Happy July 4th
 

I hope everybody gets the day off to be with friends, family or both to have a party. I'm cooking out for 15! Something I couldn't have done 6 weeks ago without help from my friend from Sweden.*

Celebrate your freedom--from whatever!! Oh, and thank a vet for sure. :us:


*Absolut

Happy Independence Day! :us:

good job Bri! happy 4th to all. i'm going in to work for awhile. voluntarily, of course. i have a seminar for 20 people i have to prepare for tomorrow.

How did you have the day?

What could be more American than Chinese fireworks. :thumb:

We actually ended up taking the kids to see fireworks last night.

See, they were getting dropped off in Fort Worth (Arlington, actually) to spend the week with their grandmother. They spend the 4th of July week there every year. This year, OUR plan was we would hang out over the weekend and then leave for home around noon today, so that we could conveniently avoid the nightmare that is seeing the fireworks every year.

But then my mother-in-law told us the terrific news--they were having fireworks on Sunday night at a local racetrack, so we could all go see those together! Joy!

Don't get me wrong, I love cookouts, and I even like fireworks okay. What I hate is sitting on the ground in a field with 3,000 other people, waiting for two hours until the fireworks finally go off, then spending an hour and a half getting back out of the "parking lot" to go home.

At the racetrack, the fireworks didn't start until 10:30. The last horserace was around 9:30. We got to sit on cement, no camp chairs or outside food or drinks allowed in, and the younger child fell asleep a third of the way through the fireworks show. Then we trekked for 20 minutes back out to the car in the makeshift parking lot, and spent an hour sitting absolutely still as the cars filed out one by one. The only reason we got out at that point was someone finally just drove through one of the barriers they had erected, and we all followed over the curb and onto the street.

When I was a kid, you could see the town fireworks from our roof. We'd just climb up there to watch. Way, WAY better than this nonsense.

Same here... when I was a kid, the fireworks were held at the football stadium of the college in town... we lived blocks away and on a hill, so we could see it no sweat from our deck.

When I was in NC, we lived on campus in the residence halls all year long (ah, the life of a hall director) and could walk to the fireworks at the football stadium. Quite convenient!

This year, we went to Fair St. Louis and saw the fireworks display at the Arch. It was a great show, but getting home was a PAIN... after getting turned around and around, we made it out of downtown STL and back to my in-laws.

I really laugh at all of the mothers which prompt their children to pay attention with dramatic ooohs and aaahs... the kids would rather whip each other with their glow sticks.

The 4th of July should be a somber event. It should be the exact opposite of Thanksgiving. Rather than being thankful for what we have, we should lament the increasingly rapid oss of our freedoms. We should take a moment to reflect on the true freedom our founders created for us, and how it has been squandered. It's pretty easy this year since the Supreme Court has ruled against private property and against self-ownership.

I went down to the National Mall, by the Washington Monument. Pictures tomorrow (or later today, actually), if any turned out.

i started to post this as a shot at radar for always being so goddamned ragingly political, but the sonofabitch is right. this isn't America anymore when Target can take your house for fair market value against your will. Eminent Domain is way fucked up. fuck shit damn piss hell.

My gf and I watched the fireworks over Downtown St. Louis...we found a great vantage point on the western edge of Downtown by complete accident.

The most negative impression I had when I packed up my shit and crossed the country was the time I spent in St. Louis. I spent the night at a youth hostel two blocks from the A/B brewery. I spent the better part of a day there just driving around. What a dump. And I come from a background of old east rust belt cities.

How long ago was this?

I know Jim wanted to jump all over Radar's post- Who wouldn't? Its obviously meant to elicit a response. I just like to lurk and throw in a comment now and then. Here's my comment: I took a quick look at your website, radar. I should be better prepared but I'm not. None the less...Do you wear your politics on your sleeve? Do your politics define you? That was just my inital impression.
For myself I don't want to be defined easily. But that's just me.

How long ago was this?


E. St Louis. The highways were choked with construction. Every exit seemed chaotic. And depressed. February 2003.