Burning Man

What is Burning Man? It defies explanation, but this link to the official site is a good place to start.
For a variety of reasons, I have never been to one and probably never will. That doesn't stop me being fascinated by some of the techniques and temporary structures folks use to survive this week in the desert, however. Check out this site
to see what I mean.
The first thing that caught my attention was this advice about packing:
"Divide up your planning and packing into sections:

* Things you can get ready now
* Things you can get ready soon
* Things you have to get ready at the last minute
* Things you have to do and bring
* Things you would like to do and bring IF you have time and space"
I got a laugh out of that, because when I am planning a major camping trip, to Terlingua for example, I spend weeks making lists of everything I'm gonna take. I have plans about how I'll get some things packed into my Jeep a couple of days beforehand (so as not to be doing everything at once), finish the packing the night before, except for a few things I'll need on the way out there; then get up at zero-dark-thirty, eat breakfast, grab the last few items, and be on the road before traffic gets bad.
Then, what I actually do is spend the night before dragging out everything I think I'll need, inventorying until 1 am before collapsing in bed, get up at 8 :30, and wrestle with packing, finally rolling out at 3 pm, already dog-tired and wondering how many absolute essentials I left behind. Then I drive until 3 am to make up for lost time, get 5 hours of sleep and hit the road again.