4th of July, yes!
Which means a day off work, and being invited to a friends B.B.Q. in Santa Cruz (never fail to love that town). Which means a drive over the hill, eats, smokes, drinks, the worste hour of group karaoke I can recall being part of. (we serioulsy freaked the dog out.)
twilight.
Drive down and then walk (with duffel bag) toward the beach...and the bridge is of course blocked off by our helpful local police. Despair. Sadness turning to anger and regret. Cut off from friends on the other side of the harbor. do we swim the channel of water, or perhaps leap from boat to boat crouching-dragon style, to the other side? I ask the only other with me, an infamous hong-kong action movie star. Surely he could offer some insight. We are not dressed appropriately he observes, and we cannot leap crouching-dragon style apparently. sucks.
So we walk to the other beach.
Throngs of people. the sky is glowing with sparks already and it is not yet fully dark. Rockets flying everywhere.
The beach is a crazy place on the 4th. Fireworks are banned, but every year people rush the beach with stuff purchased out of state. Tthere are a lot of people. Not everyone is a pyrotechnics expert. Myself included.
As always it was blast! I used to come to watch. This time I had what I thought was a %load of mortars. 50? We used them up in half an hour. Oh they were good though! big colorful explosions in the sky. That satisfied the pyro in me, oh yes it did. Next year I want more!
Usually I am so mellow and easy-going, always seeking the serene. But, put fireworks in front of me and I turn in to a kid again.
Walking through the groups of people you will find missfired fireworks occassionaly going awry. Well, I guess they find you, and so it helps to be nimble or else impervious. A buddy was hit point blank in the back with one of the rockets one year, and another friend was hit this year, but claims are that it doesn't really hurt much. I always get hit with tiny debris. Some people bring some truly magnificent fireworks, but it is the collective chaos, all the dozens of individual fireworks going off all around you, completely haphazardly, that is the event.
Photos would not do it justice.
The cops always megaphone that they will close it by 10, but they always wait until 11 and then bring out the jeeps to clear the beach.
bummed I did not get to meet up with some of my friends, but man, that was fun!
If your job was to test fireworks all day, would that ever get boring? Surely it is the novelty of it for me, but there is something deeply satisfying about making colorful explosions in the sky. If only once a year.
Which means a day off work, and being invited to a friends B.B.Q. in Santa Cruz (never fail to love that town). Which means a drive over the hill, eats, smokes, drinks, the worste hour of group karaoke I can recall being part of. (we serioulsy freaked the dog out.)
twilight.
Drive down and then walk (with duffel bag) toward the beach...and the bridge is of course blocked off by our helpful local police. Despair. Sadness turning to anger and regret. Cut off from friends on the other side of the harbor. do we swim the channel of water, or perhaps leap from boat to boat crouching-dragon style, to the other side? I ask the only other with me, an infamous hong-kong action movie star. Surely he could offer some insight. We are not dressed appropriately he observes, and we cannot leap crouching-dragon style apparently. sucks.
So we walk to the other beach.
Throngs of people. the sky is glowing with sparks already and it is not yet fully dark. Rockets flying everywhere.
The beach is a crazy place on the 4th. Fireworks are banned, but every year people rush the beach with stuff purchased out of state. Tthere are a lot of people. Not everyone is a pyrotechnics expert. Myself included.
As always it was blast! I used to come to watch. This time I had what I thought was a %load of mortars. 50? We used them up in half an hour. Oh they were good though! big colorful explosions in the sky. That satisfied the pyro in me, oh yes it did. Next year I want more!
Usually I am so mellow and easy-going, always seeking the serene. But, put fireworks in front of me and I turn in to a kid again.
Walking through the groups of people you will find missfired fireworks occassionaly going awry. Well, I guess they find you, and so it helps to be nimble or else impervious. A buddy was hit point blank in the back with one of the rockets one year, and another friend was hit this year, but claims are that it doesn't really hurt much. I always get hit with tiny debris. Some people bring some truly magnificent fireworks, but it is the collective chaos, all the dozens of individual fireworks going off all around you, completely haphazardly, that is the event.
Photos would not do it justice.
The cops always megaphone that they will close it by 10, but they always wait until 11 and then bring out the jeeps to clear the beach.
bummed I did not get to meet up with some of my friends, but man, that was fun!
If your job was to test fireworks all day, would that ever get boring? Surely it is the novelty of it for me, but there is something deeply satisfying about making colorful explosions in the sky. If only once a year.