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2024/04/30 Mycenae Near Nafplio

π 2024-04-30 01:01 in Greece2024, Ntrips

The 2nd worthwhile sidetrip from Nafplio was to go see Mycenae, and it was conveniently located on the drive out of Nafplio when I realized that I had already done everything in one day, and it would make sense to push to Olympia instead of going back to Athens directly.
Got there bright and early soon after it opened, and got to learn about the Myceanaean culture, which predated the greeks by about a thousand years:

That was an interesing 1.5H+ visit, and then time to drive to Olympia, a longish 3h+ drive...

The Athens Archeological Museum had a good amount of artifacts from this location, including a nice overview:

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2024/04/30 Long Side Trip to Olympia

π 2024-04-30 01:01 in Greece2024, Ntrips

After being ahead in Nafplio (1 day instead of 2), I realized that it was possible to add a long day trip to Olympia, so I did the drive there after finishing Mycenae. It was a somewhat painful 3H+ drive there from Nafplio and a bit longer back to Athens. It is true that by today's standards, it looks small and underwhelming, but it was still very much worth seeing. Thankfully it was just late enough in the season that the sightseeing times had moved from 15:30 to 20:00, making the side trip feasible and worthwhile.

The museum of the olympic games, was a good place to start and the archeological museum was next:

lots of things found in excavations

This is what the original amphitheatre that was used for over 1000 years, looked like. Yes, it's small and underwhelming compared to Roman theatres ;)

of course the area had fancy buildings which are now mostly gone

The archeological tour, showed what was left. Nothing much, if anything, had been restored

The tour ends with the arch to the main arena:

it looks quite flat

I went to compete for the original 2000+ years old olympics

It would have been nice if more had been restored, but even as is, it's a nice and peaceful area:

Before driving out, a quick stop in town to visit the very good Archimedes museum, showing all the excellent work he did, arguably one of the top geniuses of the world until Leonardo de Vinci, up to 1500 years later. He was sadly and mistakenly killed by a roman soldier. What a loss...

After leaving Mycenae around 11:00, arriving at Olympia around 14:00, the tour visit was mostly over 3H later, and with a 3.5H drive to Athens to return the rental car in time by 21:00:

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2024/04/29 Palamidi Fortress in Nafplio

π 2024-04-29 01:01 in Greece2024, Monuments

Nafplio has 2 fortresses, but Palamidi is hard to miss, you see it as soon as you arrive and it's lit up at night. It hangs impossibly on a steep and sideways hill, and it's a miracle and testiment to its construction that it is still standing today. It is built with multiple defense layers and the views from up ther are of course stellar:

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2024/04/29 Ancient Theatre at the Asclepieion of Epidaurus

π 2024-04-29 01:01 in Greece2024, Ntrips

It was a 30mn drive from Nafplio, and went early in the morning soon after it opened. Thankfully this was before tour busses arrived. It is not one of the most remarkable sites in Greece, but it has the best preserved ancient greek theatre to date. It is still used for performances today and the accoustics are fantastic, no microphone or amplification needed:

The grounds were wonderful at the time, but by now, unfortunately there isn't a lot left:

Of course it had a small museum with things that were found on site:

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2024/04/29 Nafplio in a Day

π 2024-04-29 01:01 in Greece2024, Ntrips

I say "in a day" because Rick Steves recommended 2 days for it, including the 2 side trips, but actually all of it was easily doable in a day. I just elected to put Mycenae the next morning on the way out to save some useless driving, but it did easily fit at the end of the day thanks to its later opening hours (20:00)

Day started with a yummy breakfast made by the pension:

Next to the pension, there was a very nice orthodox church:

So the day started with a side trip to the Ancient Theatre at the Asclepieion of Epidaurus (click me for blog). Best preserved theatre in greece:

On the way, there was a store that sold pretty nice art:

After that, and finding a parking spot downtown, which was a tad challenging, managed to get to port just in time for a bi hourly boat to Bourtzi fortress:

lots of friendly cats everywhere

Back in town, the city walk went by some small churches and minor museums:

museums closed quite early, some around 14:30, so getting an early morning was a good thing

After the bourtzi fortress in the water, the 2nd one was Akronafplia's Castle, which you could drive up to, but there is also an elevator to it:

nicer view from up there

even a cactus garden

more friendly cats ;)

you can see Palamidi from Akronafplia's walls

a godo picture of Akronafplia from Palamidi

You can't really see that fortress from the fortress itself, but it had great views. Of course, the most impressive one is clearly Palamidi Fortress (click me for blog), which you can hike up, but it's a long ass painful hike. I went with the 10mn drive around ;)

even better view from up there

While this could have been pushed into the end of the first day, to get a bit of rest, a nice dinner, and avoid an extra hour of driving to Mycenae and back to Nafplio for the night, I moved Mycenae to the next morning on the drive out (click me for blog)

Nice dinner to end the day

While this could have been pushed into the end of the first day, to get a bit of rest, a nice dinner, and avoid an extra hour of driving to Mycenae and back to Nafplio for the night, I moved

Mycenae to the next morning on the drive out

and since there was some spare time, I chose to add Olympia, which was a fair drive away, but obviously historically significant

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2024/04/28 A few Sights from Athens Airport En Route To Nafplio

π 2024-04-28 01:01 in Greece2024, Ntrips

Flying to Athens from Turks and Caicos was not an easy routing, but I managed to make it work via Montreal and Munich, which nicely avoided having needlessly go back through the US and its unnecessary customs and immigration when you are not actually flying to the US. Canada thankfully does this better and had legit transit:

I remember YUL, but this time around, didn't enter the country

nicely done, they check where you come from and if you come from an untrustworthy country, you have to go through security again. Fair enough

finally made it to the lounge

even got Poutine!

the Lufthansa plane was nice, but the flight was too short, barely enough time to sleep before landing in Munich

of course landed 1h late, with a 1h30 connection. I had to run through the airport to make my flight with 1mn to spare, and my luggage didn't make it

planey of snow in Munich still

finally arriving in Athens, lots of Islands visible right away

After landing in Athens, collecting the rental car, and filing paperwork for my luggage that Lufthansa of course failed to put on the last plane, ther ewas a bit of daylight to see some minor sights on the way to Nafplio (some would have been ok to visit, but since the overworking staff only worked until 15:30, that was not in the cards...).

The Corinth Canal, between 2 seas, while of more limited importance today, was hand dug apparently 2000 years ago by 6000 slaves and is a remarkable achievement. It was later re-opened 2 centuries ago, although today it does not serve a purpose anymore for bigger ships that can easily go around

that almost seems like a wonderful idea :)

you can see the sea on both sides, and it's the same level, so no locks needed

We stopped at a few more minor archeological sites on the way that were all closed, but still able to get a peek:

not overachieving hours

looked inviting inside

fantastic view from up there

After that 2nd stop, it was time to head to Nafplio to end a very very long day (considering the flights that took over 24H)

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2024/04/27 Diving Turk and Caicos with TC Explorer II

π 2024-04-27 01:01 in Diving

When Arturo and I planned our next diving trip we had heard about T&C, and decided to give it a shot. Unlike Roatan, the island has close to nothing to do outside of beach stuff, but when going for diving, that didn't matter :)

it was a nice boat, bigger than Aggressor

nice welcome :)

One of our dive guides liked costumes, she was well equipped :)

Here is our trip:

The diving was ok but didn't quite compare with the Pacific. Still got to see some nice things:

great slipper lobster

plenty of big lobsters

some amount of sharks too

found one octopus

my dive buddy, Arturo

this fish doesn't fly but it extends it wings to look bigger

baby puffer was very cute :)

night dives were often better than day dives, and found one squid

a good amount of crabs at night

of all kinds

Outside of a few sharks and one dive site that was a nurse shark nursery, we had one dophin visit us and I was also able to see one eagle ray. Neither were interested in divers and went away quickly

I was the only one who spotted it, it came and went quickly

G-Spot had plenty of nurse sharks, I love them, they look cute and cuddly to me :)

the texture on them, is wonderful

the baby nurse shark was even cuter, learning to hunt from its mother

they like to sleep under rocks

and they don't seem to care if they don't entirely fit and stick out a lot ;)

And that was it for diving, 6 days, 27 dives, did every dive except one that I had to abort early due to a bad cold that blocked my ear pretty badly. Diving at the end was non trivial as I was barely able to equalize. Thankfully I had enough drugs to open things up barely enough to equalize.

The boat was nice, TCE was bigger than aggressor, and the room was spacious enough. There was a shread of cell service during the last 4.5 days, but enough to sent an urgent Email or text, nothing more than that. We got lucky and got multiple nice sunsets:

Thanks to the crew for taking care of us during the week and helping us find the local critters.

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2024/04/20 Turks and Caicos

π 2024-04-20 01:01 in Ntrips

Normally when I go diving in some new country, I get to visit things and do cool stuff before or after diving, but in the case of Turks and Caicos, honestly outside of very nice beaches and clear water (and yes, they are nice), there is almost nothing to do by my own standards, so the 1.5H I had to walk around before the dive crew dinner after the dive trip, was more than enough.

Here is the blog with the week of diving

The shopping street was worth maybe 1H:

After that, the beach was indeed beautiful:

Nice drink and dinner with my partner in crime, Arturo:

I heard enough stories about the airport being a complete mess that I went there first thing in the morning, waited 15mn for luggage check in, got in before any lines started, and then worked 3H upstairs while waiting ror my plane:

Once you go to the plane, you just walk outside until you see a plane number that looks like yours :)

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2024/04/16 Comparing and Buying a 1.5 ATA to 2.0 ATA Hypberabic Soft Chamber (HBOT), and Settled with Olive 2.0ATA Soft Lying Type Hyperbaric Chamber

π 2024-04-16 23:10 by Merlin in Hbot

About Me

First, I'd to state that I’m an engineer. I’m not a salesperson, I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not a doctor. I wrote this page as a result of my personal research since I spent quite a bit of time looking at vendors and available soft chambers when I decided to get one of my own, talked to sales people and engineers from multiple companies to answer the pointed questions I had on their equipment and why I should trust it (soft chambers not blowing up) as well as whether you could convince me that their concentrator and inflator was sized sufficiently to actually provide 95% O2 inside a fully inflated soft chamber. As I expected, unfortunately some solutions cheapened out on the concentrator and did not take into account that under pressure in the chamber, it would fail to deliver the full amount required for breathing at up to twice the liters per minute.

I live in california, most of this document will be useful to you elsewhere, especially if you are interested in the Olive 2.0 ATA soft chamber, but you will have to find your own local vendor.

Do you need HBOT, will it cure xxx?

This is a very long topic, I did a lot of my own reading and watching videos on the topic but I will not summarize them here, it would be too long and off topic. I’ll simply say that there are plenty of off label (not FDA verified) HBOT treatments that seem to help healing from various things, including long covid, and some recent studies seem to indicate that HBOT can help with general health and longevity:

Hard, soft, 1.3ATA, 1.5ATA, 2.0ATA?

Hard chambers allow for pressures of 2.0ATA or above, and are the original chambers used for FDA approved treatments. Note that most treatments people are seeking to get are not FDA approved and therefore haven’t been carefully studied to work better at 2.0 ATA than let’s say 1.5 ATA.

1.3 ATA was the original number for soft chambers, some claim it’s the only “approved” pressure by the FDA. I have asked every time for supporting documentation of this, never got any from anyone. Either way, the FDA does not currently regulate soft chambers. You could make a point they should as soft chambers can be dangerous if they explode, but as of right now I have found nothing that says they are.

I have heard of at least one instance of an FDA approved 1.3 ATA chamber bursting because it was poorly built, so there you go.

If you’re still worried that somehow 1.3 ATA chambers are the only FDA approved ones, many 1.3 ATA chambers are not actually FDA approved, and if 1.5 ATA or above was somehow illegal, which I have found nothing to say they are, this would be liability on the seller, not on you, the buyer. If sellers have figured out that it’s legal for them to sell 1.5 or 2.0 chambers to you, that’s honestly all you should care about.

That said, I am not a lawyer, those statements are my opinion, not legal advice or fact.

Hard chambers are obviously more solid and hopefully better built, but they also cost tens of thousands of dollars which was more than I was willing to pay, especially now that I found a 2.0 soft chamber for a lot less money.

If you are getting FDA approved treatments that require 2.0 ATA or more, I would go with a hard chamber and get treatments paid by insurance. If you are getting off label treatments that you have to pay for, I would get them in a cheaper soft chamber (where I live in silicon valley, soft chamber was $105-$120/h and hard chamber was $250/h)

This page explains why with 1.5ATA you are getting a fair amount of the benefits of 2.0 ATA: https://drantone.com/442649809/452521397 but at the same time, it’s still true that you’ll be getting more with a 2 ATA chamber in most cases, so that page was to encourage soft chamber treatments as good enough compared to hard chamber treatments that cost double or more. I agree with that page and statement, but if you can now get a 2.0 soft chamber for not much more money, that seems like a better option to me. You can make your own decisions on that one.

Chamber convenience, phones laptops

Bigger hard chambers are the most comfortable but cost a lot more. Also, hard chamber centers use an old FDA protocol that requires changing your clothes and not taking anything electrical, including a cell phone or laptop due to perceived increased risk of fire. To me, the risk is only if you are trapped in a chamber and cannot get out unless someone gets you out. The 2 instance I read about of accidents were people in hard chambers that were not able to exit and the operator was not nearby to let them out.

Long story short, all chambers, hard or soft have an increased risk of fire due to compressed air at higher than 21% O2. If you breathe with a mask, O2 in the chamber will hopefully be less than 30% but “it depends”. If somehow your cell phone battery were to decide to catch fire that day (very very rare but possible), things will burn very well and very fast. If you do not know how to get out of the chamber very quickly (or maybe you’re in a hard chamber where you cannot), you are at clear risk of dying in the chamber, hence the above policy.

But in a soft chamber that you can open from the inside, you can realistically get out in 20 seconds or less, so if a fire were to happen, it’s on you to just get out quickly and you should be fine. This also means you can bring a cell phone or laptop in the chamber (I would not take an old laptop with a spinning hard drive, the added pressure could potentially damage an old hard drive. All new laptops with SSD are going to be fine).

Compressor and Concentrator for soft chamber

The compressor is what inflates the chamber. The soft chamber is constantly inflated with new outside air (at 21% O2) and a valve in the chamber exhausts air at a certain pressure, ensuring your chamber pressure does not get too high, as well as renewing the air in the chamber (this gets out the CO2 you exhale and also help ensure the chamber air does not reach very high numbers from the O2 that leaks from the mask into the chamber). This mostly lessens the fire risk mentioned above.

The concentrator is what takes outside air, filters out anything that isn’t O2 and creates 95%-ish O2 air from regular air. The problem is outside air is 1.0 ATA and the 95% O2 air needs to be pushed in a chamber that is at 1.5 ATA or 2.0 ATA. This requires the equipment to actually filter up to twice the amount air (liters per minute) than you will breathe.

It is expected that you need 7 to 10L per minute for normal breathing, but a 10Lpm concentrator will only deliver 5Lpm at 2 ATA since the air is compressed from 1 ATA to 2 ATA and the flow is therefore divided by 2. It seems that Lannx/Hugo did not take that into account and I’ve been told by one person who tested it that their 15Lpm concentrator fails to deliver even 7Lpm once you reach 2 ATA. This will not kill you, but it will fail to deliver the high O2 that HBOT is based on and will mostly negate the benefits of having a 2.0 ATA chamber.

It is important to have a mask that does not leak and to make sure the flow of the concentrator is high enough. See below a screenshot of the Lannx/Hugo concentrator failing to achieve both the 95% O2 and 7Lpm+ flow it’s supposed to make at 2 ATA.

I also recommend you consider a solution that includes a mask like this, mostly it will pool up extra O2 made by the concentrator and give it to you during a deep breath when you made breathe more than what is being delivered by the machine (the goal is to avoid breathing chamber air which is 30% O2 or less)

1.5 ATA vs 2.0 ATA soft chamber

So, why would you get a 1.5 ATA chamber when 2.0 ATA is now available? Mostly because they have been around longer and are more trusted to last, at least the good ones. They can be a little bit cheaper used than the 2.0 ATA chamber mentioned below.

They are also a bit easier to get in and out of if you are by yourself. The Olive/AHS 2.0 ATA chamber has a lot of belts to keep it secure at that added pressure, and takes a bit more time to get in and out. Depending on the compressor, it will also take more time to reach the full pressure (meaning more time before the treatment really starts).

Is 1.5 ATA enough for your treatment? I can’t say, most of those treatments are off label, which means they were not tested to have benefits at any pressure. All we have is people’s best guesses. Intuitively it seems obvious that 2.0 ATA is better in almost all cases, but maybe 1.5 ATA is likely good enough in many cases. Or maybe with 30 treatments at 1.5 ATA, you get the same as 20 treatments at 2.0 ATA. Total guess though.

I personally chose to get 2.0 ATA since it’s available now. The one downside is that it’s a newer technology that isn’t multiple years old, so you are making a tiny leap of faith that it will hold up long term. Realistically a proper manufacturer has tested the chamber at higher pressures (burst point) as well as many inflation cycles, so I’m comfortable enough with that.

Something else to consider is that some 1.5 ATA chambers do end up leaking eventually. Also, probably too many are sold with a concentrator that does not actually deliver 7-10Lpm 95% O2 at 1.5 ATA (too many are undersized, the mask has leaks, no rebreather bag, etc, etc…). If you get a 2.0 ATA soft chamber and run it at 1.7 ATA or 1.5 ATA, you are more likely to get a more solid chamber and a better O2 system

1.3 ATA chamber choice

Unless you get a great deal ($5000 or less) on a used soft chamber that you can get your hands on quickly, vs a new chamber that could take weeks or more than a month to get delivered, I would not bother with 1.3 ATA. Those chambers are obsolete as far as I’m concerned.

This is my opinion, you don’t have to agree and I’m not interested in trying to convince you either :) If you feel happier buying a 1.3 ATA chamber, feel free. In that case do ask to see the FDA approval paperwork, not just some vague statement that chambers over 1.3 ATA are not FDA approved, which is avoiding the question I just mentioned.
If you’re not getting official FDA paperwork that says this specific chamber has been reviewed and approved (normally it should also say for what use(s)), then I’ll let you decide what it means and what you’re getting :)

1.5 ATA chamber choices

The list below is not complete, I did not carefully compare these chambers although I had 15 treatments in Dr Antone’s Big Blue O2 since he was local to me. That chamber worked fine for me and I could recommend it. The AHS (Affordable Hyperbaric Solutions) 1.5 ATA options do also look solid and cheaper, so they are definitely worth for you to consider.

I worked directly with Dr Antone and can recommend him. I also talked quite a bit with Brian Enyart from AHS to make sure he understood the engineering issues in higher pressure soft chambers and concentrators being sized correctly, and making sure 2.0 soft chambers were properly tested to be safe. So I can recommend Brian and AHS too.

This is not to say there aren’t other worthwhile 1.5ATA solutions or companies, just that those are the 2 I talked to and feel confident recommending.

You will note that he big blue O2 option is more expensive, but that’s the one I used for my own treatments, and it comes with 2 concentrators that deliver 20Lpm combined. That’s an extra cost of $1500 for the 2nd concentrator, but if you cheapen out on that and don’t get enough O2, breathing a much lower O2 concentrator will negate most of the benefits of the higher pressure.

So basically make sure the 1.5 ATA system you get has a concentrator that is at least 15Lpm and honestly I think 20Lpm is better. This is why you may want to consider the more expensive chamber offer from Dr Antone which offers 20Lpm, but I’ll leave it up to you to get the exact pricing and make that decision.

From my own research, I believe those 3 chambers should hold up at 1.5 ATA and both vendors will stand behind their product with local US warranty.

Oxyrevo Apex 32 from Affordable Hyperbaric Solutions: https://oxyrevo.com/hyperbaric-chambers/portable-lying-hyperbaric-chamber/apex-32/ and https://affordablehyperbaricsolutions.com/hyperbaric-chambers/ ($8000) => affordablehyperbaricsolutions@gmail.com.

AHS M32 from Affordable Hyperbaric Solutions https://affordablehyperbaricsolutions.com/hyperbaric-chambers/ ($7000) => affordablehyperbaricsolutions@gmail.com.

Big blue O2/Dr Antone: https://drantone.com/442649809/ (around $13000 with 2 10Lpm concentrators for higher airflow) => drtantone@gmail.com

2.0 ATA chamber options

That said, while doing my research, it was clear that there are now 2.0 ATA soft chambers. I found at least 3 different kinds. Two are on meubon which has terrible customer reviews, so I didn’t trust that company and the last 2 are actually the same chamber sold by 2 different companies, Olive who made the chamber, and Lannx/Hugo who re-sells it. Note that each company uses a different inflator/concentrator

https://meubon.com/products/portable-hyperbaric-oxygen-chamber-i-physical-therapy-equipment-clinic-home-use-soft-type-oxygen-chambers-hyperbaric => looks cool, no idea if I can trust it. If you feel like chancing your money with it, please please please let me know how it went, I’m very curious about this one.

https://meubon.com/products/hyperbaric-chamber-i-hbot-chamber-two-people-use-i-portable-oxygen-therapy-chamber-soft-1-5-ata-1-3ata => this is a questionable 2.0 ATA chamber that says 1.5 in the URL. I listed it because I found it, but I would not trust it. That’s just a gut feeling though, if you have it and have tested it at 2.0 ATA please report back.

https://www.oliveoxygen.com/soft-shell-hyperbaric-chamber/home-2.0ata-soft-lying-type-hyperbaric-chamber.html

https://www.lannx.net/udr-l3-2ata-soft-body-lying-style-hyperbaric-oxygen-chamber-for-single-person-with-15l-oxygen-concentrator-umr-o8-product/

The last 2 chambers are the same made by Olive and sold by 2 different companies.

2.0 ATA chamber choice: Olive/AHS vs Lannx/Dr Hugo:

Lannx/Dr Hugo does more advertising than Olive and has more data online, but when I dug into it, I found things that worried me. After talking to sales people from both companies, I eventually figured out that Olive is the one making it, although Dr Hugo has more aggressive advertising and more documents on their website.

Note that this new soft chamber supports 2.0 ATA and was tested above that, because of its belting system. It does however mean that you have to fasten a few belts/clips when you get in and out. That’s the price for 2.0 ATA. This can be done by a single user without external help.

AHS is a US distributor of Olive and offers US warranty and service. Contact AHS if you are in the US, and Olive otherwise and they’ll tell you if they direct sell to your country or have a distributor there.

https://www.oliveoxygen.com/soft-shell-hyperbaric-chamber/home-2.0ata-soft-lying-type-hyperbaric-chamber.html

Dr Hugo/Lannx does sell directly from China, but if you have any warranty issues, you’ll need to work with them directly. Make sure you are comfortable with that.

https://www.lannx.net/udr-l3-2ata-soft-body-lying-style-hyperbaric-oxygen-chamber-for-single-person-with-15l-oxygen-concentrator-umr-o8-product/

Lannx sent me a video of their concentrator when I asked questions, and this screenshot to tell me not to worry and everything was ok

Screenshot shows only 74.5% O2 and only 3.9L per minute at 2ATA, both are absolutely inadequate, so this very much worries me and for that reason alone, I cannot recommend their U8 concentrator.

When I challenged them, they said they had a U8+ that also did a supposed 15Lpm of O2 but could inflate the chamber twice as fast. As far as I can tell, that concentrator is still not enough for 2 ATA

When I challenged them again, they were a bit annoyed, but eventually said they had a U9 concentrator that was 20Lpm and from what I can tell (just a guess) could be big enough to do 7-10Lpm at 2 ATA. I however noticed the shipping weight for that machine, and it was listed at 130KG (almost 300lbs). It’s huge!

The price quoted from both vendors in china was not identical but similar enough, the chamber is ultimately the same, although it’s made by Olive like I said, and both companies use their own concentrator/inflator. Olive makes their own and told me they were in the business for many years. They also assured me that they totally understood my concern of delivering 95% O2 at 2 ATA and that they had tested their concentrator to indeed perform this. I was not able to verify it but I have a reasonably good feeling that they know what they’re doing.

Dr Hugo/Lannx seems to buy their concentrator from another company and out of the box will ship a system that cannot deliver the O2 needed at 2.0 ATA (U8 concentrator that is rated for 15Lpm, but fails miserably in the picture above). I cannot believe they even tried to reassure me with a screenshot that actually showed the failure of their concentrator to do the job. It is a bummer as their concentrator has a fancy looking screen and controls that look nicer than the one from Olive, but then again this is worthless to me if it doesn’t actually do the job of giving me 7-10Lpm O2 at 95% in a 2 ATA environment.

Last but not least, AHS has showed me pictures of badly packaged used equipment (sold as new) that was shipped to them by Dr Hugo a year ago. This is obviously bad and cause for concern too, even if they have stopped this practise today.

Verdict: buy the Olive chamber for sure, and if you’re in the US, you can buy it from AHS / affordablehyperbaricsolutions@gmail.com. As of this writing, pricing is $10,700 with ground shipping which takes up to 2 months. Air shipping is $1000 more. If you live elsewhere, contact Olive and ask them if they are doing direct sales in your country or have a local distributor. Obviously a local distributor will cost a bit more, but will ensure that everything is fine and take care of warranty issues should any arise.

General Buying Advice

This page and research I did is in no way exhaustive, not even close. Since I was mostly interested in a soft chamber that could do 2.0 ATA, and could not trust 2 out of the 3 that I found, so I only had to compare two chinese sellers for the same 2.0 soft chamber, but questioning both over multiple days and figuring out who had hardware that was properly tested and who was actually making the chambers, took a while.

If you’re sticking to 1.5 ATA I know there are many more options. I found 3 on the way that I listed above and I’m sure there are more. If you’re buying from Dr Antone or AHS, I believe you are in good hands and you can just trust them to have done things right (I questioned both carefully and was happy with the answers).

I didn’t do price comparison shopping since it was not useful in my case, I cared about having a 2.0 chamber that would actually deliver what it was meant to do and I didn’t trust the Hugo one would.

For 1.5 chambers, the prices I gave are approximate from what I found, they are not comparing apples to apples exactly, so if you are comparing prices make sure you are comparing chambers that offer the same things from functionality to reliability, and that you are confident the air system will give you 95%-ish O2 inside the chamber at enough Lpm for you to get full breaths from it and not breaths that also include chamber air.

Useful questions you can ask when shopping:

How long has this chamber been for sale?
How many have you sold?
What issues/returns/failures have you had with it?
What is the chamber warranty?
If the chamber fails or concentrator fails, how are they replaced, and how long will it take?
Will you send someone, or do I need to ship?
If I need to ship, who pays for shipping?
What is your guaranteed time for fixing/replacement?
How long does the compressor take to fully inflate the chamber?
Can the chamber pressure be adjusted?
What is the liters per minute flow at maximum chamber pressure that you have tested?
What is the tested %O2 delivered inside the chamber when it’s fully inflated?
Do you have proof of this testing? (very important if you are buying from a vendor in another country, like a chinese vendor)

2024/04/16 Learning about HBOT/Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

π 2024-04-16 01:01 in Hbot

I know this is a bit fringe, but given what happened, it's interesting enough to share. I've been seeing a sleep specialist and he tested me for frequency of brainwaves which is some new fancy way to check brain function. He guessed that because my graphs with that machine were not great, it could indeed impact my sleep and overall showed decreased brain efficiency. No, it doesn't measure thetons, he didn't throw me in a volcano, and he's an proper MD :) He then treated me with his own TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) for a bunch of sessions, retested my brain map, and had to admit his sessions did not help at all, so at least he was honest.

Then he recommended I try hyperbaric sessons (HBOT) and since it was the 2nd time it was recommended to me (last time was because of visible brain edges that were dark on a SPECT scan likely due to previous falls/near concussions, some likely came from bad snowboarding falls when I snapped my neck pretty badly after catching an edge when I was a beginner), I figured why the hell not.

After just 14 sessions with another practitioner I picked myself (the 2 are not related or have financial relationship), I went back to that first doctor to get another brain map, and he could not believe the results, as in he had never seen such an improvement in a person, after having failed himself to get anything better with his own treatments.

I did a lot of research on chambers, hard vs soft, 2.0 ATA vs 1.5 ATA, and for those treatments, realized that paying $110 or so per treatment for a soft chamber was a much better deal. It was also nice to be able to do the treatments while having my cell phone or laptop, which is forbidden in hard chambers due to obsolete rules and undue fears about fire risk, which ultimately is such a small risk (less than one in a million) that knowing how to get out of the chamber in a few seconds is really the only thing you need safety wise.

Since I had no idea if the treatments did any good, seeing a measurable improvement on a graph that got my first doctor excited enough that he now wants to get his own HBOT chamber for his own patients, was pretty cool.

I then did a lot more reading and video watching, and did find that HBOT has lots of promises, including healing from certain kinds of injury, helping with slowing down or reversing aging to some extent:

https://aviv-clinics.com/blog/brain-health/for-the-first-time-hyperbaric-oxygen-therapy-proven-to-reverse-biological-aging-in-humans

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35821512

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38076538

https://www.aging-us.com/article/202188/text

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2024/04/14 Electronics Flea Market

π 2024-04-14 01:01 in Computers, Public

I hadn't been able to go in a few years, glad to be back and find other electronics, batteries and other stuff I might or might not need, but looked enticing :) (I ended up finding a bunch of lithium battery packs for a good price, that will work for my burning man bike, and maybe LED outfit as a backup source of power, I may even be able to use them to power my laptop)

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2024/04/13 Solarstone back in SF at Midway SF for another OTC

π 2024-04-13 01:01 in Clubbing, Tfsf

It was great to have Solarstone back in SF, this time for a day show, which worked out just fine for me as I had just gotten back from Texas Eclipse Festival less than 24H earlier, and was kind of jetlagged in the wrong direction :)

The 2nd good luck is I'm not a fan of outdoor shows, especially in SF where weather is unpredictable, and sure enough it rained that day, so the show was brought indoors, which was perfect for me, I much prefer dark anyway :)

Solarstone did a lovely OTC from 15:00 to 20:00, starting nice and easy, and ending with a long list of bangers:

Great to run into friends again:

We had a fantastic time, and Rich was nice enough to stay for pictures until we all go kicked out:

Video summary:

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2024/04/12 San Antonio Japanese Tea Garden and Botanical Garden

π 2024-04-12 01:01 in Ntrips, Public, Texas

The Japanese Garden was nice to visit in the morning

Err, Chinese and Japanese are different!

Next door, the botanical garden was quite enjoyable and had some bird houses and bird watching:

first time I see a cardinal!

I found another very cool bird with an unusual song:

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2024/04/12 San Antonio Witte Museum

π 2024-04-12 01:01 in Museums, Texas

I finished my San Antonio Tour with the Witte Museum, a mix of natural history museum, and local history museum. While it was a bit of a mix, it was an interesting visit:

I did actually see a roadrunner while driving around, cool birds :)

There was a space exhibit due to the Johnston Space Center

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2024/04/11 San Antonio Missions National Park: San Juan, San José, and Mission Conception

π 2024-04-11 01:01 in Monuments, Museums, Texas

The national park is a set of 3 old Spanish Missions, and was interesting enough, to visit:

Seeing a small still working aqueduc was cool:

And here is the 3rd mission:

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2024/04/11 The Alamo

π 2024-04-11 01:01 in Monuments, Texas

When I showed up at the Alamo, I knew nothing about it, and the first day I arrived around 11:00 it was a mess of people and completely sold out for the day (both tours and even audioguides), quite disappointing. So I booked a tour the next morning at 09:00 as well as an audioguide as they complement one another (although you have to pay twice), and learned the biased history about the place, which is supposed to show that poor Americans got attacked by blood thirsty Mexicans, unprovoked (that part is not really true), and how they did indeed fight to the death defending the position, which helped other American troops later defeat the Mexicans.
The place has kind of a cult status for courage and bravery, somewhat deserved indeed, but both the tour and audoguide focus mostly on the battle and bravery, while skipping the context of this battle (Americans agreeing to Mexican rule to get land, and then later deciding to secede). Basically why weren't quite martyrs, but they did fight bravely

I'll add that getting tickets online is confusing, google gets you tickets to the church, which are free, but you need an extra ticket for the museum and ideally you want the guided tour or the audioguide, and those do sell out.

the church where the battle ended

some original frescos were found under the plaster

The museum had lots of artifacts, most of which were acquired by Phil Collins and donated to the museum:

cannonballs to musquet balls

When doing both the guided tour and audioguide, plus the museum, it took close to 3H. I still had to watch the movie after the fact to get the fuller story.

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2024/04/11 San Antonio Museum of Art

π 2024-04-11 01:01 in Museums, Texas

The San Antonio Museum of Art had a nice little collection, worth visiting for a couple of hours or so:

this is the way :)

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2024/04/10 Hopscotch San Antonio

π 2024-04-10 01:01 in Museums, Texas

Hopscotch in San Antonio was a fun place to visit, although you could only pay on your phone through some website, even if you were right there, plus they had a ridiculous waiver that was more pages than anyone could read, and that you were forced to read on your phone, and sign on your phone, before you were allowed in. That really dampened the place for me, which is a bummer as it was otherwise fun:

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2024/04/10 San Antonio's Tower of the Americas

π 2024-04-10 01:01 in Monuments, Texas

I typically always go for elevated viewpoints, and did the same, this time around, although after a longish wait for the elevator, we actually got stuck at the top without being able to get around for about 15mn until someone reset whatever safety got triggered and blocked us (high winds, maybe?). The view was ok-ish:

They also had a quick history lesson:

I'd say it's probably somewhat skippable, and somewhat out of town, but it was open when other things had already closed, so I went.

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2024/04/10 San Antonio, the Saga, 3D Projection Mapping on San Antonio's Cathedral

π 2024-04-10 01:01 in Outings, Texas

That was a cool show, totally free and somewhat unexpected:

Video:

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2024/04/10 2.5 Days in San Antonio

π 2024-04-10 01:01 in Ntrips, Texas

After Austin (for the 2024 Eclipse), I drove down to San Antonio to visit a few days before flying home.

The texas roads were quite good everywhere I went, and they keep building more:

I had a late night in Austin the previous night (lovely dinner and chat with Marc Antoine), so by the time I arrived at the Alamo and managed to park, it was already 11:00 and a total clusterf. Impossible to get any tour or audioguide or anything. I decided to abort and try Alamo again the next morning.
Instead, I started with the river cruise, which was lovely:

After the river cruise, went to check out a nice local market:

even found a friendly cat :)

While walking around some more, went to check out another poor bridge covered with locks. Silly custom that started in Paris :-

the cathedral is a bit basic, but has a nice projection light show at night

Next, I went to Historic Market Square, lots of nice colorful stores with a clear mexican touch

The last 3 activities of that day are on their own pages:

From the market, took an uber to Hopscotch (clickme for blog page)

Then went to the Tower of the Americas and got stuck up there in a broken elevator :) (clickme for blog page)

and after checking in my SA hotel, went back to the Cathedral to see the 3D mapping show (clickme for blog page)

The next day, I went to Alamo bright and early and did both the audioguide and guided tour (clickme for blog page)

I then drove to the San Antonio Missions National Park, 3 different old Mexican Missions (clickme for blog page)

old, still working, aqueduc

I then had enough time to visit the museum of art (clickme for blog page)

From then, I finished the day by going to the Pearl District, nice to walk around and found a really great FRench Restaurant:

yummy beef, with seared foie gras

As an unusual sighting, I found a drive through Wells Fargo ATM. never had been through one before ;)

For the 3rd and last day, I started with the Japanese Garden and Botanical Garden (clickme for blog page)

And then had just enough time for the Witte Museum (clickme for blog page)

After that, time to head back home:

enjoyed some last BBQ before going to the airport

So long San Antonio...

(in real life, because SFO sucks, they cancelled my flight from SA to SFO, so I had to get an emergency uber back to Austin to catch a very delayed flight to SFO and made it home very late that night.

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2024/04/09 Austin Bob Bullock State History Museum

π 2024-04-09 01:01 in Museums, Texas

Austin Bob Bullock State History Museum was a decent museum in Austin, where I learned about how the state became a state, starting from when it was taken over by the Mexicans, there was even a French expedition that tried, but didn't get very far (they all died in the end):

remnants of the french boat expedition

maps were still in flux

Frst the mexicans living in Texas kind of wanted independence from Mexico, and then the americans who came to help take care of the land, decided to get independence from the Mexicans:

Plenty of other displays on interesting things that happened in Texas:

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2024/04/09 Texas Toy Museum and Arcade in Austin

π 2024-04-09 01:01 in Computers, Sciencemuseums, Texas

I finished my day visit of Austin in the Texas Toy Museum and Arcade, which had a pretty cool collection of old video games, flippers, role playing games, cartoons, and other geek memorabilia:

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2024/04/09 A Day in Austin

π 2024-04-09 01:01 in Ntrips, Texas

I originally flew to Austin for:

The Texas Eclipse Festival

The Great American Eclipse of 2024

After those 2 were done, I had a day to spend in Austin, which turned out to be just enough for the main sights. I started with the state capitol:

From there, I went to the Blanton Museum of Art:

And the Bullock State History Museum was next (click for page):

I tried to visit the famous Franklin BBQ, but it was mostly sold out by the time I arrived (14:20). I was able to get some leftover "mixed meats", which was better than nothing:

The LBJ Library and Museum was a nice museum in the University, to finish the day. I learned a lot about the man, and he was one of the better presidents that the country did get:

When I was done with the LBJ libray and museum, I went to check out the 6th av district, including murals:

many businesses had these signs, saying anyone with any gun, was unwelcome

I went to check out the museum of the weird, but it was a lesser Ripley's Believe It Or Not, nothing to write home about.

The Texas Toy Museum and Arcade (click me) was a lot more fun, though. Good way to burn time until sunset, when the bats were supposed to come out under some bridge, but by then it started pouring rain, and they didn't come out anytime

everyone waiting and hoping, but no luck

nice views, though

After that, it was time to meet my friend Marc Antoine for a great evening together over some local BBQ:

And that was it for visiting Austin, outside of one museum that was closed that day, got to see all things on my worthwhile list ;)

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2024/04/08 Texas Eclipse

π 2024-04-08 01:01 in Outings, Public, Texas

The Texas Eclipse Festival did not end as planned, organizers cancelled the event for weather risk reasons, although in the end the weather was so much better than forecast (forecast said we'd never see the sun at all and it would rain).
When I heard about the cancellation on a thread fo bar one of my 2 cell phones,while barely awake, I managed to tear up camp and start driving out in just 15mn and got out of the festival in just over 45mn, before traffic got really bad. I then realized I had just enough time to drive my friend Marc Antoine's ranch 50mn away, and the fact that 2 lane roads in TX have 70mph speed limits, sure helped. I got to his place 30mn before totality.

It did not rain, and the sun came out just at the right time for the eclipse and went hiding in the clouds soon after. Timing was perfect. And I happened to capture some solar flares and mercury with my not so great handheld camera, so I'm happy :)

When I got out of the festival, partial eclipse hadn't started yet, but the sun was barely visible

Marc sent me the GPS location of his ranch, and GPS said I could barely make it and thankfully the roads were near empty

I pulled over a few times when the sun was visible for barely a minute

Most of the time, it was fully overcast, as per the forecast

but the sun came back out a few times

And in barely 50mn I made it to Marc's ranch and got to meet his family. We had just seen one another 2 weeks prior at beyond wonderland

all ready

fun thing is you can see a partial eclipse without glasses

getting there, so close

and yes!

even a decent shot frmo my cell

it got dark :)

I caught some sun flares on this one

on lower right, I think I you can see mercury. Einstein used it the lensing effect of gravity in his theory of general relativity

my best lucky shot!

and way too soon, it was over already :)

and the sun soon went to hide under clouds again, perfect timing!

The eclipse festival didn't end well, but the eclipse itself went way beyond expectations!

Video:

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2024/04/05 Seeing Android Jones' Samskara Again At Texas Eclipse Festival, This Time

π 2024-04-05 01:01 in Bm, Public

I remembered Samskara from having seen it in 2016 at Red Lighting's Dome at Burning Man and it was very cool to see it again 8 years later at Texas Festival Eclipse. Still a wonderful visual display:

Video:

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2024/04/04 Texas Eclipse Festival in Burnet

π 2024-04-04 01:01 in Clubbing, Festivals, Texas

I had planned for the so called Great American Eclipse of 2024, and thanks to my friend Marc Antoine who lives in Austin, I did indeed pick Austin as a destination, and at the same time, he told me about a big festival. I was invited to join NAPF, North America Psytrance Family, and we had a great group camping spot just next to the psytrance stages, woot!

I was able to bring my outfit and find a way to charge it nightly without external power (more on solar below):

As a one off festival, I found it was reasonably well organized, at least from what I got to experience: - ok, tickets were weird, you had print at home tickets that told you they were good enough to get in, but that was not true, they had to be swapped for actual car stickers at will call. Thankfully there was a convenient will call at the airport baggage terminal with virtually no wait when I arrived a day early (thursday) - early entry on thursday wasn't bad, by then they worked out the kinks of stupid pointless searches trying to take people's vitamins and other personal items that are more than reasonable to have in your vehicle and campsite (like tools to fix things), but I was specifically very annoyed with them feeling they had the right to go through people's personal drugs, over the counter, or prescription and take everything away that wasn't prescription in original bottle (if you have pill boxes, you're screwed). Thankfully by thursday they had less time to search people's stuff, but still, not acceptable - My wait in line for search was less than 15mn and the search of my car was 5mn, at most. - The drive in to the NAPF camp was long and slow on a very dusty road, took over 20mn. All in all from the outside road to camp was a bit less than 1h, not too bad - I've been told that of course the next day (first official opening day), it took longer to get in, and for people with RV who had paid for and reserved a spot with power/hookups, didn't get them, either because they were partly oversold, and/or because some people who hadn't paid for the spots, took them :(

Setup

I was able to bring a reasonable tent in my check in luggage to austin, as well as enough of a solar system to use the rental car battery as a power station that would get recharged by the panels I bought. It was a bit last minute, experimental, and rough looking, but it worked well enough. The couple of times when I didn't get enough sun, the car came with a free generator ;) (external generators were not allowed in camping):

please don't judge, it worked :)

charging the LED outfit batteries from the car batteries, in turn recharged by solar panels

North American Psytrance Family's (NAPF) camp

We had a nice little setup:

Venue/Grounds

Pictures from arrival:

car search line

many camps, reasonable signage

pretty dry and dusty overall, but a few places with water

the nature looked pretty nice in places

The venue

After getting to camp with early arrival on thursday just before sunset, setup camp and went to check out the venue. All the stages were not open yet, but enough things were running:

festival grounds had several entrances with a pretty quick somewhat pointless looking search

it wasn't burning man, but there was a descent selection of lit art

Lots of vendors of hippie gear :)

And other misc things:

A reasonable number of food options for all tastes:

They had multiple water refill stations and lockers, although the water refill stations ran out at times, which was not ideal, and I'm told they were turned off (no more water) on monday afternoon after they asked people to evacuate, not great...

multiple first aid stations, but apparently they were underequipped (more on that below)

the general store I went to was reasonably equipped, but the prices were hidden and very high

the better VIP area had an IV station where you could pay a lot for some fluids

A few "art cars"

The grounds were quite big and had multiple areas:

There was even a nice river and a makeshift beach:

To pass the day, they also had 2 stages with talks, some were pretty interesting:

great to see Rick Doblin again to talk about his work

The multimedia dome also played David Jones' Samskara, which was a pleasure to see again

Music and Festival Stages

The festival had close to 10 stages, 6 of them were pretty big. Honestly they were impressive given that they were indeed in the middle of nothing. The only downside was that the map was pretty poor and it was not too obvious which stage was which from the symbols. But yes, the stages were pretty:

NAPF was adjunct to the Ether stage, so we had our own party:

A highlight was to see Oakenfold's day set:

People

Like each festival I go to, I always enjoy the party that other people bring, with lights, costumes, and more:

glad to see the same friends across different festivals

TFSF represent

Videos

Drone show:

Samskara show:

Small summary of the event:

Nice Lit Display:

A minute of my outfit:

Eclipse and Evacuation Day

Early Departure

Monday morning, with barely a shred of a bar on one of my 2 cellphones, I got an urgent message that said bad weather was on the way, that everything left was cancelled (including the main party monday night and the DJs I really wanted to see), and to evacuate as soon as practical. I was weary that the traffic to exit would be terrible, especially from the southernmost camp, about as far from the main road as you can be, so I packed everything in 15mn and got on the exit road. Thankfully I beat most people to it, and was only delayed an extra 25mn or so by the people closer to the exit who had had more time to pack up and get in line too. All in all, I was out to the main road in 45mn, which wasn't bad. While I expected burning man level exodus lines and many hour long waits, I heard most people got out in fewer than 2h, which wasn't bad.
By then, the weather forecast was such that we wouldn't be able to see anything, so I figured I might as well leave early, but most others chose to stay until after the eclipse and some had renegade parties and stayed until tuesday anyway. The very bad weather that was forecast and caused the organizers to cancel the rest of the event, ended up not happening, but after a statement made by the organizers later, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and that they acted reasonably given the forecast they had at the time. It's true that if hail had come, or even just a lot of rain, the whole event would have become a muddy mess with potentially many cars stuck, getting everyone else, stuck there.

my early departure plan worked out pretty well

obviously not the only car in line, but we got out pretty well

Eclipse

I had looked at the weather forecast enough to have 0 hope to see the eclipse, as the forecast was for a solid overcast and then some rain, but with the evacuation I got out about 1.5H before totality and figured I'd go drive to my friend Marc's ranch about 1h away to spend the rest of the time with him.

Sure enough, the weather did not look good:

from time to time, the sun poked out for a minute or so

made it in time to Marc's ranch

and as we got closer to totality, the sun became visible more often

yes!

and yes!

not bad for a handheld camera

and before long, it was over

and the sun went hiding again, that was close!

Thoughts/Conclusion

Medical Facilities

There were concerns with the medical staff, they had plenty of it (good), when I got bitten by a big spider, I was able to see someone quickly enough to make sure it wasn't poisonous (also good), but for at least one person who needed more serious help, apparently they didn't have a defibrillator at most stations (causing one person not to get medical care for over 45mn), or even a more simple blood pressure monitor, which was suboptimal.
Apparently at least one person died, most likely due to lack of timely medical care, but it's also fair to say that when you have so many people in one place, by the sheer law of numbers, someone is likely to die anyway.
I'll also add that prompt first rate medical care was not included in the ticket, when you're in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a field, more than 45-60mn away from a hospital, expectations should be set accordingly.

Other things

The map in the app was not very useful as it didn't show you where you were on it. An attendee nicely made a pretty good web based map with location dot, but unfortunately it mostly didn't work for me and wouldn't show me where I was. Getting around was somewhat harder than it needed to be.

Water locations were not well indicated on that map either and were not easy to find at night

The festival did have a wristband money scheme, but thankfully it was not required and all vendors also took contactless credit cards, so that was the best of both worlds. I happily ignored the wristband money scheme and used my phone to pay without issues

The security started wrong (taking people's vitamins on their campsite location, totally not ok), but they loosened up over time. Honestly the perimeter to the inside festival was mostly to keep honest people honest as they say. It was trivial to get past the fence in many places, but at the same time, who would travel all the way there just to try to sneak in? I think it was just enough for good measure

I'm not entirely sure what was meant to be disallowed between the campgrounds and festival ground. Once a security person was trying to take a can of mixed drink I had (which did contain alcohol), but that's about it. You could take food in as far as I know

The water points were not 100% reliable, which was a potential problem, but I brought enough of my own water that it didn't matter

There were no official showers included with the price, not even for VIP, but there was a spa built not too far from my camp that offered showers for $16, a reasonable enough price considering.

VIP was a bit of a ripoff in my opinion. The "expedited" VIP entry was totally pointless, there was no wait ever between my camp and the festival grounds. One VIP area had a couple of interesting things and better toilets (although still no place to wash yourself), the other VIP area was just a few toilets and shade, nothing much. I definitely regret paying extra for VIP.

Conclusion

Honestly, given that this is not a yearly festival in the middle of nowhere in a place that wasn't used for that before, a lot of things went right

The stages themselves were actually pretty good considering it was the middle of nowhere, I was pretty impressed.

I'm told the organizers spent several months getting the site ready, including adding the dirt roads to get around and making all of this possible, just once, for only a few days. My impressions were actually "not bad at all".

Price may have felt a bit high, especially VIP that offered very little for its added price. The add ons like group car camping (around $250 extra), early entry (another almost $100 extra), did add up.

The cancellation on monday was very unfortunate, I think it was the right call, but it really damaged the event. The organizers promised a partial refund, still waiting for it at the time of this writing.

All in all I still had a good time, the eclipse itself was fantastic, especially since we were some of the few people in Texas that actually had enough clear sky to see the eclipse when it happened.

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