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peak: |
It's almost
time for fireworks! It doesn't get much better than
that. |
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valley: |
No low
yet. And I'm hoping that tonight doesn't bring me one,
either. |
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noise: |
Silence. |
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sustenance: |
Hamburger
& Fries. |
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thoughts: |
Explosions.
Fire Engines.
Serious Injury.
I'm joking ;-) |
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tuesday,
july
4th |
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Quote
Du Jour:
"As
long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is
regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons
and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth
defending." - Andrew Jackson, 7th U.S.
President.
|
T minus 210 minutes and counting until the fireworks
extravaganza.
Everything is slowly coming together. I have most of my stuff ready to go.
The to-do list is shrinking. But as it gets closer and closer, the butterflies
seem to get bigger and bigger. I worry too much as it is... but when your
hobby centers around one day of the year, there are no "do-overs." If I screw
something up with the show, I can't go back and fix it. And trust me, I know
about screwing things up with the show.
A few years back, a friend of mine was helping me shoot mortars. (Reloadable
shells that burst 100 feet or so in the air. They usually come in canister
or sphere shapes with a long fuse. You have multiple shells that you can
reload one tube with). Anyway, the tubes were becoming warped as the show
progressed and he had one shell that just wouldn't drop to the bottom of
the tube. He lit it anyway. I looked over and saw that the shell was practically
sitting on top of the tube... I knew that it's position meant that the explosion
that should have taken place 100 feet in the air was about to take place
on the ground. In home video of the show, you can hear me yell "Oh, shit!"
seconds before the shell explodes only feet in front of us. We weren't hurt.
The show went on.
Last year, things were a little bit more dangerous. Elsewhere in the state,
some folks had been killed when a stray mortar landed in a trailer where
more fireworks were being stored. We had a similar experience. The thing
that saved us was not being in an enclosed space.
In the years and years of having fireworks shows, I've never seen a spark
ignite other fireworks. Never. But, as I was lighting the aerial shells last
year, I looked down the box where more shells were stored. And at the bottom
of the box, I saw a spark. In the time it took me to turn around to get a
fire extinguisher, half of my display was on fire in the most intense explosion
I've ever seen up close. We were lucky. The good Lord was with us.
So, now it's only hours away from another show. Everything that could go
wrong is running through my head. I don't want that. But, then again, I don't
want to think about everything going right... because then, I'm almost guaranteed
nothing will go right. I'm all about the performance. I love to have
an audience. And once the first shell is lit, I'll be good to go. But in
the mean time, the anticipation is killing me. (1730)
By the way, Happy 4th of July to everyone. It sounds
cheezy as hell, but this is a pretty important day... and we're celebrating
a pretty important event. I think too many people lose sight of that from
time to time... and that's very unfortunate.
It's said that you don't appreciate something until you don't have it anymore.
Let's hope that we can find another way to appreciate the liberties and freedoms
that we have in the United States. (1743) |