The Patriot

We sat at home and shot off a few fireworks on the 4th of July. That's one of them above, not an "Astronomy Picture of the Day." It was nice, but somewhat different. There's no "night" here, so the mortar shells that explode in mid-air aren't nearly as scenic as you would expect in Fort Wayne. There won't be actual darkness for another month. Fairbanks is not a good place to visit in the summer if you're a vampire.

The Boy went to go help pick out the fireworks. He insisted we go with "big noise" over "pretty colors." We bought a few, and went on home.

We started setting them off, starting with a string of "Black Cats." The Boy was terrified. He skittered inside like a pork chop running from a band of half-crazed ninja lizards (I apologize for that analogy - I used Microsoft Analogy-Maker 2000 and haven't upgraded recently). The boy then took up patrol of the picture window to make sure all was safe inside as we shot off additional fireworks. He so very much wanted to be outside watching, but the noise really got to him. The Mrs. (like she always does) figured out an immensely practical solution. It's pictured below.

Now, the boy could watch fireworks. I must admit, this was probably a better solution psychologically than my preferred method, which would be duct-taping him to a lawn chair and forcing him to watch.

So, being the 4th of July, the only thing missing was rain. We got that (and it gave me ample opportunity to clear the gutters of the 75 pounds of leaves that were holding back a volume of water equivalent to the Columbia River). We were, however, rewarded with a better light show than the fireworks that we bought after the rain cleared. Below, the most intense rainbow your faithful correspondent has yet seen (with the exception of watching Ronnie James Dio perform "Man on the Silver Mountain"):

I hope your 4th was equally fun.