April 26, 2026. It rained last night. Camp is wet and cold. Good day to hide out in the van.
Yesterday afternoon Jed, Shannon and I went out on bikes to scout campsites. We found some incredible ones. I brought my DJI Neo 2, which at this point feels strangely like a pet. It follows me so closely and tracks me so well around obstacles that it reminds me of my dog Bandit, who was lovingly obsessed with me. Yesterday I tried something new: I wore my little wireless microphone with the windscreen, plugged the receiver into my phone, and connected the phone to the drone via the DJI app. Suddenly I'm recording my voice clearly while riding a bike on a windy day with the drone tracking me. It filters out most of the propeller noise and stitches the audio directly into the footage. That's going to open up some new ways of documenting.
I experience this van as a spaceship. It transports me through space and time in a way that frequently feels magical. I'm having a real internal debate about taking it to its third Burning Man. Last year was hard on it. The van is more dialed in now than it's ever been and I don't want anything to happen to it. There's also the logistics: I'm planning to be in Colorado all summer and northwestern Nevada is a haul. I'd need a staging spot, ideally somewhere near Tahoe, to safely unload and store 75% of what I'm carrying for the week. I learned my first year that everything in the van gets coated in playa dust and has to be cleaned afterward. Best to bring only what you need.
Two days ago I posted the Jed and the Splinter video. 86 views, 2 new subscribers, a quiet response on Facebook. I find myself grateful to be doing this for intrinsic reasons rather than external ones, because the external ones aren't showing up yet. That said, I do want to be reaching people. The primary criteria will always be that the work is aligned with who I am and that the process feels worthwhile. But providing something people find valuable matters too, just less than the other things. I think it's time to look at the analytics and see what I can learn. I'm not interested in clickbait titles or thumbnail tricks. But if the data can teach me something about the craft, I'm open to that. I'm stubborn about a lot of aspects of this process and I don't view that stubbornness as a problem. It's there to protect the intrinsic rewards, which is what keeps you going when nobody is watching. I'm going to need that. I'll be curious to see what kind of path I can navigate through this.
My battery is at 63% with no sun today and likely partial sun tomorrow. It'll probably be near 20% by tomorrow, which is my warning threshold. I think I'll be fine but days like this are what's pushing me toward downgrading to the Starlink Mini. It uses a third of the electricity. I've had a surplus of power this entire 21-day stay, but that's been a sunny stretch. I want to be better prepared for when it isn't.
The DJ gear has been hanging in its place this whole stay. I haven't plugged it in yet, but I'm not feeling resentment about the space it takes. That's new. Last year it was in storage and I kept thinking I'd made a mistake leaving it behind. The year before I had it but rarely used it because getting it out required too much effort, and by the time I'd set it up I was in a completely different mental place. The friction between idea and creation was too high. Now it's hanging there, accessible, and I think something is different. I'm going to live with it a while longer and see.
The 12-inch pan my parents gave me for my birthday never made it to me, lost somewhere in the General Delivery situation. I'm batch cooking 3 pounds of meat in a pan that's too small for the job. After using the right pan in Florida last month I'm very aware of the difference. Next time I camp in a gathering like this I also want to bring more food to share. I'm an outlier at potlucks with the keto restrictions, but several people have been thoughtful about it. I'd like to return that.