Hey everyone, going to be a little short, but I feel like I want to do a "proper blog" for this. It's 2026, America's 250th birthday. America 250 has been kind of everywhere, and as Bill Whittle put it, one of the great gifts we've gotten is world cup tourists experiencing normal America for the first time, and just loving it. "Air conditioning, it's everywhere." "The food is so delicious, I now see why America has a weight problem." "Buckees, it's 100 gas pumps and real food, the bathrooms were cleaner than my apartment, these beaver nuggets are addicting." It's great. Mskate really likes her sugar-free coke (diet and zero), and she bought these glass bottle cokes with 250 on it. I bought some pins on Amazon for the 250, and they're pretty cool. Mskate has this national parks passport thing where you can get stamps at different national parks, and we got some on our Smokey Mountains trip. Then this isn't really
Friday the 3rd I had off, and I didn't have much of anything planned. I did do a funny, I set my alarm out of muscle memory, woke up at 5:30 AM, and as I'm about to take my bite guard out I remember that I have the day off, so I climb back into bed for another 3 hours. Since my parents are really "coming to grips with their mortality" and getting things all planned out, and so they had me over so I could be a signer on their bank account. Afterwards we went to see Minions and Monsters, which was a pretty fun movie. Afterwards we went to Applebee's intending to get the all you can eat riblets, but they didn't have that anymore, so I just had a platter, and for some reason it took forever for our food to come out. Here's where it gets kind of wild. As you may know, there's a global heat wave going on, and so I haven't been able to do a whole lot outside without getting super hot. Well, while we were out to dinner there was a big wind storm with some rain, and while we were waiting for our food the lights flickered some and a lamp post was shaking. That's pretty wild. As I was driving home there were 2 down trees, and on the free way there were construction signs that were knocked over. That's pretty crazy. With all that though, I was pretty happy with it. We were getting low to mid 90s for the week prior, and this harsh weather brought it down to the low 80s, which was very nice. That night I did a little "pregaming" on fireworks. I had a kit from last year that I just held onto, and I lit off probably around 10 of the fireworks, and lit my very first roman candle. That thing was BRIGHT! Like, blindly bright. I didn't really know what it was at first, so I just lit it on the ground.
Now it's the big day, July 4th 2026, our 250th birthday. I wore my America 250 Buckees shirt and just relaxed some. I walked over to McDonald's and got a happy meal, hoping to get Dolan with the Fifa toy promotion. I unfortunately didn't but oh well. I did a little last minute shopping, where I bought some more firework kids, and drain cleaner because I was at an everything store. I told the cashier "I'm picking up some last minute supplies" and he was like "yeah boy." The drain cleaner was "we'll get rid of the clog or your money back. My clog was super stubborn, I used the entire bottle doing 3 different runs, and while it is better it still isn't clear, so I said "I'm only partially satisfied because it only partially removed my clog." After getting the fireworks I went to the super market and picked up some meat to grill. I initially just got some sausages, but then picked up some clearance steaks and beef chunks, and some ice cream since you kind of need to have ice cream with a cook out. It was pretty great. I was going to go to chuck e cheese, but they were out of power so I wasn't able to play my games. Here's a picture of the damage.
Ok, now it's the main event. I had at least 50 fireworks, and I was ready to do it. I had the remainder of my kit from the previous night, an identical kit with the same fireworks with different names, and whatever I picked up earlier in the day. I planned on starting at around 10:10 since that was when it got dark the previous night, but then I heard some neighbors shooting off fireworks around 9:30, so I figured it would be a good time to start. I started with some small fountains and a spinning flying one. It flew up, hovered, and then went all the way up before burning out. On the first 4 I kicked them out of the launch section in my parking lot thing, but then I just kind of left them out. I kept getting bigger and bigger fireworks, and some next street over neighbors were firing off mortars, which contributed to the fun. As I was lighting them off, one of my neighbors came home and had to wait for one of the fireworks to finish before driving past my pack. As I was lighting some off I sang songs kind of badly; star spangled banner, America the beautiful, happy birthday, and st. Elmo's fire (because one of the fireworks was called st. Elmo's fire). In total I lit off 42 fireworks over the course of like 35-40 minutes. It was so much fun. In the past I would leave the 3-5 shells out over night and let them cool, but all but one was already cool (and the hot one I just had to pour some water on), and since there were so many I figured I should probably clean these up tonight. I was able to fit them all in a double bagged large grocery bag, which went right in my dumpster can. After the fireworks I pulled up the firework and drone show on ABC, which was really cool.
Sunday the 5th was pretty chill. I was going to go to church and give the $8 off $80 coupon to the coffee and donuts substitute (mskate and I do coffee and donuts on the 2nd Sunday of the month, but we're both going to be on vacation next week), but then the subdivision was all flooded and I wasn't about to drown another car, so I just watched mass on my computer. That wasn't the end though, after mass I checked the subdivision again and it wasn't flooded, so I made it to coffee and donuts and was able to give the coupon to our substitute. After that I went to a firework store to get some clearance fireworks and use my coupons (which I couldn't use because they ended up being for things I wasn't interested in, the BIG single shot fireworks). I did get some tanks and parachutes, which are like my favorites, in addition to a kit that should last me next year. All in all, it was a great way to celebrate the 250. The only way it could have been better is if I was able to watch the city fireworks from my balcony, but those are next weekend when I'll be traveling. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
No comments:
Post a Comment