crows and redtail hawks and turkey vultures. Fairfax has a murder of about 60 crows (yes, that’s what a bunch of crows are called) that daily visit the trees and field across the street. Plus I can see a turkey vulture or two cruising somewhere in the valley most of the time, if I look.

Two redtails moved in last winter, building a nest in a big oak above my house. Two months later, there was a third young redtail learning to fly and catch rats in the creek bed. I actually saw it stoop and nail a rat one morning. I wish I had pictures, but they are hard to photograph without a telephoto lens. I will say that I appreciate them most of all as neighbors, even though they announce their presence with authority every morning just before sunrise. They keep an eye on things in a magical way.

Time to publish this, as the crows have arrived.

ttitd vi

Burning Man, Geek, Travel 1 Response »

Sep 072023

Welcome home.

That’s what the greeters say when you finally get to the gate, and it feels true. For the sixth time, I was back to That Thing In The Desert. Again our trusty Westy, Mojave, has carried us without problems from home to Lassen (where we store our Burning Man gear), and then across the Nevada desert on dirt highways to arrive early on Friday. Jen came along for the first time since 2018, her seventh burn, and we cheerfully and easily set up our camp, complete with so much aluminet that someone referred to our camp as “The Tiara”. We were tucked in right at 4 & E, across the street from the Alternate Energy Zone tower. Here we are the first night, celebrating with vino.

Arriving early let us enjoy a quiet Black Rock City, even as traffic picked up on Saturday, with camp construction noises all around. The Leopard Lounge showed up midday, nearly everyone pitched in for set up, and was rolling with live music and tequila by evening. Our camp filled over the next two days, as dozens of VW buses came in. A core group brought shade structure pieces, and assembled Rosie’s Retreat, a large common space where we had events all week And we had a somewhat international crew this year, with a neighbors from Poland, Oz, Sierra Leon, and a couple from Beijing. (Zhen generously shared some of his photos with me, which are mixed in below).

Clearly, Jen is having a good time, and so am I! The activities at Rosie’s Retreat include some great presentations on olive oil and wine, Bus Camp history, plant enthogenics, Mother’s High Tea, and the annual tie-dye event, which was very well attended.

And then of course, there is the artwork on the playa, my favorite part.

Babel, a large installation slated for burning on Friday

This was my second year as a Ranger, and I ended up doing four shifts. The high point was helping two folks in the Ranger Sanctuary (a protected quiet place) re-locate to new camps. And helping a nearby camp handle a medical emergency when someone got very dehydrated.

Of course, everything changed on Friday afternoon, as rain started to fall and the playa mud got too deep for walking. The Leopard Lounge had an exceptional afternoon with a variety of guest performers, until the damp made it impossible to play. We sacked out early, and awoke Saturday to a muddy wonderland. Our plans for a Saturday departure were trashed, the gates were closed and it was impossible to move except by walking barefoot, or with plastic bags or socks on your feet. Anything else accumulated so much mud (boots, bikes, etc.) that you became stuck in place.

Early Saturday morning, a sea of mud outside our camp. The tarp on the ground and shade structure kept our camp cozy and dry.

Life in Bus Camp continued in a pretty normal way through the muddy weekend, with two exceptions. First, we ran out of tequila (although someone came by and gifted us a bottle on Monday 🙂 The second was more serious — the mud made it impossible to service the porta potties, and we all had to adapt. Fortunately, someone in the neighborhood put signs on the porta potties telling people to pee in bottles, so the porta potties wouldn’t get filled up…and that worked perfectly. Our part of the city never had a problem. And we had ample empty water bottles (and a 5-gallon bucket for emergencies, which we never needed).

One of the other Rangers in camp had a radio, so I called in and went on duty. The AEZ tower next door became an info hub, as they had free wifi, so I hung out around there. Dozens of folks came by asking about the weather, exodus, the Man burn, and I shared what I knew from other Rangers.

As the mud started to dry, walking became easier. Sunday morning we got out to see more artwork, and and found some of it was already being disassembled. But the skies were spectacular.

Then of course it rained again, but lightly. We could see how quickly everything was drying out, and Monday afternoon we packed up our camp in preparation for departure. The exodus was in full swing, we saw plenty of folks leaving. At about 12:40, planes started landing at the airport, so clearly the runway had become usable again. And there was a steady flow of aircraft all afternoon as some of the wealthier attendees got out of dodge.

We stayed for the Man burn Monday night. Rather than join the madness, we found a nice spot on the playa a half-mile away, next to a parked vehicle. We hung out for an hour, watching the fireworks and activities until finally the Man became a huge fireball. Spectacular, as always.

We arose Tuesday at 5am to load up the van, and headed out at sunrise. Our exodus was easy, as it took 2 hours to reach the gate. The drive back to Lassen was uneventful. Even cleanup was relatively easy, as we had far less dust than other years. We did have a very muddy carpet, and won’t be bringing that to the playa again. And our new shade canopy was a resounding success, making set up and tear down a lot easier.

So, it was the wettest year ever. I feel happy I got to participate. It was the last year of the Leopard Lounge, and our camp will feel different next year without it. As always, I wonder what I missed — there is too much going on to catch more than a tiny fraction. But I loved the art work, being a Ranger, and making our camp delightful regardless of the weather. Every time we come here we get better at it.

Next time, we’ll bring extra tequila!

ttitd v

Burning Man, Geek, Reflection, Travel Comments Off

Sep 252022

First view of Black Rock City this year. Foreshadowing…

After a three-year hiatus, Burning Man happened again this year. I eagerly prepared early, not knowing if I would get a ticket, or what I would experience. I have learned that clear resolve and intention makes things happen, so I’ve been acting for months on the assumption I would get there. To be sure, I did. I had 12 days on the playa, experienced joy and exhaustion, clarity, inebriation, dawn, heat, dust, learning and teaching, responsibility, delight, connection, isolation. It was all things hoped for, and many that could not be anticipated.

Most of all, ‘That Thing In The Desert’ is not a destination, but a journey. I had the intention to become a Black Rock Ranger this time, and one of my friends needed a hexayurt delivered to our camp before the event formally started. A month ago, a sage friends shared that one of my guides was telling me to “look upon this journey as a “vision quest”, and to make sure that “my masculine and feminine were in balance”. And so the journey took form.

Ranger HQ, 6:15 & Esplanade, looking out on the inner playa on Sunday morning. Lots of kilts. Rangers are easy to recognize by their hats, and the pervasive use of khaki, which is the color of the dust. And they carry radios.

If you haven’t been to Black Rock City, then it’s hard to understand what Rangers are: experienced, compassionate and trained burners with radios and access to resources. They are first responders to everything: pointing out the nearest porta-potties, calling medical aid, dealing with consent violations, drug ODs, whatever. In a sense, the journey began here, because in the spring I attended online and in-person classes.

I also got the idea to bring cloth patches to my friends in VW Bus Camp this year, and worked on the design early this summer. From a past camp project, a motto came into being, “There is great pleasure camping with tequila”. I did the drawing, and my partner Jen did the color scheme and contributed the agave plant.

I ended up getting 200 of them made, in two sizes, and handed them out everywhere. They were popular, and I still have some left, so please let me know if you want one!

The third prelude was the VW Hexayurt adventure. One of our camp members needed a place to stay, and one of our other members had a hexayurt shaped like a VW bus, build some years ago. I volunteered to transport it from Nevada City, CA to our camp. About 15 pieces of foam insulation, cut to fit together with tape, plus a home-made swamp cooler in a Rubbermaid container. It made a neat 100-lb stack on the roof rack, including a piece of plywood and some lumber to protect the panels. This will be the shelter for our campmate Heather Winfrey and her husband Jerald, who are traveling without bus this year. Heather has been dealing with a very serious cancer for the last few months, and they need every luxury we can afford them.

The hexayurt formed a neat stack on the roof rack

All packed with the yurt and all my gear in Lassen, ready to head for the playa

I set off from home on Tuesday, August 23rd, with a stop at an Oak Dance fire ritual with friends in the east bay. Though I wasn’t expecting it, the ritual reoriented me, I knew I was on a vision quest. From the moment I left the fire, my trip took on a curious, spacious, serendipitous feel, a quiet and deep heart space, and I realized how much I needed a solitary journey. After spending the night at a friend’s place in Sacramento, I stopped in Nevada City to load up the hexayurt, as you see in the photos. That night I was up at the cabin in Lassen, pulling out all the paraphernalia that would make camp comfortable on the playa…shade pop-up, solar lights, 7-gallon jugs of water, tarps, window insulation, bicycles, c/hairs, rebar anchors, ratchet straps. It’s now a pretty tidy and organized pile, with the tarps, shade net, anchors and hammer in a big duffle bag on the roof (so I can get them on arrival) and other gear in two big bins. I take a leisurely full day to pack, then head east through Susanville and across the desert early Friday.

It’s four hours from my cabin to BRC. The gate takes a couple of hours, and then I’m in!

Nevada has highway signs on their dirt roads

Heading north past another dry lake southwest of Gerlach

Arriving midday on Friday, it’s not very crowded. I screw a big tarp down to the playa, park the van on one half, erect and strap down the pop-up, insulate the windows, and throw netting over the whole thing to add shade. Add bamboo mats, a carpet, table and chairs, and it’s feeling like home. By evening, it’s margarita time.

…so my place is expanded with tents, bikes and parked cars

Setup complete. This year, I have guests camping with me…

The hexayurt got unloaded first, of course. On Saturday, a group of us got together to assemble it, complete with a battery-operated swamp cooler. It was all ready to go by the time that Heather and Jerald arrived.

This turned out to be a very dusty year, and we have lots of wind and limited visibility nearly every afternoon, sometimes at night too. Cleaning is a major daily chore.

More than anything, I’m here for the art. The playa always offers a rich display of creativity.

The fourth theme for this burn was Rangering. I joined the Black Rock Rangers this year, going through online and in-person training earlier in the year. My second day on the playa, I did a ten-hour shift to complete training. Rangers are basically just burners with radios and extra awareness. It’s a little like being an off-duty cop, EMT and therapist all in one.

May be an image of one or more people, people standing and outdoors — A bunch of Rangers going on duty. Photo by Stephanie Gale

Going on shift, complete with radio. Still haven’t figured out where to hang this thing.

My Ranger shift buddy, engaging with the artwork. We always travel in pairs.

I really enjoyed Rangering. The alpha training shift was very tiring, and the real scenarios we used for practice were intense, some of them very scary. My regular six-hour shift was moderately busy, we had to deal with a couple of folks in melt-down situations, but mostly we were just answering questions and being helpful. The Rangers I met are good people, exceptionally capable, humorous and dedicated. The stuff that happens at Burning Man is like any city of 80,000 people…raised by an order of magnitude. For example, there is an 80-bed hospital, and at one point all the beds were full. This year we saw a LOT of e-bikes and motorized scooters, some traveling at 30 mph (totally illegal, all vehicles are limited to 5 mph). Of course there were collisions and broken bones, though I did not hear of anyone dying in a traffic accident.

After 11 full days, it’s time to go. Cleaning and packing takes a while, my guests were gone before the Man burned Saturday night, which was smart thinking on their part. Departure from the event is tricky, as there are huge bursts of traffic throughout Labor Day weekend. I left on Monday afternoon, which was a huge mistake. It took ten hours for me to get to the highway, a bit after midnight. I should have spent the night, hung out with the few folks still in camp, and left in the morning. I would have gotten home just as fast.

Annie (a camp mate) cleaning the dust off her VW before an early departure. Electric leaf blower, what a great idea!

Tuesday sunrise, after sleeping a few hours on all the stuff inside the Westy

Dust devil, as people leave and open space reappears

Driving back to California on 120 miles of dirt roads, with a stop on the Nobles Emigrant trail to check out a cave

This was such a solitary trip, even with all my cheerful and engaging camp mates. It is oddly humbling to feel so completely at home in such an extreme place. I had a lot of good, thoughtful solo time. I met people, coached and massaged people, served tequila, smoked and drank, talked about VW’s and life endlessly, and wish I’d explored more. I perhaps saw half the artwork, watched the burns from a distance, did not go out into the psychedelic colorful craziness of the middle of the night, did not go to any of the dance camps, fall in love, or get seriously drunk. Something deep has been moving inside me this year, and my time in the desert feels rich in only the way deep stillness brings. Wendell Barry wrote:

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.

defecting from bimmer world

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Jul 052022

Does Honda take design cues from nature?

I’ve been an unabashed fan of BMWs for more than 40 years, however the last two years of owning an E70 X5 have cured me of much enthusiasm. While the black SUV has been supremely comfortable, it has proven to be an expensive investment for every day driving. In 20,000 miles of ownership, I’ve replaced the tailgate latch ($1500), front axle half-shaft ($1500), rear brakes ($1000), battery ($440), emergency brake switch, outside air temperature sensor…some of this is normal maintenance for sure, but the cost of standard items like brakes and battery is really painful. Things are failing that should never be a problem in the first 60,000 miles of a vehicle’s life.

So I sold her to another enthusiast, and never intend to buy a BMW newer than about 2007 ever again. Jen’s 2007 328xi has been a trooper, quick, reliable and comfortable with more than 200K miles, and my 1997 528i has been the same. The older cars are fairly easy to work on, parts are not expensive, and most of all, they just work. Every time I was in my mechanic’s shop for X5 work, I heard another story about X5 issues as he talked to customers on the phone. Control module failures, astronomical costs for things wearing out or breaking early (Ignition coils at 70K miles, catalytic converter at 120K miles!?!) I got the message.

I need a pickup truck again, as I prepare for work on the cabin up near Lassen. My last truck (Roy, a dear 1994 Ford that always felt like a pile of parts heading in the same direction) has been gone for many years, and the state of the art has definitely moved forward. Having owned a 2001 Honda CRV once upon a time, I’m drawn to another Honda, and after a lot of research, I find a low-miles 2017 Ridgeline for sale in southern California.

This truck is a revelation. It has all the comfort and features of the X5, all-wheel drive with more cargo space and better mileage. It has plenty of power yet runs on regular gas, which will save me hundreds of dollars a year. It’s fully integrated with my iPhone. It’s a Honda, I expect superb reliability.

Now I’ve left the army of people driving black SUVs, and joined the endless ranks of white pickup truck owners. It’s a different kind of anonymity on the road. But I can throw a pile of firewood in the back without worrying about it, it’s easy to see why the USA is full of pickup trucks.

By the way, it’s time for our annual fire-safety land clearing in the neighborhood, and the goat herd is back, happily munching away at everything they can reach. The photo of the truck captures some of the charm of living in a temporary barnyard.

mojave adventure

Geek, Travel 1 Response »

May 112021

It seems that our longer trips with our Westy camper are fated to become Adventures, and we’ve had a rather entertaining two weeks on the latest. Jen was traveling to Santa Fe, NM for a retreat, when Mz. Parker’s engine abruptly shut down on Highway 58 east of Mojave. The proverbial “middle of nowhere”. She shared a couple of photos with me, and when I saw the crank pulley resting on the muffler like this, with the serpentine belt hanging, I knew this was more than a simple roadside fix. In between us, we found a VW-enabled shop 50 miles away in Victorville, and she got a tow.

Jen was able to rent an SUV, and continue on her journey. Meanwhile, I’ve got to figure out what to do. Astute readers may remember that I nearly got stranded on my way to Burning Man in 2019, when her water pump broke. That ended up taking a week in a shop in Chico, for a new timing belt & water pump. I’m a good mechanic, but these kinds of failures are not easy to fix, especially when I’m 500 miles away.

Broken crank pulley bolt. But why did it break?

Jen could not restart the engine at all, though it turned over ok. Any engine geeks out there are probably groaning like I was…the broken pulley and loss of water pump and alternator should not keep the engine from starting. Something Bad Has Happened, and my best guess is the (recently replaced) timing belt has broken, causing the pistons and valves in the engine to collide violently. We call this a “grenaded” engine, because the inside is filled with broken metal bits, like a detonated hand grenade. Perhaps the sudden stoppage of moving parts put stress on the crank pulley, and caused the bolt to snap. I’ll find out when the engine is removed.

This is a 2004 Jetta engine conversion, with parts from South Africa that have been unobtainable for more than a dozen years. Hardly anyone knows how to work on them. So I start shopping for a $12-17K Subaru engine conversion, when a miracle occurs. I call a Westy shop in San Diego that JUST HAPPENS to have a used replacement engine for our baby. 65K miles, reconditioned, at a cost that is a small fraction of the Subaru upgrade. Probably the only one in the continent. Serendipity saves the day! So I drive 8-1/2 hours south last Thursday, pick up the motor, deliver it to Victorville on Friday, and meet Jen as she returns from her Santa Fe trip.

After a delightful evening visiting friends from half a lifetime ago in San Diego (and discovering the amazing renovation of the downtown area!) the engine and I land in Victorville, Jen and I reconnect, and head down to Desert Hot Springs for a much-needed weekend getaway at our favorite resort. We are restored by the sacred combination of tequila and hot mineral water.

Now home after a 1200-mile trip, we await the transplant operation. It’s going to take two weeks, as the shop (and every shop in southern CA) is slammed with more work than they can handle. Sometime later this month, one of us will figure out a way to get to Victorville and bring our baby home. Meanwhile, with a new heart going in, we feel it’s time to rename her…Mz. Parker no longer seems to fit. We are now calling her “Mojave”.

fireball

Geek 1 Response »

Jan 272020

The house shook yesterday at 4:36pm. It was a single shock, rattling the windows but doing no damage. Jen and I speculated about it over a glass of wine. Earthquake? There was no record of an earthquake on the US Geological Survey earthquake tracking site. Sonic boom? That was my best guess, although it would have to be a military aircraft, and they have strict standing orders not to fly supersonic around populated areas. I remember how a supersonic fighter broke a couple of hundred windows in Tucson when I was a kid in the mid-60’s, but I digress…

Speculation was rampant on our nextdoor.com neighborhood site, as people all over Fairfax reported experiencing the same thing. Finally, one of the residents in the area nailed it — we had a big meteor, a fireball, cruise right over the middle of the bay area at 4:33pm! The picture is from the American Meteor Society tracking section, showing a dozen reports from observers that enabled them to estimate the path of the fireball. Sure wish I’d seen it!

These things start to burn up at around 50 or 70 miles up in the atmosphere, and can make it all the way to the ground on occasion (a meteorite). According to the witnesses, this fireball burned up in the air, so it was probably a baseball-sized rock. It was traveling way faster than the speed of sound, perhaps five or ten miles per second, so it created a hell of a sonic boom.

My brain cheerfully digests data like this. One witness in Tomales (not too far away) reported hearing the sonic boom 3-4 minutes after seeing the meteor. That totally makes sense — we heard it at 4:36, sound travels about 1 mile every 5 seconds, so 3-4 minutes would be 36 to 48 miles away. The flight path over southern Marin was about 9 miles away from us, so the fireball was roughly 35 to 45 miles up in the atmosphere. The math checks.

More interesting is how I feel after a nearby cosmic event. This little chunk of rock traveled around our solar system (or further, who knows?) for probably millions or billions of years, to end it’s life in a 10-second encounter with our precious atmosphere. If it had been bigger, there would be a hole somewhere near Concord now, and if it had been the size of a bus, the hole would be pretty damn big. I am reminded how precious our lives are, how ephemeral, and how easily I take myself and world events so seriously. I vow to savor my day today.

new neighbor

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Jan 062020

One of the pleasures of living on the outskirts of Fairfax is that we are in contact with wildlife, though I seldom comment on it. From the beginning when I was camping on the hillside above the house during construction, I knew this spot was going to expose us to deer, skunk, raccoon, fox, owls, hawks, vultures and dozens of kinds of birds, several kinds of snakes, and perhaps bobcat. I’ve not been disappointed, I’ve seen all of them.

NorthernPacificrattlesnakeonGlenDrive-2020-01-6-13-41.jpg — Northern pacific rattlesnake, about 32″, in front of our house

The neighborhood got a real wake-up call three weeks ago, when several folks on nextdoor.com reported seeing a mountain lion on the other side of the ridge behind our house. We probably see 50 people a day walking their dogs on the street and on the trails of our canyon, and the word spread quickly: we are in cougar country. Perhaps little Fluffy should be on a leash after all.

Also called cougars, panthers and pumas, Puma Concolor were hunted to extinction in many parts of the US. Not so in California, where they are a protected species, and their population has recovered to the point they are now sighted on the edges of towns. If you want some idea, go check out the Bay Area Puma Project website, where you can see records of many sightings in the San Francisco area.

Then a couple of days ago, our neighbor told us she saw what was probably the same mountain lion crossing our street near our houses at around 5pm. Aaack, that is close!

Finally, last night while hiking the trail across the canyon from our house around 5:30pm, we heard a weird sound, like a child crying, up the hill above the trail. At first, we were sure it was a child, and we are wondering if we should go investigate. The sound moves toward the trail ahead of us. Then it turns into a cat fight. Big cats. We can’t see anything, and choosing discretion over valor, we scramble back down the hill, away from the fracas.

We feel adrenaline for hours. The experience was unreal, especially since I had spent the first part of the hike telling Jen about the neighborhood discussion. Did I manifest this experience by putting my energy into it?

Of course, I had to search the inter-tubes for information. It didn’t take long to find this YouTube video, confirming the sound we heard. One of my friends pointed out that it might have been two cougars mating. Sure enough, more searching reveals that they generally mate in December through March…and cougar screams are associated with mating activities.

So I feel surprised and honored to experience this. And living with one or several large predators in the neighborhood, changes how I feel on some primitive level. When I’m outside, some part of me is just aware. There really isn’t any danger, as I’m sure they are well fed, and cougars generally avoid all human contact.

Still, a 6-foot, 180-pound cat is a presence to reckon with. And much more immediate and interesting than the daily soap opera of our national government.

ttitd iv

Burning Man, Geek, Reflection, Travel 1 Response »

Sep 192019

This was my fourth year at Burning Man, my first solo trip, and my first art build. Last year at this time, Jen an I were wiped out after nine days on the playa, and the noise and chaos at the end of the week as ten thousand party peeps arrived for the weekend. This year, I left Saturday morning, feeling replete and happy. And really dusty.

This is how we have camped the last couple of times. Actually a photo from 2018, it looked pretty much the same this year, except I was packed in on all sides by other Westys (here is what it looked like in 2015). The popup shade structure is quick and easy, and the shade netting totally helps with wind, privacy and temperature. I added more solar lights this year, so home was easy to find at 3am.

The art project was Purr Pods, by Paige Tascher, one of my campmates. I worked on it with her for 3 months. Three welded steel cats, with LED lighting, illuminated eyes and hearts, and sound transducers and touch sensors. They each had separate personalities, with sounds recorded from Paige’s cat collection. Touching them elicited purring sound and vibration, plus entertaining yowls and mews. The project was a total hit, appearing in a “ten best art pieces” article. Here are some pics of the build, the truck that took them to the playa, and finally a video.

On their way to the playa.

Saturday, just before the general admission opened. All ready for the week ahead!

Here they are at night! Check out to see how they actually look and sound!

Alas, I had to miss the final build on the playa. On my way up (via our cabin in Lassen) the water pump blew in Mz Parker. I limped the final 25 miles to the cabin, started tearing the engine down to remove and replace the water pump…

…and discovered that the water pump (right photo, black thing in the center) body extends underneath the timing belt cover (gray thing on the right). Requiring removal of the exhaust system, exhaust manifold, timing belt cover, belt and sprockets. At that point, I called a tow truck, and found a good shop down in Chico do to the surgery. So instead of arriving on Tuesday, five days early, I didn’t get there until Saturday, just before it opened.

(The three day adventure in Chico was a whole experience of it’s own — I arrived too late to rent a car, hiked most of the way across town to one of the last hotel rooms available, lived out of a small backpack for a couple of days, and finally borrowed a Westy from the shop to go back up to the cabin while they finished the work.)

Saturday I headed east early, through Chester and Susanville, took my 66-mile dirt road shortcut from Susanville to Gerlach, and arrived midday. The Purr Pods were all set up, so all I could do was set up camp, and pull out several liters of frozen margaritas for my camp mates.

Art work was fabulous this year. Here is the Shrine of Sympathetic Resonance, made of piano innards and full of sacred geometry. Absolutely beautiful, full of thoughtful feelings and soft sounds.

The Folly was another wild building full of amusing surprises. It burned at midnight on Friday, and here you can see the fire tornadoes spinning off the huge blaze.

You want to know what it’s like out there in the middle of the night? Here is short video. And more photos.

The Temple of Direction, an incredible mechanized Pegasus in Center Camp, another view of the Shrine of Sympathetic Resonance, and an interactive light tent that drew lots of visitors.

My eight days were a curious mixture of freedom and loneliness, pleasure and service, with a liberal sprinkling of tequila, music and laughter. It was my first burn without Jen, so most of my experiences were solitary. It always takes me a little time to settle into myself when traveling solo, even surrounded by friends and familiar faces. By my third day, emerging from the Westy at dawn, I realized that it felt like I’d been there for a year. Perhaps our nomadic selves are never far away; I’ve had this feeling on backpacking trips as well.

The serendipity of Burning Man is always astounding — a friend of a friend camped with me in a tent, and somehow I knew when she was driving up, walking right out to greet her, even though I had never met her before and had no idea what kind of car she had. I did a lot of energy work and massage that seemed to be just what was needed, and had many amazing and deep conversations with strangers that illuminated both of us in profound ways. That’s the magic of the playa.

I love VW Bus Camp, and our pop-up village of self-sufficient iconoclasts. Unlike many camps, we have no shared infrastructure or dues (though someone did bring a very artistic shower device for all to use!) We had the Leopard Lounge set up again this year, a place of music, tequila and foot rubs. I spent time there each day, socializing, resting, doing energy work on visitors and soaking up the spontaneity.

Here is another little video. Eric is playing Johnny Cash, Bingo handing out tequila shots, and a crew of volunteers play percussion and give foot rubs.

By Saturday, I felt complete, so I packed up camp and headed west across the desert at midday. Dusty, happy, unshaven, thoughtful and full of feeling. I will be back next year, this is too good to miss.

westy guts, part III

Geek Comments Off

Oct 172018

I’ve saved the best for last. The final task in this project is to replace the heater fan. This is not for the faint-of-heart, as the fan is deep inside a sealed heater box, bolted to the front of the body, buried under wiring, hot water hoses, and the dashboard. I started the process more than two weeks ago, by removing the instrument panel, the steering wheel and glove compartment, unbolting the steering column, then disconnecting all the various switches, the radio, lighter, heater controls and lighting controls in the dash. Six screws and four bolts later, with by a lot of tugging and cursing, I have the dash panel up and out.

This is scary work. I’ve never done it, I don’t know what headaches I will find, I hope I don’t break anything, and I hope I can get it all back together without paying someone $$$ to fix something I messed up. I’m driven by the fact that I can take the time to do a good thorough job. I can clean things, replace worn bits that would otherwise never see the light of day. I’m also driven by cost: it would probably cost me over a thousand dollars to have a mechanic replace the heater fan.

I’ve worked on the mysterious guts of cars before. I know some tricks, I have a lot of tools, and I have all the time I need. So in I go. For example, I label the wires and control cables as they are disconnected, so I have a hope of getting them back in the right place. This is methodical work, one cannot hurry, for the penalty of error will almost certainly be painfully expensive. So I took a couple of days to extract the heater box, working for an hour or two at a time, then taking a break and contemplating the next steps. It all went well. Voila, the heater box is out (photo below), drooling radiator fluid on the driveway.

I’m going to explain the next week of work, not so much to torture you, but to remind myself of the journey. After all, the climb to the top of Mount Everest is more interesting if you include the weeks of planning, preparation, travel and trekking in order to get to the base camp! Also, the information may be of use to other intrepid Westfalia owners; probably all old Westys will eventually require this job.

Now that I’m this deep into the innards of Mz. P, a place I never want to venture again, I’m fixing everything I can. The fan has arrived, ready for transplant. I have a new heater core coming, along with a wiper motor and new control cables. I’m cleaning everything I can reach — you can see how much playa dust is all over the black heater box — and the inside of the dash is a tangled mess of decades of wiring bodges. Upon pulling the box, I had my first unpleasant surprise: under a layer of ancient duct tape, is a big melted hole on the cover. Apparently some time perhaps 20 years ago, a prior owner burned something in the ash tray positioned right over the top of the box, destroying the ash tray, melted the top of the box and making a hole right through. I cannot imagine how they did this without causing a major fire!

My first task is to separate the two halves with a putty knife and sharp blade, clean the box, and fabricate a patch for the hole out of steel plate (a standard electrical junction box cover) and JB Weld epoxy. This takes all morning. The afternoon is spent installing the new fan and heater core into the heater box, with foam tape sealing the parts into place. All the sealing foam on the control vents in the box are crumbling from old age, so another few hours are spent scraping off old foam, and replacing it with new foam tape. This heater has always leaked hot air — unpleasant on a summer day in the central valley — so hopefully the rebuilt box will work better. I got custom whizbang $3.95 clips from the VW dealer to hold the heater box back together. I’m now well past the halfway point on the project.

There is another day of detail work. The new wiper motor arrives, so I spent a few hours disassembling the wiper mechanism, greasing all pivots, and replacing the motor. I also cleaned up some of the wiring for the radio, re-routing speaker wires in an attempt to get rid of the persistent buzzing sound in the rear speakers. When I temporarily plugged the radio in, the noise was gone! Thank god, that was an annoying problem. And I replaced the panel lights for the heater controls, lighter, and rear heater fan. I’m hoping we will be able to see the controls at night now.

Oh, speaking of lighting, I also ordered LED headlight bulbs, LED tail light bulbs, turn signals and backup lights, and new smoke-colored lenses to replace the cracked rear lights. After three hours of work they are all installed, and the rear of the van looks a bit more modern. Also, the LED headlights are hella bright!

Reassembly is the reverse of disassembly, as they say, and my methodological approach pays off. The heater box bolts back in place without a hitch, hoses reconnect easily (I used a watering can to pre-fill the heater core so I wouldn’t have to burp air out of the cooling system), and control cables reattached with only a little cursing. I had to spend some time adjusting them into the right positions, so that the control levers worked properly. Next time (hopefully never happening) I will mark the cable locations to make it easier 🙂

A long strap looped over the top of the cab helps me suspend the dashboard and move it gradually into place. As I proceed, I make sure all heater vent hoses and electrical switches are connected, fished the radio wiring out through the hole in the dash where the radio goes, and pulling instrument cluster wiring up through the appropriate holes. The heater control panel screws right into place. Lowering the dash with the strap, I am able to reinstall it by myself without pinching anything.

The reassembly takes all day, but by sunset, I have it all buttoned up, with the steering column bolted back into place and the steering wheel aligned and bolted properly (I remembered to mark THAT one before removing it, fortunately!)

The heater works! The dash lights work! Today, I am driving down to Santa Barbara for a little adventure of my own, and — other than one vent that needs the hose reattached — I’ve had no problems at all. In fact, it all looks like nothing happened.

But I know better. I have confronted my fear, spent more than two weeks inside mysterious, seldom-seen parts of Mz. P, and fixed everything. Plus I have a deep, deep sense of satisfaction, knowing her more intimately, reminding myself that I have patience, skill and experience, and saving a bucket of money.

This is actually a lot more fun than my career ever was.

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westy guts, part III

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