Day 3479 - Independence Day

For the first time in ages Janet and I went and watched the fireworks displays. A succession of dogs that were terrified of fireworks made this impossible in the past. We couldn't take them with us and we didn't want to leave them home alone. Missing the fireworks was no great loss, but it was kind of nice to see them again.

When I took my walks through the park today I was surprised at the lack of crowds. The park used to be packed with people on the Fourth of July. Often you could smell the smoke from dozens of barbecue fires all the way up at our house. Times have changed I guess. There were still some large family picnics but the crowds were nothing like I remember in the past. Actually, Cinco de Mayo celebrations seem to attract more people than Fourth of July celebrations these days.

If you felt like grilling something, today was a good day to do it. It was typical July day with billowing white puffy clouds dotting the sky. Although it was hot, there was a nice breeze and it didn't feel oppressive at all. Some parts of town got a little rain late in the afternoon, but the park stayed dry and no picnics were ruined. We even did a little grilling ourselves. All we cooked were hot dogs, but somehow hot dogs seemed appropriate for the Fourth of July.

Every Fourth of July I am thankful that I am still in one piece. I cringe when I think of all the dangerous things my friends and I did as kids. We would take the powder out of firecrackers and combine it to make bigger explosions. You could buy cherry bombs and M-80s everywhere and it's a miracle that one of us didn't blow off our hands. I remember making cannons out of steel pipe and filling coke cans with sand to use as shells. A couple of M-80's and a heavy rock blocking the end of the pipe would send those cans traveling a long way. We would also put cherry bombs in the center of  full rolls of toilet paper and throw them up in the air. It was great fun, but I still wonder why no parents intervened.

I enjoy petting a dog a lot more than lighting a firecracker these days. Solitude and quiet is preferable to noise. There are still some Independence Days I remember however. In 1976 I remember sailing into Seattle harbor at night after spending the day in Vancouver. The bicentennial was being celebrated and the fireworks overhead were awesome. I remember selling glowsticks to a huge crowd that had gathered in downtown Dallas to watch the fireworks. We were raising money to help the Dalmatians and I don't think anyone in the group would have the nerve to do something like this today. Dallas seemed a lot safer back then. The whole world seemed safer when my young friends and I were tossing cherry bombs around in the late 1950's. Maybe that's why we felt no danger doing very dangerous things.

I think I'll go try out the new neighborhood breakfast restaurant tomorrow morning. It would be nice if this place were good. It's so close and convenient. The rest of the day is up in the air. I need to start getting bids on fixing some things around the house. I hate to spend the money though. I'd rather go to another rocket launch.

Matao is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2749 - Independance Day

Sometimes when I think of what we used to do on the Fourth of July, I'm amazed I'm still alive. When I was a kid, we rode our bicycles all over town without wearing helmets. We staged mock battles in our back yard with BB guns. And on July Fourth, we bought the biggest and most lethal fireworks we could get our hands on. I don't remember our parents giving us any talks about safety. We were on our own. I'm sure children were maimed left and right, but I ended up being one of the lucky ones. I survived putting cherry bombs in the center of toilet paper rolls and throwing them in the air as high as we could after we lit the fuse. Our favorite game was to make a cannon out of a piece of old steel tubing and use M-80s to shoot soda cans filled with sand ridiculous distances. We would also take entire packs of firecrackers apart and use the powder to make much bigger firecrackers. It was all recklessly unsafe but enormously fun.

I lost interest in fireworks years ago. I don't think Janet and I have been to a fireworks display since we got dogs. Our first dog didn't mind the sound of fireworks, but all the subsequent ones have been terrified of them. For Dot and Dash, there was no difference between a fireworks display and a bad thunderstorm. Over the years, I've grown to hate the sound of fireworks because I've seen the fear they can cause in dogs. Apparently fireworks are still fascinating to people, since I've been hearing them for the past three days. There are ordinances against setting off fireworks within the city limits, but I don't think people pay any attention to them. This evening, the park behind our house sounds like a war zone.

It rained last night, so I was able to give Dash a nice morning walk before the weather turned steamy and oppressive. It wasn't long before the temperature went from 75 to 95, but the brisk early morning was nice while it lasted. After breakfast, I decided to wash the cars. Janet's car has been idle for a while and it was even dirtier than mine. The pressure washer is great for cleaning cars. I managed to wash two cars in the time it used to take me to wash one. Janet asked me to take her car when I ran errands today, so the battery wouldn't become run down. I probably should have done this last week, since the car was a little hard to start. Every time I drive a different car I realize that I still like my big V-8 engine. I've always had big cars that get horrible cash mileage and I probably always will. I bet my carbon footprint is still lower than yours though, because I rarely go anywhere.

Now that I've upgraded my computer, my hard drive is almost full, so I'm thinking of replacing it with a much larger drive. This task was easy when I used to use the old tower Macs. I'd just open the case, unscrew the drive cage and pop in a new hard drive. The whole process took about ten minutes. The one piece iMac I use now is much more difficult to work on. I don't have the nerve to pry off the glass in front of the screen, gently remove the LED display and try to find the hard drive buried inside. To trade the internal drive for something better, I'll need to go to a repair shop. Then I'll have to hope that Time Machine is able to restore my system and files to the replacement drive. It's all much more complicated than it needs to be. It's too bad Steve Jobs isn't still around. Steve had respect for people like me and designed computers you could work on yourself. Times have certainly changed.

The fireworks are getting louder. Dash is still asleep, so I don't think he hears anything yet. Maybe he's becoming deaf like Dot did toward the end of her life. Hopefully, when he wakes up to take his evening pills, things will be calming down again.

Matao is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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