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I went to Burning Man 2010, and since you can’t really describe what the event is in any sort of simple manner, this post will be devoted to the collection and outline of any and all thoughts I have or have had about the event.  In most cases it will be nonlinear and mostly stream-of-consciousness.  I am anticipating that I will continue to update it, and I will tweet when I do so!

1. So the best short answer I can give to “What is Burning Man?” is spending a week with fifty thousand other people, living in a very harsh environment to celebrate humanity.
2. Burning Man Wiki definition: “The event is described by many participants as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance.”
3. The event physically takes place in a temporary city called Black Rock City, in the middle of a dried up riverbed, referred to as the playa.  I will refer to it as a city, because at 45k-50k people, for that week, Black Rock City is the third largest city in Nevada, second only to Las Vegas and Reno.
4. Here’s the google map of the location.
5. Here’s an aerial photograph of what the city looks like, as far as layout.  The bottom of the ‘ring’ are all the camps – the streets are described as positions on a clock, and each ring is a letter.  So, for example, our camp was on the corner of 5:30 and Detroit.  When you give directions, you give your ‘time’ and letter/street name.  The street letters were named named after major cities because this years theme was “Metropolis.”
6. As per the above photo, near the center ring at around 6:00, you can see a small circle – that’s ‘center camp’ – a major meeting area.
7. The dead center of the above photo is where the Man is built.
8. The Man is a fifty or sixty foot tall structure, with three ‘floors’ on it – you can walk up sets of stairs to stand on each level and look out around the playa.  The entire structure is made from wood, and The Man himself is decorated with Neon.
9. If you were to complete the inner circle the dot at the top of said circle is where the Temple is built.
10. Each year the Temple is built by a different artist.  This year the temple was very organic looking, despite past years temples looking more literal.  This year the temple was called the Temple of Flux.
11. The area ‘past’ the temple is known as ‘deep playa.’
12. There are art installations out and about in the area in the above picture that isn’t devoted to camps.  This includes the deep playa.
13. I went going with little to no expectations – I was told to keep an open mind, and don’t make any plans because you will end up not following any of them.
14. We’d been prepping for a few months, getting together with our camp once a week, to plan and prep.  Cleaning existing camp inventory, figuring out what we need to buy, etc.
15. We had camp dues which paid for all of our needs while we were living out there.
16. The people we had been going with had gone several/many times before – the most experience having gone for nine consecutive years.
17. The Tuesday before we left, my girlfriend Dasha had a freak accident and kicked a pair of scissors – she hurt her foot badly, cutting a tendon in the process.  This slowed down our prep considerably as her mobility was severely limited.  As a result we left fairly late.  Needless to say the accident affected her mobility – she’d have to be on crutches or wheelchair for at least two weeks.  But this wasn’t going to stop us!
18. The plan was to leave Sunday afternoon to be there for midnight – the trip from Los Angeles is about 10 or so hours nonstop.
19. There’s a saying, “Safety Third.” There are lots of interactive art pieces, art cars, and other general ‘physical activities’ which you can participate.  None of which require any waivers.
20. It poured rain a few hours after we arrived.  As a result, a double rainbow formed.  This literally happened.  [Video]  This was an amazing way to set the feeling for the week.  You could hear people yelling “DOUBLE RAINBOW!”, “WHAT DOES IT MEAN!” and what not from the entire city.
21. Amazing, amazing Images by Christoper Michel.
22. My body has finally realized it’s back to reality, and now is thinking about coughing up a desert.  Also, playa boogers are unending.
23. Videos of the Man burn, past and recent and also recent.
24. Videos of the Temple burn, past and recent.
25. The event makes you appreciate things so much more – having simple sushi for lunch today was so amazing…