Stay Tuned.....

Hello all!
We're sorry that this blog has been neglected for so long.
You see, we have been trying to learn the ins and outs of our .mac account which provides a blog of it's own. And ever since our dear friend Barb has made the switch to the easier machinations of the mac system, we have jumped on board too....since we already had the account. The new blog should be up and running very soon. So, keep checking in and we'll send out a message to everyone to let you know where to go.
Yay!

Body Worlds

We all went to see the Body Worlds 2 exhibit in San Jose last week.
It was absolutely fantastic!
A couple of years ago Carol and her brother Ken went to the Body Worlds 1 exhibit in Los Angeles and even since then she has been eager to share the experience with Michael, Nancy and Nicole.
It is such a fascinating exhibit, very educational.
They are real human bodies that have been plastinated....which is a process much the same as when a piece of wood becomes petrified, each molecule of the wood transforming into, or actually being replaced by stone - yet retaining it's original appearance. This is done to these bodies with plastic. The bodies are transformed at a molecular level. The organic cells are replaced by plastic and the bodies retain their original colors and forms. And due to the nature of the plastic they are able to pose the bodies any way they want, which enhaces the learning process.
We saw the human body from every angle possible. We even saw different organs of the body at different stages of health. For example, there was a set of lungs that were healthy, another set that was filled with tar from smoking, and yet another set that was blackened by coal mining (black lung).
It is an experience not to be missed.
We all recommend it highly for everyone, especially for students who might have biology classes. You can learn so much about yourself.
Check the website out.
http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html
If the tour comes anywhere near you, be sure to get there.

The Swinging Monkeys

This was an installation that was run on solar and bicycle power. The monkeys swung around as we peddled the bicycles and it appeared as if the monkeys were just dangling from their arms, swinging around and around. But it was more exciting than that. Check it out. Watch closely.

Dust Storm on the Playa!

More Fun Art

This is our friend Drue talking to God.


This is one of our favorite camps!

Here's Carol playing around on a giant, spinning damsel fly.


Michael and Carol gaining some perspective.

Interactive Art

Guardian of Eden
by Kate Raudenbush
She is the Sacred Lotus of ancient creation myth and the avatar of enlightenment. She is the Life Force of all that is struggling to survive on this dying planet. She is the Guardian of Eden. Her origins evolved from a cross-pollination of Hindu and Egyptian creation mythologies, Buddhist symbolism and the ancient symbol of the life force of creation, the Flower of Life.

An imposing 18-foot tall plasma-cut steel lotus flower, this Guardian symbolizes Earth's creator and protector. Her intention is to further the awareness of interconnectedness of all life by gathering us together to be enfolded in her symbolic seat of enlightenment. For it is within this awareness that we might nurture our desire to care for her spirit, and realize, in turn, that her survival is intimately connected to our own. Enfolded in her petals, we contemplate that we too can be creators and sustainers of our world, and, more significantly, we too are its Guardians.

Michael was climbing on it. And as you can see, some people have clothes on.....

and some don't!

More Playa Art

Koilos
by Michael Christian
An oversize human figure crouches on the playa with its legs ready to move, pounce or play. The figure reflects restraint, knowledge and wisdom while still feeling anxious, excited and oblivious. An audio/visual element lies embedded within its flower/tentacle head. Koilos is a Greek word which means hollow.

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom!

A few months ago Carol and Nancy attended a fundraiser for Nicole's school. It was really fun. There was lots of food and drink and there was a silent auction and a paddle auction for products, services, and resaurants all around the bay area. Well, Nancy and Carol got caught up in the tone of the evening and bid on a few things.....and won! In the silent auction Nancy got a nice haircut at a local salon, and Carol got a new business card from a local graphic artist.
But the best part was the paddle auction where Carol bid on and won a BMW Fantasy Weekend in a Z4 Convertable!!
So, here's a few pics of us tooling around in our fun car.
We had it for the weekend, and we only had one day of clouds.
But, boy was that car fun!





Here's Michael driving around San Francisco.

Our first time over the Golden Gat Bridge in a convertable....which we highly recommend, even on a cloudy day.


Up the coast.

Nancy catching the sunset.

Carol in her speedy, autumnal, convertable, roadster outfit.

Spot and Tiger

We're 2 for 2!
Both of the gecko eggs hatched and both of the young lizards are healthy and beautiful.
So far we're calling them Spot and Tiger.
If you look at their backs, just above their tail you can see that one of them has a three spots and the other has two.
They are too young to sex yet, so we don't know if they're boys or girls or both, but we'll let you know as soon as we do.

Here's a shot of the two eggs after the first one hatched. The second one hatched the next day.


Tiger emerged first.

Here's Tiger checking out mom.

Here's Spot searching for a way out.

They are a couple of smilin' cuties!

The Real-Time Update

Michael's mom made a very good point about the recent lack of information about "what carol and michael are doing" these days on the blog since we've been going through our Burning Man photo-journaling period.
So, we're going to return to our real-time updates and interject our little stories about Burning Man as we go.

Most recently Michael has been in Washington D.C. giving a dog obedience seminar for a week-long k-9 cop conference. It has been very well received and Michael and his dog Pi are the undisputed stars of the conference!
Carol has been assistant directing on a play in San Francisco that is about the current Iran tensions. This is the last weekend of rehearsals before the opening, so the pressure is on, which means long hours in a dark theatre.
The dogs are good.
The geckos are good.
And Birdly is fantastic.

That's the quickie update.
More coming soon.
There is always so much to tell you about!
Hope all is well for everyone.

A Letter From Burning Man

Hi all!

This is a letter we received today from the Burning Man organizers. It's a newsletter called Jack Rabbit Speaks. This is the newsletter that gave us so much great advice as we prepared for the event during the summer.
We thought you would like to read it.
It's a very good example of the spirit of Burning Man.


Jack Rabbit Speaks
Volume 12, Issue 2
September 25, 2007

Has the dust settled yet?

We've (mostly) returned to the office. We're unpacking the trucks. The
DPW began the line sweeps last week, and Black Rock City 2007 has almost
completely disappeared. Wow, we think, reeling back in the "real"
world...*that* went by fast...didn't it?

And it did. A week of unusually extreme weather (even for the Black Rock
Desert!), a double rainbow, a full lunar eclipse...an arson at the Man,
and a chance to watch the city respond and the Man being built
again...more visitors than ever (just over 47K on Saturday at noon, if
you're keeping score), recycling, composting, biodiesel, algae that eats
diesel fumes, engines that run on coffee grounds, bizarre lights in the
sky, solar panels all over the city...and once again, AMAZING art, large
and small, all around the playa. We're impressed, BRC. You did it again.

It was an intense and amazing one, to be sure, in more ways than one. We
got one feedback email from an angry participant who said that our
preparation materials were insufficient because we should have warned
the new folks that there are "horrible white outs EVERY SINGLE DAY"...we
thought to point out that not only does BRC have completely different
and unpredictable weather every year, but some of us actually LIKE the
dust storms...but we figured we'd just make him madder. ;) And HOT! Wow!
It was a treat to run around in NO sleeves at night, for the first time
we can remember since the 90's.

But the weather aside, there is plenty to say about what worked and
didn't in BRC this year. You'll find info below on how to submit your
own feedback. (Hint: we can't do much about the unpredictable weather in
the desert, nor would we want to....and no, we're not planning to move
"somewhere more comfortable" any time soon. Thousands of us actually
*do* like it just like it is, dust and all!) We look forward to hearing
from all of you about your experience...and learning from your
suggestions about how we can continue to adapt and improve the event
next year. See BRC News, below.

There are also images and pictures GALORE, and upcoming Decompressions
across the country, and opportunities to participate in those events and
wrap up from the year of the Green Man. And for those that are still
looking for info on what happened to the first Burning Man on Monday
night, here's a link to our website news statement:
http://burningman.com/news/arsonist_07.html . Of course there's PLENTY
of discussion on the ePlaya since the event on this and all manner of
other subjects, so hop on over if you're itching to share your thoughts:
http://eplaya.burningman.com.

There's more below...and more coming soon... and we know we'll hear from
more folks with images and stories once we get this out -- but this is
a nice JRS dose to get your Volume 12 kicked off. Welcome back to the
rest of your life...340 days until the burn!

Some Playa Moments

(don't forget to click on the photos to get a better look)
If you looks closely at the last picture, you'll see Michael on his bike

Green Man

The theme of Burning Man 2007 was Green Man.
So all the artwork was created with that in mind.
All around center camp there were different interpretations of trees. They called it the Mangrove.
Here's a few of them. I'll include the official descriptions whenever I can.

This is the Cultural Park Flower Tree
By Ellen Heine & Evelyn Fasnacht with flowers by Paterson & Oradell NJ school children & community members
This 12' tall tree is covered with foliage and flowers made of plastic, metal and manmade material recyclables such as soda cans, detergent bottles, cookie tins, water bottles, etc. The inspiration for this tree comes from the "Flower Man", an indigent long-term resident of a neighborhood in NYC undergoing gentrification, who has for years, been making such "flowers" to adorn the fence of his neighborhood pocket park, La Plaza Cultural Park Garden.
The piece is a free-standing rendition of this 'green' spirit and it's "flowers" have a similar genesis with the added embellishment of lights in the center of each flower. School children and community members create the flowers for this tree and Participants are asked to add flowers made from their own discards during the Festival. At the end of the Event the tree will be sent back to NYC for permanent installation at La Plaza Cultural Park bringing the inspiration full circle.

This piece was quite touching. The woman is made of branches and twigs.

A Tree Undone
By Josie Schimke
The act of unraveling a knitted object is viscerally satisfying; it's hard to resist pulling a lose string on a sweater, just to see it unwind, and to feel the vibration of the yarn in your fingertips as the yarn pulls against itself, resisting being undone.
A Tree Undone tempts participants with an urge that conflicts with their appreciation of the object itself as they observe within themselves the desire to both preserve and destroy an object at the same time.
The project is an interactive knit and crochet sculpture that begins as a simple tree, standing about 9 feet tall and 5 feet wide, its branches full of crocheted and knitted leaves. Before the event, participants are invited to create and contribute leaves to be added to the tree. On the playa, participants are invited to unravel one of the project's thousands of crocheted and knitted leaves. By the end of the week it will only have strands of yarn hanging from the branches.


Bone Tree
by Dana Albany
Originally created for Burning Man 1999, the Bone Tree returns to the playa to celebrate the Green Man. This mobile tree is made of hundreds of animal skulls and bones, and will move around the playa, emitting its own soundtrack.