![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleBadger #48 seemed pretty laid back. Simpler rig, fewer people, nice weather, and almost no drama. The Satyrs are pretty hard on volunteers so I was particularly pleased to see a lot of equipment left back in the garage - schlepping that stuff is really hard.
This being my tenth time there, it OUGHT to be smooth, and it was... it's a strange thing, when I'm up there it seems as if the campsite is the entirety of the world, someplace outside of space and time. When you add it all up, I've spent a couple of months up there, and in my memory it is like a single journey, all lumped together without interruption in a universe of its own. The forest there is so gentle and beautiful, it breaks my heart to leave it.
The new Satyrs member, Bert, is a great guy. He's got a super attitude, and lots of useful resources. Labor Day is a terrible time to rent a truck - you ALWAYS get fucked over somehow - but he got a great deal on the big truck, and got us use of his company's reefer van for free. Unfortunately, while packing up, we managed to kill the battery, and since the truck is a 24V system you can't just jump it with a car. Worse, we lost the use of the lift gate for a while, so lots of big heavy crap had to be lifted by hand! Getting the engine going again took quite a bit of ingenuity, but fortunately there were several professional truckers on hand who knew how to deal with it (Ted being one of them), and by jury-rigging a 12V generator along with another vehicle we were able to get it started.
The equipment set is ridiculous, and the packing process both dangerous and unforgiving - as a catering venture, it would be a freaking disaster. But as a training exercise, there's actually quite a lot going for it. When I was younger, I was continually frustrated by my inability to cooperate meaningfully with others. For some reason, the inability to engage in cooperative physical work is considered a suitable target for scorn in a way that merely intellectual deficits are not. And that's all wrapped up with homophobia in complicated ways. LOTS of issues there. So now, I'm not just eager, but actually quite fascinated by the opportunity to do something very hard and physical with a bunch of gay men. Organizational dysfunction - of which there is plenty - makes for interesting observation. To learn new things, one needs not just good examples of effective work, but good counterexamples. Now, it's not all that bad, everything always works out in the end, but the process of getting there is so interesting that to lose the inefficiencies would strip it of half its interest.
I didn't just work, though, there was plenty of time for fooling around, which I used to great advantage. ;-)
This being my tenth time there, it OUGHT to be smooth, and it was... it's a strange thing, when I'm up there it seems as if the campsite is the entirety of the world, someplace outside of space and time. When you add it all up, I've spent a couple of months up there, and in my memory it is like a single journey, all lumped together without interruption in a universe of its own. The forest there is so gentle and beautiful, it breaks my heart to leave it.
The new Satyrs member, Bert, is a great guy. He's got a super attitude, and lots of useful resources. Labor Day is a terrible time to rent a truck - you ALWAYS get fucked over somehow - but he got a great deal on the big truck, and got us use of his company's reefer van for free. Unfortunately, while packing up, we managed to kill the battery, and since the truck is a 24V system you can't just jump it with a car. Worse, we lost the use of the lift gate for a while, so lots of big heavy crap had to be lifted by hand! Getting the engine going again took quite a bit of ingenuity, but fortunately there were several professional truckers on hand who knew how to deal with it (Ted being one of them), and by jury-rigging a 12V generator along with another vehicle we were able to get it started.
The equipment set is ridiculous, and the packing process both dangerous and unforgiving - as a catering venture, it would be a freaking disaster. But as a training exercise, there's actually quite a lot going for it. When I was younger, I was continually frustrated by my inability to cooperate meaningfully with others. For some reason, the inability to engage in cooperative physical work is considered a suitable target for scorn in a way that merely intellectual deficits are not. And that's all wrapped up with homophobia in complicated ways. LOTS of issues there. So now, I'm not just eager, but actually quite fascinated by the opportunity to do something very hard and physical with a bunch of gay men. Organizational dysfunction - of which there is plenty - makes for interesting observation. To learn new things, one needs not just good examples of effective work, but good counterexamples. Now, it's not all that bad, everything always works out in the end, but the process of getting there is so interesting that to lose the inefficiencies would strip it of half its interest.
I didn't just work, though, there was plenty of time for fooling around, which I used to great advantage. ;-)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-10 01:49 am (UTC)True, but you can jump it with two cars and three (individual) jumper cables.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-10 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-10 06:46 am (UTC)Alot good the bike was doing, resting in my shed, however.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-10 04:22 pm (UTC)"...When you add it all up, I've spent a couple of months up there..."
Funny! I was thinking the same thing about FM. They say 'be careful what you wish for because you might just get it,' but I think back with great fondness about my collective days at FM (and Badger Flat) and I think I would change very little about the design and the resulting vibe.