Post Nuclear Family – This is the reunion site for the Post Nuclear Family. Mutants are welcome.

>>>Sunday, August 19th: Truuuuck!<<<

Even if you’re not in Los Angeles: Truuuuuck!

Come! If you can’t make it don’t come! If you’re going to be late, come! If you have to leave early, come! 

Scott and I have to go out to Gerlach next week to replace the head on the Sensatron, so whether or not I can be there I’ll be at storage physically on most days until we leave for the playa. 

<<<If anyone wants to join me at the container and help arrange or drop your stuff off beforehand then coordinate with me>>>

Note: Please do not leave your things in the container after the burn without coordinating with me. I’ll make camp announcements to connect you with your things but there’s a good chance that unclaimed things will be destroyed. If you’re donating it to camp then please let me know directly.

!?What are truck, please… how?!

The truck is available for everyone (you) to transport your bikes, tents, food, costumes, water, art, etc. and it hopefully frees some of us up to carpool or ride in style, or to bring something special that would otherwise seem impossible to bring. The truck also brings our oversized camp infrastructure like shade, kitchen, generator, gas cans and propane tanks, scaffolding and the Sensatron’s light poles, so whether you’re bringing something on the truck or not it would be great to have your help. You’ll get to preunite with some fucking cool cats. There will be surprise guests, including you!

STORAGE ADDRESS >>Sunday, August 19th:

1 Chapman Way

El Segundo, CA 90245

Drive west into the parking lot from Douglas St. all the way to the chain link fence past the dirt lot. <-this sounds like random directions but it’s all true and a lot easier than it sounds.

(Call me to get my secret code and directions to my storage unit!)

💩/🍺POOPING & PEEING

They’re going to unlock the port-a-potty near the entrance gate from 11am to 7pm 

For the newbies: Burning Man has port-a-potties everywhere with their own septic-safe toilet paper in them. Read your Survival Guide for details.

The truck will arrive at the storage unit around noon on Sunday but you can get there sooner to unload and label. Please keep about 20’ clear in front of our storage unit so that we can get the big things out of storage and onto the truck before all the little things go on.

🚚TRUCKING

The UHAUL truck this year is a lot longer at 26’ but it doesn’t have a side door or a lift gate or jockey boxes.

Muppet’s friend Sunshine will be driving the truck to the playa with navigator/co-pilot Markeia

LOADING ETHOS

As always, if you can’t make it that’s okay, and if you come late, drink all the beer, and leave early that’s fine, too. If you want to take a break just do, and if you need help just ask. There’s no need to power through it in a hurry, this is all of us getting ready together before we find each other on the playa.

The only way this lazy-sounding work ethic succeeds is with participation and some dedicated people doing some heavy lifting. In the end we make something special happen on the playa, and the people that want to help make that happen *are* the people that make that happen. If you want to help make it easier then bring your easiness. 

📦BOXING

Make sure to use solid boxes and bins and tape drawers shut so that they don’t spill. Please label /everything/ clearly. There’ll be some duct tape and markers in the storage unit but if you have your own distinctive duct tape we can spot your stuff and keep it together. Check out the gallery here “Advert your Eyes” for good storage bins.

Label everything, including your water!

2.5 gallon pairs of water in their cardboard boxes stack better but they should still only go about 3 or 4 stories tall. Even though they seem solid it turns out that if they go higher than that they’ll suddenly lose their rigidity and crush a whole floor of water below them. Some might rupture along the way, if some of your water doesn’t make it do not panic! There’s probably enough water to share in the overflow of friends around you as you run low and if no one wants to share then there are plenty of medical tents to handle your dehydration crisis. Make sure to not put sharp or heavy things on top of water. Don’t bring water loose, so that it’s a dozen water bottles. Those make it hard to move around to pack the truck and they puncture easily when things fall on them (which can happen).

If you plan to shower then plan to bring shower water. Water containers from Army Surplus stores are great for that.

PACKING THE TRUCK

Heavy things should be on the left and right of the truck and primarily the weight should go deep into the truck so that the weight isn’t swinging in the back.

Packing Tips:

1. Totally volunteer. Take breaks when you need to, stretch, drink water, ask for help on heavy things, lift with your legs,
2. Just because a box is heavy doesn’t mean that its lid can take a lot of weight on it. Play Tetris to find the best way to distribute weight.
3. Don’t over tighten ratchet straps on the boards or hooks: the ratchet strap is stronger than the environment.
4. If you think something might fall then move it. Try to settle things and then shake them to see if that’s where a box or object is happy.
5. Label everything, even sleeping bags. It’ll help us consolidate your things on the playa or if you lose anything.
6. No loose things (see “Boxing” above). They make the process suck.
7. Patience with the process. Be prepared to move things around.
8. Scaffolding stacked together vertically against a wall in a uniform way creates protective shelves for boxes and such.
9. A stripe of white duct tape is useful for marking your stuff but make sure the label isn’t peeling off before it even gets on the truck.
10. You can get awesome heavy-duty storage containers that stack at various big box stores.

Bikes go on last. There have been attempts over the years to organize the bikes so that they don’t tangle up but it actually takes more time assembling and disassembling them from those systems and they take up more space when they aren’t tangled together. The best way I’ve found in 15+ years of packing the truck = place them sideways over each other and let them tangle a little as they form a metal merengue.

Loose things should be in boxes. If you have anything loose on the truck you can expect it to get lost or crushed and be pleasantly surprised when it isn’t.

PLAYA ARRIVAL

When the truck arrives on the playa on Tuesday the 21st we’ll put everything on a tarp and cover it so that when you arrive you can find all your things.

LEAVING THE PLAYA

We leave the playa on Tuesday, to arrive back at Cosmo’s house on Wednesday, September 5th, for an appoximately 6PM LOAD OUT.

When you’re ready to leave, MOOP your area especially (and the rest of camp and the open playa!) and then gather all of your things near the truck in the designated area. Make sure not to block the river or paths around the truck. We’ll start breaking the camp down on Sunday before the Temple Burn and finish on Monday evening to leave up the shade and last bits to be finished by Monday night. The truck will leave the playa on Tuesday morning after the final MOOP patrol. Everyone in camp should help but I’m counting on the people that said they could stay to make sure that the camp strike goes easy.

To the people that said you’d stay late: thank you! The more people that can be patient with the process and help make it go smooth the better.

Thank you to everyone that steps up to make our camp great, many of whom aren’t even joining us this year in body but are very much with us in spirit. At the risk of leaving out many names I want to make sure to thank Zack and Mischa for helping with the load, even though you’re not going. Thank you Zach Lovering for attempting to make us all less stinky with your glorious shower. Thank you Grant for rigging the façade!

And thank you to everyone that donated so far to the camp costs. At this point we’ve raised $5500, so if you want to thank anyone for the truck then share your gratitude all around you. There are lots of ways to handle camp costs with taxes or committees but I appreciate your trust and your support. If you ever want to see where your contributions go you can see it in that post on our group page, but it always takes a little more than that. Sometimes extra costs are covered by generous camp mates, and sometimes the extra work is covered by people that are making something special.

Once again Cosmo is letting us use his home to stage our bikes!

In order to respect his space and his generosity I would like for anyone who plans to put things on the truck to please heed this:

1) Please leave things for the truck at Cosmo’s house in the middle yard on the concrete (past the gate). We can’t stage things on the driveway until we are actually loading the truck.
2) You can bring things to Cosmo’s house starting now, but please keep his walkway from the gate to his front door clear.
3)
4) We are going to rendezvous at Cosmo’s at =3PM= and then caravan the empty truck to our storage unit on the East side of El Segundo to load in the large camp gear. Whoever wants to join us can come along: the more people that help, the faster it goes!
5) Then we’ll return to Cosmo’s and load up the rest of the truck from about 5PM to 8PM with everyone’s camping stuff.
6) Bike’s are packed last*. They form a nice tangled briar on top of everyone’s stuff. If you have a lock for your bike please leave the keys or combos with us so we can move your bike easily.
Pro Tip: Label your bike with your name and your camp address (4:15 and B) so that if you leave your bike anywhere it can make its way back to you!
7) (*then we slot in the water and final bits along the doors and rear gate)
8) Then we will recreate The Last Supper at Veggie Grill.

The truck drives away on Monday morning, so Sunday August 19th is your last chance to get stuff on the truck.

We will probably arrive on the playa Tuesday evening before the burn. Everyone’s stuff will be gathered together under a tarp, ready for pick-up.

Please try to help with the loading and unloading, and make sure to pick up your things from Cosmo’s house by the following weekend… before the cobra eggs hatch. Baby cobras may seem cute, but /watch out!/

The truck is made possible with generous donations from camp. There is no cost for putting things on it, but it adds up to more than $3000 so if you would like to send along some cash with your stuff then please feel “free”! Your money goes toward the rental and the gas, the storage of the Sensatron, gasoline and cooking gas, camp storage, shade, improvements and purchases. If you would like to put cash in the bucket or send a PayPal gift to gigapede@yahoo.com then it will help us coordinate the possible purchase (or rental) of more scaffolding and other improvements and amentities for the camp.

Thank you!