Satureday night – A tale of two Esplinades

September 4, 2011 johncohn Leave a comment

Funny juxtaposition today.. All this week Max has been out in Black Rock City Nevada at Burning Man.. I didn’t go this year.. and am missing it. Max, Jac and Scott are out there .. and I hope/trust hey are having a blast. Burning man is absolutely the most amazing experience.. Every year about 50,000 freaks, artists, scientists, gawkers and g-d know who else gather at a circular camp in the Nevada dessert and practice a week of random beauty and radical self sufficiency. .. On Saturday night the festival culminates with the burning of the 90 foot wooden man.. usually it’s loaded with explosives.. sprayed with jets of kerosene.. anything to feed the flames as the 50,000 burners go totally nuts around it. .. The burn will happen in about an hour weather permitting.. I’m watching it on live webcam here . here are a few screen grabs of whats going on out there this evening

can’t wait to see them burn

.. an odd coincidence occurred to me today.. Burning man is arraigned like a large clock. the ‘man’ is in the middle of the 3/4 mile wide ‘playa’ / around that is arraigned all the camps.. .. if you imagine the site as a clock.. the temple is at 12, base camp is at 6, the man is in the center.. The camps are arraigned around a set of radial streets at the hour and half hour marks from 2 til 10 that intersect a set of
concentric streets that start with ‘E’ (or esplinade).. then go f, g, h, i , j, k… usually out to about l. . Eg in 2009 we were at 2:30 and j in 2010 I think it was like 2:30 and k.. Here’s a map

Anyway/. the inner and man street surrounding the playa is ‘esplanade’.. it’s crowded 24 hours a day.. here’s a screen shot I took of esplanade at base camp from the burning man web cam this morning.

At the very same time. Diane and I were headed over to Esplinade in Richmond.. the road which runs along the richmond Green. its the street hit hardest by the flood. many of the houseses sustained very serious damage when the winnoski river flooded a week ago tonight.Most of the houses on the street had dumpsters out front filled with ruined with furniture sheetrock and appliances.

The basements flooded, then collapsed in our firend aisha and her neighbor harlands .house. Aisha and her boyfreind John were actually in the basement at 3AM moving stuff out of the water when the baseent wall collapsed.. they were swept up to the stairs and escaped.. but the house was left teetering with about a third of its foundation wall down.

over the last couple of days townsfolk have come in with house jacks, girders, backhoes, shovels and buckets to shore up and save both houses.. first they stuck in big steel girders, then they gently lifted the houses then shimmed up the girders to level the houses.. Then folks started digging the silt out of the ruined basements. Next week they will pur new concrete walls to replace the cinderblock walls that collapsed.

diane and I helped remove the back porch so that the excavator could get under the house.. to get the mud folks hadn’t already gotten out with buckets

a bunch of us held the porch while one guy chainsawed it away from the house.. then we chained it to the backhoe and lifted it away..
Nothing like having the right tool handy !

we hadn’t worked that long when Joe and Teresa called everyone to lunch.. they were from huntington.. but they were feeding all the folks ho lived on the street.. or who were there helping .

The spirit of cooperation was wonderful.. as i always is in this town.. check out these two kids chipping in 🙂

There were soem cool thins folks dragged out of their basements.. like this 1920’s gasoline powered washer/wringer that was in Harlan’s basement.. He thinks it might still work !

We worked in town until about 1:30 .. WHile we were working, friend Katehrine had the idea of a town wide talent show to raise money for the town’s food sehlf as part of the Irene relief.. What do any Richmond folks reading think of that idea ?

Later in the day, Diane and I decided to go with Gabe to see the Fair.. it wouldn’t really be the end of summer without a visit…

ann that includes junk food.. tonight that meant fa shared falafal, a coconut smoothy,

and a maple ice cream cone

oh.. and soem freind dough with chocolate sauce as we walked out.. it’s not really the fair unless you get that familiar yum/yuck reaction !

Our favorite part is seeing the animals..

Here are freind Terry’s alpacas

And the veggies.. which this year had a cool sand sculpture inside

here’s this year’s 1200 poud pumpkin !

As we left i dropped a samstonw into a creice in the ferris heel *nio moving parts.. don’t worry)..

Then we left the fair.. which i think officially closes down a very fun and busy summer..

ok.. gotta get soem sleep now.. only got 4 hours or so sleep last night..

more tomorrow

nite all, nite sam

-me

Late Friday night – Happy beleated birthday Ma and Billy

September 3, 2011 johncohn Leave a comment

It’s 3:40 AM and our friends just left from a fun and longer than expected..party at our house tonight.. I’m not going to blog long.. but I do want to wish bouth my Mom and my Brother a happy and fun birthday..

Ma and Billy.. you’re two of the smartest and funniest people I know.. I love you and respect you both so much.. Hope you had great birthdays (don’t worry folks. I called ’em both)

ok. sleep beckons..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Thursday night – older

September 1, 2011 johncohn 3 Comments

So.. yesterday on our anniversary I posted this beautiful picture of our wedding day.. 25 year before. I got a ton of good wishes and several nice comments on the pic.

several folks also pointed out that diane still looks as beautiful now as she did on that august day in 1986.

Quite a few l other pointed out that i however, did not.. For therr benefit, I have prepared this revisionist version of that wedding pic..

I couldn’t help lauging as I made these edits.. but I also had to stop and admit that soemtimes it does bug me that folks assume I’m much older than I am..I don’t know why. maybe it’s the 5000 years of inbreeding in my particular ethnic.. maybe it’s just the luck of the draw on my genes.. maybe it’s stress…maybe its karma.. who knows

whatever the reason.. my appearance is often a topic of conversation.. while no one would come up to aa woman and say.. ‘my you’ve gotten really old’.. but no one ever thinks twice about saying that to me.. Isn’t that interesting ? It may come as a surprise to many.. but I like the way i look. now
Looking a little wierd opens many doors.. no one expects to take me seriously which is helpful when I don’t want them to.. and when I do.. ..
… and .. I couldn’t ask for a more convincing disquise as I try to get kids to open up to sceince.

Anyway.. i often hear that you’re only as old as you feel.. or as someon told me last week.. you may have to grow older.. but you don’t have to grow up..ok.. enoguht of that.. I need to get my beauty rest..

nite all, nite sam
-me

ps. Here’s Gabe’s first day of school .. let’s go sophomore year !!

Wednesday night – our 25th anniversary !

August 31, 2011 johncohn 3 Comments

25 years ago today Diane and I got in a car driven by our good friends Dave and Linda and drove to the round church and richmond and got married….

It was a great day.. lots of family and friends. I remember it so well.. It’s amazing to think of all that’s happened in these past 25 years. I’m happy that we’re still very much in love.. I can’t imagine a better partner for this crazy journey.. I love you Diane !

(and you still look the same as you did 25 years ago !!! 🙂

We celebrated the day as we do most of our anniversary’s .. by taking a good long hike. This time we took one of our favorites.. The long trail back from the Notch Road to our house..

As we think of all that’s happened.. we think of our freinds. parents and kids.. .. and always bring Sam along. He’s still part of everything we do.

On the way down the hill I slipped on wet rocks and cracked my head pretty hard.. I also broke a water botte in my fanny pack, broke my glasses (my only pari) and damaged my phone.. but.. that was only stuff. It didn’t spoil the hike..

After we got down, Diane and I drove up to fetch the other car.. on the way down we saw the most beautiful and huge moose.. it was tall and graceful like a horse.. a huge horse.. with antlers.. I had sto hit the brakes to keep from hitting it..

We then drove into town to grab lunch. We stopped by our favorite dining spot.. Bridge street cafe.. All of reichmond is still recovering form the fllods.. no one has water.. hence they were workin on a limited but yummy menu.. and paper plates

They even served us on real plates in honor of our anniversary.. !

Afterwards we went by to help out our freind Aisha who’s house was damaged in the floood. Aisha and her son were in the basement at 3AM Sunday when two of the basement walls collapsed and the river came in.. they go out in time.. but the basement is a wreck !..