please dont

[dustyroller]

Excuse me everybody will you please not steal all of the street signs so early next year. there were many days this year where i was wandering around with no clue of where i was i was lost wandering around for like 2 hours one day. So i dont mind if you steal the signs but at least wait until the last day or something if you are going to steal them for the sake of all the other wasted burners.

[oneeyeddick]

Signs ALWAYS get taken down on Saturday, the event is over on Sunday.
There ain't no amount of begging gonna change this fact.

[jkisha]

Now that's a problem that really could use a solution.

But, even if the big signs are stollen, you can look for the street names on the small posts.

[ygmir]

we kept re-making ours........the asshats would even steal the cardboard ones we'd make.
When confronted, one guys said:"hey, they're for everyone to take, and I want a souvenir"

We're thinking of making a metal one this year, when our Early campers get to our spot, they'll email me the name and I'll use my plasma cutter to cut it into the steel plate, welded to the pipe we'll drive in later.

[jkisha]

we kept re-making ours........the asshats would even steal the cardboard ones we'd make.
When confronted, one guys said:"hey, they're for everyone to take, and I want a souvenir"

We're thinking of making a metal one this year, when our Early campers get to our spot, they'll email me the name and I'll use my plasma cutter to cut it into the steel plate, welded to the pipe we'll drive in later.

Sounds like a good idea on its face.

[FIGJAM]

It will wind up on a mv!

[ygmir]

only if they bring a hacksaw or torch.....

1/4" plate, welded to a 1" or better bar stock/pipe (whichever I can scrounge), augured into the playa.

[Packoderm]

I thought the sign situation was pretty good this year when official signs were replaced with funny ones whose names began with the same letter such as Crabs for whatever C street was last year.

[moonrise]

Try to find & read the smaller lower orange sleeves of plastic, the street and O'clock # is written in sharpie on them (but those were also stolen at times!)
Find landmarks, to guide you, but those go away too. Memorize your area, if you can.

[unjonharley]

Last time I camped on a corner.. I made a street sign and attach it to the camp..

Next time I will put it on a 4x8 sheet bolted to the trailer if need be..

But.. put some mole-asses on the street signs.. It's a bitch to clean off..

[Packoderm]

I'd like to look into getting one of those projectors that will project an image of the address on the ground.

[Bob]

1/4" plate, welded to a 1" or better bar stock/pipe (whichever I can scrounge), augured into the playa.

I could defeat that with a length of 1/4" rope, except you're going to have six bikes chained to it.

[ygmir]

1/4" plate, welded to a 1" or better bar stock/pipe (whichever I can scrounge), augured into the playa.

I could defeat that with a length of 1/4" rope, except you're going to have six bikes chained to it.

perhaps........yeah, enough bikes and peddlers pulling.....or tied to a car, or with a high/lift jack......
You'll never make is "unstealable" but, if it will slow the people down, it'll be too much effort, I'd think.
I'm thinking, though, with it augured in good and deep, it'd hold hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of pull.
I know just the small auger anchors I use for my shade hold a lot of weight.

unless, of course, your intent is to push it over with a rope........

[FIGJAM]

Auger in, auger out.....wait, was that a proposition?

[wh..sh]

This is where the bread crumbs come in handy

[Eric]

Excuse me everybody will you please not steal all of the street signs so early next year. there were many days this year where i was wandering around with no clue of where i was i was lost wandering around for like 2 hours one day. So i dont mind if you steal the signs but at least wait until the last day or something if you are going to steal them for the sake of all the other wasted burners.

This is where radical self-reliance comes into play:

A) You know the street signs will be stolen. It's always happened, it always will, nothing will change that.

B) From your post, apparently you know that you will at some point be too wasted to find your way home without the street signs.

Solution?
Buy yourself a cheap GPS tracker. When you set up camp, write the camps location on your tracker (or on a piece of tape on your tracker). Attach tracker to your belt, your water bottle, that bag you never leave camp without. Then, when you are too drunk to find your way home without street signs- crash wherever you are until you sober up some! Once sobered, use GPS to get your hung-over ass home.

I highly recommend carrying a mylar emergency blanket in your night-bag for emergencies like this. If it happens a lot, buy a few.

[Drawingablank]

Solution?
Buy yourself a cheap GPS tracker. When you set up camp, write the camps location on your tracker (or on a piece of tape on your tracker). Attach tracker to your belt, your water bottle, that bag you never leave camp without. Then, when you are too drunk to find your way home without street signs- crash wherever you are until you sober up some! Once sobered, use GPS to get your hung-over ass home.

I highly recommend carrying a mylar emergency blanket in your night-bag for emergencies like this. If it happens a lot, buy a few.

Even better, the cheap hiking GPS systems such as Etrex let you set waypoints. On arrival stand in your camp and set it as the only waypoint. To get back simply turn on the GPS and follow the arrow to your waypoint. Nothing to enter or remember, just turn it on and press one button - It don't get any simpler than that. Of course you could set other waypoints for stuff you want to find your way back to, but that removes some of the "foolproofishness" of the single waypoint approach.

[Savannah]

Try to find & read the smaller lower orange sleeves of plastic, the street and O'clock # is written in sharpie on them (but those were also stolen at times!)

This is true. When the street sign is stolen, look lower.

Ask people idling in camps what their own address is. Virtually everyone knows where they are within "15 minutes" on the clock, and are happy to tell you.

[trilobyte]

I always understood it to be a part of the Burn, like some kind of test in radical self reliance or something.

Of course, you could also just choose to be a bit more observant. For the last several years, the metal markers have had the address on them as well.

[TinkerMom]

I just started singing the aphabet song as I rode by the lettered streets....

[theCryptofishist]

I thought the sign situation was pretty good this year when official signs were replaced with funny ones whose names began with the same letter such as Crabs for whatever C street was last year.

Yeah, I think we should think up a permanent set of alter-names so that three years from now we can say, oh I was on Bigamy last year and Flatulence the year before--7:30 both times.

[delle]

How 'bout if everyone with a vehicle near a curb put a big sign stating its address inside of whatever window is closest to the road?

Then you'd even know your increment on those long-ass roads like "l" which seem to go on forever.


Seems a really simple gesture that would benefit many (if not all).

[Ugly Dougly]

You know, there were not always signs, or even names for roads that were easy for stoned hippies to remember.

So one year, they decide to put up signs, and suddenly you're dependent on them.

Adapt or continue to whine, your choice.

[Nipple]

I take a giant ball of fishing line.

When I first get to camp I tie it to my trailer. As I go out wandering at night, or on the art cars, etc, I just let out more and more line. When it's time to go home, I just start winding the line back up until I get back to camp.

[jella]

omg imagine the re living the entire evening to get back to camp.....**shivers**

[bubbavic]

I thought that the missing/replaced signs was part of the "adventure" of the burn. I know there's been more than one occassion where a wrong turn based has lead me to discover something amazing. =)

[lemur]

its the same layout every year forever now..

how could you get lost?

[tamarakay]

I'm so glad this thread isn't about tickets.
Some lovely wonderfuly helpful person put a huge red heart at the beginning of 3:30. All I had to do was point my nose to the heart and follow. Added bonus, whoever put that thing up there still had it up Monday night Thank you Thank you Thank you whoever you are.
If we were "in the grid" we'd just head back towards the man, then find the heart. All is good.

[BBadger]

"This sign was dipped in a (full) portapotty after written."

[Ugly Dougly]

Well I was at a street corner in 2010. So I put up a sign for my camp right where the puny street sign was. And teh street sign disappeared, making my camp the landmark. Until I burned it, of course.

Landmarks disappear at Burning Man, deal with it.