2-day town: 2016
Our crew arrived at 4:30 this morning. I woke up at 3. Before that, I went to sleep at midnight, my clothes still in the dryer, my laptop downloading files for work, and my head swimming with inspiration for work, and a little frustration at the prospect of slowing down.
This is the cleanest I'll be for the next four days. As I limp away from the camp site in the parking lot towards the outdoor bathroom stalls at the top oft he hill, I consider this proposition. There are a hundred or so of us here and fully set up by 8 am on Thursday.
Now, with blisters around the edge of each pinky toenail, and a large, half-callous ex-blister getting flatter with every step on the ball of my left foot, my body is siding with my mind.
Yes. Maybe we should take a break from traveling for a little while, and get some work done. Yes. That would be very nice indeed. Yes please.
For now, I'm here, and I go home in 2 weeks. I need to make the most of it. First, I need to make use of the toilet before 2,500 more campers show up for the festival and start drinking.
Every puddle of mud you cross on the first day of a weekend party becomes a trecherous risk after a thousand feet per hour stamp on it for one weekend every spring. Late at night, when this bathroom could be your oasis, it is wise to have made note of the landmarks while you could still see them.
There's a fence closing off the parking lot in which our canopies, suv's, and campers line up parallel, and around which we can walk into the green hills between us and the river. Morning sun warms up the trees, waking up the songs of humming birds, crows, eagles, and geese. There is no music playing yet, but instruments line up neatly around each camper and tent, with every percussion accessory available on Amazon for the hobbiest and professional musician alike stacked in bags, buckets, and boxes and hidden under tailgates as long as the asphalt lot.
There's no signal out here. Whatever that means.
This weekend is a family affair. Like it or not, we're hanging out. Get comfortable. I don't expect much, and I really like disconnecting, but I also want control over when it happens, and time to prepare. Instead, I'm just stopping all work and taking a nap. For four days.
I wasn't surprised when I woke up yesterday with my feet heavily blistered after a full day of walking around the hills of San Fransisco's Mission District, lugging a camping backpack with 35 pounds of gear and wandering around for hours to find decent and dependable wifi. You'd think this would be easier in cities as modern as SF, but the average user doesn't treat public wifi like I do.
Is there a password? If I could, I would walk in and say this first.
If the answer is yes, and it's not "guest", then I'm looking around for outlets, because I just found my home for the next few hours. I hope they sell good coffee, but I'm gonna drink it either way.
If the answer is no, our wifi has no password, I have options. I will usually already have made a coffee order at this point, so I'm stuck with an unsecured network which is like going to the YMCA vs a private sports club. You can do some of the same things at both, but do you really want to?
If the answer is no, we don't have wifi, I'm leaving.
Are there outlets?
If I'm looking, then I'm either already dead on battery, or know that I need at least a few hours to work and want to settle in without interruption.
If there aren't, I should order my drink to go.
What is the best thing you have to eat?
This is always different than I expect, and usually great.
It also tells me if I need to be ready to move again for lunch, or be able to stay out for the day if things work out that way.
Speedtest.net score?
Requests go Up from your computer to the Internet.
Responses come Down from the Internet to your computer.
Requests are small, and don't need much space or take much time.
Responses can be very large, and could be coming from a very busy or slow server.
So your speed score measures your upload and download speeds from your computer to a nearby server and back, allowing you to call your ISP with proof that you aren't getting what you paid for.
LTE phone plans have scores of around 4 Mbps dn / 1 Mbps up.
My office at work just upgraded to 200 dn / 15 up.
Coffee shops, restaurants, and bars in my experience average between 0 - 12 dn / 0 - 5 up.
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Sunday, 3 pm
One earbud hangs loose from my right ear connected to my cell phone as I silently type between grunts and clearing my throat. I'm posted up at the same place I used for my first entry here, on the throne of the outdoor stalls atop the hill. Two Day Town is aptly named - a functioning pop-up commune on the side of a mountain range separating wine country from the river for 48 hours of music and food.
Our days have spent in a blur of unending spontaneous jam sessions with musicians of all levels playing instruments they can carry from smoking bbq pit to open fire across rows of RVs and tents spread out over 100 acres. Thursday was the setup. Friday was 10 straight hours of jamming under a canopy drenched by all day rains. Saturday was the same with blue skies and cool breeze. Today is tearing down, packing up, and solidifying the dozens of contacts made over a weekend of more singing than speaking.
My throat is dry and scratchy from the steady diet consisting of multiple sources of smoke, alcohol, and red meat.
