Special thanks to Darth Anadair, and Kenoshi-San, and John (Spank). they helped immesurably.
Thanks to all 30 volunteers who braved a dust storm to distribute the swords.
Thanks to Jing, who was helping every day. Thanks to all others I did not name, who helped in so many ways.

But most of all, thaks to all of you, the Jedi, who took a weapon and fought for what you believed in.
Gratitude and love to you all!

I wanted more distribution points than last year, so I came up with the "pylons". These were triangular shelters made out of plywood, each decorated by one of the 10 different philosophies of the previous years: Jedi, Love, Screw, Evil, Pasta, Nada, Peace, Logic, Burner, and Jedi. They were to be known as the "Pylons of Philosophy".

Planning

Found storage at a buddys warehouse. Had to order two different shipments. The theme camp went smoothly.

Burning Man was helpful, but beurocative. They decided to put us at 3:00 keyhole, which was a good placement for the camp.

Pre-setup

My new girlfriend had no idea what was going on, as all of the sudden, there were about 100 boxes taking up the carport with some dude picking through and shucking the plastic on swords.

The following day, she woke up to a strange triangle shaped thing (pylon) in the driveway.

The next day, a 24 foot truck was loaded up with 35 sheets of plywood, boxes, a matress, and everything I owned in the house.

The 24 footer is a slow big beast. But it does have room. I could have doubled the number of swords, in a pinch. It is hard to explain to my new lady friend, in broken english, what was about to happen.

The Gate
For a large event at Burning Man, they have weekend arrival lists. I applied to be on the list, and never received acknowledement. Many people wanted to come in early under my bandwagon. We ended up going one day late, and talked our way through the gate. The people who came under my ticket were less lucky. They had to go back to Reno, get a hotel, and then come back, only to be moved, and forced to abandon their camp.

Sunday
No sleep. hot, tired, arguing. Had to waste time helping the Estonian group get in. Spent 2 hours getting the locations for the 10 pylons. Made a huge wall of light sabers around the camp. The Estonians set up the rest of the camp- Thank You!. Then I started to set up the pylons.

Working in the hot sun, in the dry climate, gets you dehydrated and delerious fast. We got 3 of the 10 pylons set up. Then my girlfriend was "tired" and so we called it an early day.

Monday
Built two more pylons, but was tired. We then gifted away 1200 light sabers. That was fun, that was pandamonium. Jing was running around saying "My boyfriend give. No Money!". About 100 people were fighting in the street. Everything was crazy.

Tuesday-Wednsday
No day off this time. Every day, more pylons needed to be set up. Every night, they had to be lit up. Special thanks to Ethan and John, who worked tirelessly for the cause. Jing had no idea what was going on, and wanted to give the light sabers away right now and get it over with. I could not explain the idea of critical mass, so I just said "trust me".

Unlike last year, I was getting in bed early, pissed off, angry, tired. Pressured to complete the pylons. Tuesday night, I did see the man burn Early, during the lunar eclipse. What a scene! Nobody went home however. We heard a rumor that the man was to be replaced before the saturday event. So it was not a problem.

Despair before the Triumph

Jing was angry and hot and tired and dusty. She was staying in the truck all the time, making it hard for me to get work done. She thought that I was going to pay people to give the light sabers away and work for me, not understanding the gift economy. I finally pleaded with her, sobbing: Please help me. It will be so good. You will see.

She cried too. but agreed to help.

Around 3:00 we somehow got enough volunteers to become generals, and picked who was going to go to what pylon. We then all loaded up on the truck or followed it with bicycles, with the stereo playing star wars music. Ethan was being the lookout on the roof. A huge dust storm was going on at the same time. Would it clear in time? I don't know. After the first pylon, Jing started to understand what was going on. She realized that the lightsabers were really going to be finished. But she did not know what people were going to do next.

Chris played the DJ and everyone was being set up one by one. When the last pylon was set, we went to the center (the man) and waited to see what would happen. The dust storm started to fade. People started to hang around with swords. More and more people came hanging around. And then the sun finally set under the mountain. It was time.

The Battle

Everyone started marching in, But Evil was prepared. Their group ran to the battle, being led by Darth Anadair on a chariot. Eventually, there were thousands of people in a cloud all around the man, fighting anyone around. Light sabers broke apart, and people helped others put them back together. I went in and killed everyone in my site. It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. Then, out of nowhere , people raised their swords up in the air, and screamed YEAH!

A group then decided to go march to center camp and attack there. I stayed behind and saw what happened at the center. More and more attacks came in waves and waves. At the end, people were begging for swords, and the pylons were to dark to be seen, so I went witht he van and picked up more swords. The battle lasted for hours.

After

I broke my arm Friday morning. Nobody believed me. I was in much pain.

The next day, I heard notice that a huge dust storm was coming in. 80 MPH winds and such. I had a camp filled with boxed and junk, not prepared. I drove in and told our people about the storm coming in. We rished to secure everything with bicycles and anything heavy we had around. The store hit hard and lifted one of the shade structures, scratching a hood of a car.

Afterwards, there was a huge fight of words, and our camp was split in two. Augey and Dennis helped me fix the boxes.

Saturday came and went, the man was Burned.

Had to clean up the pylons, which took 3 f-in days to do. Not fun. All of this time, I have been struggling with these triangles.

Lessons Learned