Campfyre Stories

I was thinking, well, I haven’t thrown a party in a long time and my birthday is coming up…

I was thinking, no one ever comes to my parties, so I’ll invite everyone I know and a small handful of them will actually come.

I was thinking, so what if it rained for THREE WEEKS after I got  back from Falcon Ridge?  How big can the jungle backyard really grow?

I was thinking, Well, yeah, I’m going to DC for a week, but how exhausting will that really be?

I was thinking it would be a fun thing to do for myself.

I was not thinking that as many people as have already RSVP’d yes would actually come.  I was not thinking about the fact that I didn’t have enough chairs or tables or anything to set up the back yard.  I was not thinking about the logistics or the expense or anything else.

And now I’m freaking out, at least a little.

But Slockin came over with a weed whacker and made a first pass (turns out that most of the jungle was spearmint, so now my yard is all kinds of fresh and minty) and will be coming back on Saturday to make a second pass (while I will rake and gather all the dead minty plant carcasses).  And Ed came over with chairs and a table and some tiki torches.  I went and bought solar flood lights, which should, hopefully be bright enough.  I bought some chairs and a card table so I have surfaces to put food (etc.) on.  I have an extension cord so that we can run music into the yard.

Spawn and I are busily cleaning the house because, even though the party is outside, surely people will need to use the bathroom.  I have yet to set up the fire pit, but I can’t imagine that will be *too* much of a pain (famous last words).

I still have to shop for burgers, veggie burgers, beer, soda and suchlike, but it is a potluck, so people will bring food of some sort.  Spawn is going to make a pasta salad, I think.

Mom’s birthday is today.  All my (immediate) family is camping some 50 miles away and want Spawn and I to come up there to celebrate.  I have to buy her gift.  Also RC2′s gift, since his (18th!!) birthday is Monday.  Therefore, today will not be available to make any progress toward having a party.

But I have all day Saturday and most of the day on Sunday to pull this out of my ass.  And once I have everything all put together and set up, I’ll forget about the freaking out and the "what was I thinking?" statements that I’ve been making for the past week.

Right up until I decide to do this again.  Which I’m sure I will…

So about a week before I went to DC, I put an ad on Craigslist to ask about area open mics that I might be able to play.  I had mentioned to only one person who didn’t know me that I was planning on bringing my guitar.  This information got around.  When I arrived in DC and got to the restaurant where the team was meeting, I was immediately asked if I brought my guitar and if I had found an open mic.  Apparently, word got around and everyone was intrigued by this potential.

Well, I had brought my guitar, and I had found an open mic.  A couple of people had recommended a place called Iota and I fully intended to go ahead and play there on Wednesday.  It is apparently *the* place for open mics in the area.  We decided to make an evening of it and have dinner there as well, since their menu was pretty nice-looking.

So I had to leave work a little early, and my boss drove me to Arlington.  I have this thing where I hate to be late so much that I even hate to be on time, so when I got there with only 5 minutes to spare, I was a little concerned.

The way it worked was that everyone planning to play raises their hand.  The host takes a count and then puts the numbers 1-whatever in a hat for everyone to pick out of.  Now, me?  Ideally, I like to go on somewhere early, but not first.  Somewhere in the 5-10 range is perfect for me.  This goes extra for an open mic I have never been to, so that I can get a feel for the place and the type of music they play there.

We were told that we would only have one song per person, since there were so many people, so imagine my abject terror when I reached into the hat and pulled number ONE.  I kind of freaked out a little and asked if I could be moved, but they said no.

So my boss gets on the phone and starts calling everyone on the team.  "This is what time Fyre is playing.  If you want to see here, get here right away."  Heh.  Honestly, I don’t feel like I’m worth all that much effort, and having people I’ve only just met making this big deal about my playing kind of rattles me.  That’s ok, though, I’m pretty much fine before and during a performance.

Well, 8/12 of the team made it in time, and we’re talking, with a *very* short time to spare.  I got up on stage, introduced myself and started playing.

To an amazingly obnoxious bass feedback coming out of the monitors.

So I stopped in the middle of the first verse and said "I can’t play like this.  Can you fix this feedback?  It’s ruining my song."  Which they did, and I picked back up at the start of the first verse (Happily Ever After starts on a chorus) and played through to a lessened (but not gone) bass hum.

I got off stage and started shaking like crazy.  This always happens.  All the nervous energy hits me when I’m finished, not before I go onstage.  It’s not so much a fear of performance as a fear of being judged for my performance.  It means that when people tell me how good I am or how much they liked it, I don’t believe them and think that they’re trying to spare my feelings.  I’m getting MUCH better about just taking the compliments, though.

I felt like I had left them unsatisfied, though.  Lyrically, it was my best song, but vocally and instrumentally I have better songs.  Also, only being able to play one song didn’t show my repertiore at all.  Oh well, not much that can be done about it.

When I went to put my guitar in my boss’ car, he gave me *real* feedback, constructive criticism, which is so rare and so valuable.  I don’t get it often except from my family, so it was nice to hear a non-relation give me something to work with.  He also alluded to some important people he knows who could be good contacts for me to have, but I don’t know if that will actually pan out.  Considering I play and write as a hobby more than anything else, it’s not something I need to dwell on.

The rest of the evening was dinner, followed by karaoke.  One of the members of my team is a most excellent singer, as I learned at karaoke, and I’d love to work with him, perhaps in a duet situation.  He lives in my area, so this is a definite possibility that I will most certainly pursue.

On the topic of karaoke, I only have one thing to say.  When someone is deciding not to come, the words "Come on, man, I sang for you, it’s your turn to sing for me," SHOULD NOT EVER WORK.  But it did.  I am amused and slightly impressed with myself for that.  Also, for not following it up with other statements that probably would have worked to my detriment.

So, there you go.  That’s one story.  Sort of.

I thought I’d have time to blog while I was away.

Ha.  Aha.  AHAHAHAH!

I was wrong.  I didn’t have time for ANYTHING, I didn’t even plug in the laptop.  It was nuts.

There’s a whole lot of stories that I can’t tell.  There are a whole lot of things that I just can’t talk about.  So, for now, I’ll give you the nutshell version and as the days go on I’ll see what stories I have to tell.

I worked 12 hours days for 6 days and only sat down for meals.  We went out almost every night and partied to make up for the insane hours of hard work we were doing.  I had a blast, but my body started screaming by Tuesday.

We went to an Orioles/Red Sox game on Monday.  On Wednesday I did, in fact, play an open mic in Arlington, VA (that will be a story).

I met and worked with some really amazing people and am really glad to have gotten this chance.  I would absolutely do it again, if they ask me back.

My cats are alive and well, which I wasn’t worried about, as are my Sea Monkeys, which I was.

I didn’t move at all yesterday.

I’ll start posting real stories soon, but not right now.  Right now, I’m going to sip my coffee and not move at all…  but I’m gonna do it in the recliner.

Trying desperately to get ready for my trip to Washington DC.  I’ll be gone for a week and insanely busy the whole time.  I think I’m also still recovering from Falcon Ridge and I’m also trying to prepare for my birthday, which is getting closer a lot faster than I’d like.

Here’s the schedule:

8/15-8/21 Washington DC and all related goings-on (I’ll try to blog, but no promises)
8/22 Cable people come to turn the internet on in my apartment (2 years without computer-based internet…  Daisy is a mighty fine substitute)
8/23 Tropic Thunder with Spawn and Princess
8/25 Back to mundane work
8/26 American Teen with Princess
8/29 Mom’s birthday
8/31 my birthday and party
9/1 Labor day and little brother’s birthday

Meanwhile, people are trying to get me to make plans for October!  And February!  And April!  Oh hells no.  I’m just trying to get through the month of August right now.  I can’t even think about trying to get out to Boston to visit Girl and see The Dark Knight in IMAX.  I can’t even think about Spawn’s birthday (9/24) and what I’m going to get him…  the bar is really high right now.

And I just keep thinking about how someday…  somewhen…  I’ll be able to sleep.  Or even just to rest.  Yeah, I’m looking forward to THAT day.

I spent most of the weekend getting ready for my trip to Washington DC.  Trying to get the house kicked into shape, getting the laundry together so that I can pack, setting up the new computer and all kinds of assorted housework.

I think, in the past couple of nights, I’ve totaled some 10-12 hours of sleep.

I overslept this morning and wound up RUNNING to the bus stop, shouting "Wait!  Wait for me!" and barely making the  bus.  I found out that my regular driver in on vacation, so we have the crappy driver who is rude, almost always running late and insists on certain rules that don’t actually exist outside of his head.  Of course, he couldn’t be on shift during the week I’m gone, it has to be the week where I have so much other stuff to do that this just makes it all that much more annoying.

I’m coming to realize that no matter what I’ve got planned, if I’m going out of town, there’s always a trial that I have to go through before I leave.  At least I do get to leave…  and it makes being away from my regular routine that much more pleasant.

But I still have a ton of things I *have* to do, a bunch of things I’d like to do before I go and very little time to do it all…  I also still need to find a way to fit sleep into the equation.  I’m not really sure how any of that is going to happen, but I’ll do the best I can…

Convince Spawn to hang out at home long enough to sign for my many packages
Turn the jungle into a backyard
Set up firepit
Buy chairs for party.  Heh.
Birthday presents for 8 million people
Back to school shopping for Spawn
Attempt to catch up on Movie Night, despite missing two weeks this month
Clean out the back room
Make room on desk for new computer
THROW THINGS AWAY
Help Spawn plan (and later prepare) a meal for his girlfriend when she comes to visit
Go to DC for work
Send postcards to 80 million people
Deal with birthday week
Throw a party/barbeque

Just looking at that list makes me tired.

Have you ever been in a crisis situation?  Like an actual situation where people are in danger or hurt and you, among others, need to keep it together?

How did you do?

You know, after coming back from Falcon Ridge, I read a number of accounts of the major storm we weathered on Sunday.  It wasn’t until days later that it was labeled a "mini-tornado" (mini because there was no touchdown of a funnel).  I honestly believe that not knowing what was happening and not having that "Oh my gods, it’s a TORNADO" thought looming over us was a big part of what kept people from panicking.

As I stated before, there were no major injuries.  Some people lost some things, but considering the number of people there, it really wasn’t much.  In fact, people stayed really together and focused while it was going on.  Which is not to say that things didn’t get pretty hairy out there for some people, but sometimes you have to put your fears on hold and come back to them when the situation is already resolved.

People keep talking about what "should have" been done, or what "should be" done in the future.  Things like sirens that will alert people to emergency situations or larger security patrols.  The more I think about it, the worse an idea it seems to me.  Again, I think that part of the reason that people didn’t panic was because we didn’t know we should be.  We didn’t know what was going on.  We didn’t have time to think about what we should do.

Some people immediately drove offsite, which isn’t the smartest thing to do in that weather.  Some people wouldn’t or couldn’t get to shelter, needing to prevent their gear from causing damage to other people/things, to find members of their party who were lost or to help "save the world".  Sirens blaring in that situation wouldn’t help anyone at all.  All it would do is cause people to freak out and no longer be calm while still not offering any advice on what to actually do.

To me, with the exception of emergency vehicles sirens sound like:  Panic!  Panic!  Panic!  Few, if any, of them actually offer viable information that can be used.  In fact, if I’m in my house (for example) and I hear a siren blaring, I am most likely going to STEP OUTSIDE MY APARTMENT to find out what’s going on.  I’m pretty sure that the sirens indicate that people should behave in exactly the opposite way to that, but since the noises have never been explained to me (and still occur from time to time), I don’t know what the appropriate response really is.

But if I’m IN an emergency situation, a crisis situation, I know what to do.  Not to be able to plan ahead, but I’m able to assess the situation and fill whatever needs present themselves.  Sirens will distract me, make me wonder what the hell is going on and cause me to panic, at least a little bit.

So what do you think?  Have you been in a crisis situation?  How did you handle it?  How do you react to sirens or other indicators of emergencies?  Do you think that people are more or less likely to handle a crisis well without actually knowing what’s going on?

I am coming to believe that Unix is not something you learn, but something you ARE.  No, no one actually said this to me, but in an attempt to follow the oh-so specific instructions of "In your free time, start learning Unix", that’s really all I’ve learned.

I’ve tapped my sources and asked around for a place to start.  Give me a link to a basics guide, I’ve asked, and no one can seem to do this.  They want to help and show willing, but when it comes to actual documentation or sources, it’s all…  "Well, what exactly do they want you to do?"

The problem is that what they want is "In your free time, start learning Unix."

It’s like to make me cry.  I don’t understand it and I have no idea where to go to get an explanation other than "want me to stand there and tell you what to do?"  Well, yeah, I do.  If it will help.  And to top it all off, I left my "For Dummies" book at home.

I can’t remember feeling more stupid.

I am not Unix.  At all.

So we left the festival with relief rather than reluctance, though Spawn was upset to not get the email addresses of his friends.  We took main roads and avoided the detours and debris in the road.

We were about starving, having not been able to get lunch before everything went to chaos, so we stopped, grubby and gross, at Denny’s and had a nice meal.  Went home and enjoyed the things we usually take for granted.  Pooping in a toilet that flushes, showering for as long as we wanted/needed, not having to worry about the stability of our shelter…  Then we each passed out for a few hours.

I found out on Wednesday that the storm we experienced had actually been a tornado that didn’t touch down.  From the official post:

This was a mini tornado that hit us Sunday, it never touched down. We had been tracking this storm, labeled F5 on NEXRAD radar on my laptop in the Communications trailer. Was moderately severe, very compact and moving rapidly. It was past us & thought we were OK. Storm track animation showed it was moving away.

Than there was a sudden rotation and it came back with 70 MPH winds, 3 inches of rain and up to golf ball size hail. There was no time for a warning like the ones passed on earlier, it happened so fast.

We could not believe the same storm that had passed on the radar was now in front of us again, was on us before we could even get on the radio. I got one call in to mainstage and one to security base. Hail started WHILE I was making these calls on my cell, radio communication was totally OUT.

Tornado formation is very unpredictable. We just did not think anything like that was possible, indeed 4 of us looking right at the radar were puzzled at what we were looking at for several precious seconds.

So that’s what we weathered, none of us knowing it.

I emailed a couple of friends who were still there during the storm tornado and they told me their stories.  It’s interesting to me, I’ve heard many stories across the internet, but, so far, few from anyone who was in the same location as I was.  I’d really like to hear that story from another perspective.

But I have heard some very frightening things, as well as a lot of really heartening things.

So Spawn and I got home and safe and slowly moved back to reality.  I took Monday off of work and kept the car for a few extra days, so we went out, saw a movie, did some shopping and paid someone else to do the nasty festival laundry.

And that, my dears, ends my saga of Falcon Ridge 2008.  Happy 20th anniversary!  It was certainly a weekend to remember, on so many levels.

Oh, Sunday…  how can I even begin to tell your story?

I slept LATE and then slowly broke down the camp.  I couldn’t find Spawn right away and was told that he had gone to breakfast MUCH earlier, but I wanted to find him so he could pack all his gear and I could get the car offsite, as severe rain was expected and I wanted to be able to leave, ever.

I did find Spawn and he s-l-o-w-l-y packed up his gear and tent and all and I parked the car in Day Parking.  5 minutes after I parked, the sky opened right up.  I felt like, both coming and going, I had really good timing.  Getting in in time and getting out in time, both.

Spawn had a shift to work at 2, which meant that he was going to miss the ONE BAND I wanted him to see, so I decided to head down to the Merch Tent and just buy a CD for him to listen to.  I wasn’t scheduled to work that day (because of Martin Sexton the night before), but had to convince my crew that I was really there as a customer.

Immediately, though, they needed me to organize or answer questions or run information or cover someone for a few minutes, so, right away, I was put to work despite my "I’m here as a customer" protests.  As I was trying to determine which CD to buy, the bug was put in my ear that we were expecting to lose power and, if that happened, we would lose the security cameras, so had to watch the exits.

And then came the maelstrom.

This is my story:

We were FLOODED with people, and we recruited the tallest people we could find to get the last of the tarps up around the perimeter.  As a result, as the storm went on, I had no idea what was going on outside, only what was happening in OUR tent.  The winds were so high that the tent poles started to come out and people ran to the sidelines to hold the tent up so it wouldn’t collapse.  Other people were standing on tables using their umbrellas or bags to push against the roof and get the water off.

Many people (our crew included) were freaking out about the power being on.  Given the credit card machines, cash registers, security camera and all peripherals and the electricity, we were EXTREMELY live.  I immediately set to organizing.  My crew chief was in the middle of trying to make a deposit when the storm hit, so she was holding several thousands of dollars in cash, which she kept putting down and then freaking out and picking up again.  The other crew chief in the tent had a radio, which I told her to use to tell the Site Crew we were coming down and to CUT OUR POWER.  Site Crew radioed back that they couldn’t get to our tent right away because they needed to deal with the Family Tent and Activities for Kids.  Well, YEAH, of course they should do that, but we couldn’t see what was happening outside.  They cut all the festival power shortly after that.  Never before have I been in a situation where people cheered when the power went OUT, but we were all pretty happy about it in that moment.

All of a sudden, we started to feel a river running through the tent and (though I didn’t know why at the time) it was cold.  The river turned into a pond and the water level rose to about 6" in the tent.  Everyone in our area stayed calm.  There were no small children and everyone kept their head.  At some point, someone started singing "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore", which relieved some tension, but apparently the only verse that anyone knew was the first one…  so we sang that a couple of times.

Someone from Site Crew came in and explained to us that they were evacuating the festival.  "The safest place for you to be is in your car, not moving."  I saw Spawn at the other side of the tent and immediately, shifted mental gears into "I am a mother.  I have to take care of my kid."  I took off after him, knowing that if I didn’t catch him then, I might not find him…  and he didn’t know where the car was.

I found him in the rain in bare feet, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, soaked through, and wrapped in a wet towel.  I took him to the car, but he stopped on the way to tell my brother and mom that my niece was safe, where she was and who she was with.  Once in the car, I gave him a dry towel, turned the car on and jacked up the heat.  Spawn did not get hypothermia.  Many other people did.  However, there were no major injuries.

We sat out the storm, then sat out the traffic.  Despite not having a chance to say our goodbyes (Spawn had to call his festival romance to say goodbye, but I believe they’ll see each other again), we headed out as soon as the traffic was clear enough for us to go.  What an ending!

Spawn’s story:

Spawn and his friend (both Teen Crew) were in the Volunteer tent when it (the tent) started to come down and they evacuated. The two of them wound up with my niece (4 years old), who had run up to them the moment she saw them.  My brother (Chaos) was valiantly trying to keep the tent  from falling with a large number of other people.

They hazarded the hail and wind and rain and found a group of people without a car. They formed a "Penguin Huddle" around  my niece to keep her safe and warm while the women explained the scientific reasons that hail forms. It worked amazingly well to keep the teens calm and together and, hey, they learned something interesting!

Spawn’s friend,  carrying my niece, fell in the mud and started to lose it a little (and no wonder in that situation!), so Spawn picked her up and braced her, supporting her as they carried my niece to safety/shelter.

Spawn convinced a group of people in a van to take the girls in with them and he went off to (in order of priority) find Chaos and tell him that his daughter was safe and where she was; find his grandmother and tell her *everyone* was safe; find me because he knew his mom would take care of him.

He was stopped on his way by a volunteer on a golf cart who was concerned that he might have hypothermia, so he was taken to the med tent, where he was given a towel to wrap up in (which we later discovered says "Angelica", to our amusement).  He had too many people to find and tell what was going on, though, so he didn’t stay there, opting instead to venture out to hunt down his family so we would all know where everyone was.

Even after he found me and I was taking him to the car to warm up and avoid hypothermia (which he did avoid), he ran off to tell Chaos and Mom where everyone was and that they were safe. I was really impressed to see these young teens really step up and take responsibility, especially when they found themselves in charge of a scared and crying 4 year old.

Mom’s story: http://blog.cavandkav.com/falcon-ridge-folk-fest-2008/

Stories on Live Journal:  http://community.livejournal.com/falconridge/111066.html

Video of the storm itself:  http://youtube.com/watch?v=QjGjqmQhiTk&feature=related  (That’s the volunteer tent, where Spawn, et al, were evacuated from, coming down in the background).

Video of the aftermath:  http://youtube.com/watch?v=J5PKSXi8tpM&f
eature=related  and  http://youtube.com/watch?v=QD-J0xP6qbg&feature=related

So, yeah, if nothing else, it was a memorable Falcon Ridge.