It's 5:15am. I'll be going into Kanab today to pick up packages, do laundry, and stop by a grocery store. In my travels I'm always amazed by the places I'd never heard of that turn out to be full of people. Kanab is one of those.
Yesterday I spent much of the day building a system for creating simple visualizer videos for my music. Now that it's built I should have a fairly frictionless way to make those whenever I have a new song. I also got derailed improving and patching bugs in the Signal game. As I've added features the complexity has ballooned and there are quite a few pesky bugs, almost all having to do with how the AI handles requests within the game. I worked on it long enough that Claude booted me out until 7pm tomorrow. In the past I've paid to upgrade and keep going, but I've learned to embrace the limitations. Now I have today and tomorrow to work on music and video editing, which I've been wanting to clear time for anyway.
Monk mode continued yesterday. Didn't open the van door until around 3pm. Around that time I feel my energy start to wane. I'm looking into what I can do to extend that window, more stamina for longer deep work blocks. It comes down to refining what I'm putting into my body and how I'm handling physical movement.
Shannon rode off on her bike yesterday, talked to a bunch of people, got maps, and did research for our North Rim excursion. She found some surprisingly nice paper maps and came back with good information. It's great to not be the only one doing research and preparation. In the early evening we took a walk through the forest we're camped in. Deep back here. Several miles along 4x4 trails without seeing a single soul.
I don't have much set up at this campsite. No sound system, no lights, just a cooking station, a mat, and my bike. A motion sensor light so I can see when I get close to the van at night. It's a different mode. Over all this time and so many iterations I've developed a system for each one. Three broad categories: stealth mode, just pull over and live in it as is; monk mode, basic outdoor cooking setup but hours at the computer; and full glory mode, everything out, the string lights, rope lights, sound system, music gear, rebounder, picnic table, 8x8 mat, paralettes, shower, dish drying rack, two external monitors. Different seasons call for different modes.
The van is harder to keep decluttered than it used to be. I have more stuff now and there's not really a place for all of it. Move one thing and something else has to give. The DJ gear in particular has changed everything about how I use the space. It's massive in here. I'm getting used to it, making space for it in my own mind, getting ideas for how to work with it better. But it's a challenge.
I continue to wrestle with Burning Man. I don't want to miss it. But I don't want to take the van in again either. The damage and recovery last year took a lot out of me. This is my home and I need to keep it working. At the same time it's just so magical. My ideal scenario would be gear stashed somewhere near Reno, a safe place to park the van for the week, a ShiftPod with an air conditioner, and a camp that provides a kitchen, meals, power, and shade. Then take the Burner Express in from Reno, which bypasses the line entirely. That would be the way. I don't see it coming together this year though. We'll see.
There was a subtle lesson in yesterday. The Signal game was genuinely fun to work on for the first few days. Then yesterday I was trying to perfect it. Rapidly diminishing returns. One bug after another, the game seeming to get objectively worse. I burned through two days of Claude compute and got locked out for 48 hours. Things in my world work better with a lighter touch. Let the wheel spin and pour into each spoke gently. Don't try to hold and conquer the stop in front of you. Hold it like a baby bird and let it go.
Yesterday I also kept refining the way I name what I do. I recently moved from calling it my work to calling it my practice. Yesterday I found something I like even better. I call it practicing my love. Because that's what it is.