Busy Is As Busy Does

I've been busy and/or away from home a lot this last week. I believe I already mentioned hanging out with Pat last Monday on my birthday. On Thursday I enjoyed a nice dinner out with my friend Ken. On Friday I spent the entire day with Pat and his family, starting the day by seeing The Hangover with Pat, his brother, Chris, and their Dad, and then finishing the day just hanging out at their place. Saturday, Independence Day, I again hung out with Pat's family all day. Things will be slow now for the next few weeks as Pat and his family will be on vacation on the East Coast.

I give high marks to The Hangover. I know I'm the last person to say this, but it was a really funny movie. It didn't make me think, and it didn't try to change my life. It just made me laugh for the better part of two hours.

I always enjoy Independence Day with Pat's family. They live a half mile or so from the University of Redlands stadium, where the city stages its fireworks show. We spend the day eating like pigs because Lisa always puts out a wonderful spread and several other dishes show up with guests as well. In the evening, when the show begins with several parachutists leaping from a plane, we fill the lawn full of chairs and kick back with dessert and sodas. The girls run around and entertain themselves and everyone else after the parachutists have landed and before the fireworks begin. (There is a concert and ground-level show for the people who paid to be in the stadium.) Then, when it gets sufficiently dark, we watch the fireweorks for about 30 minutes. Redlands always shoots them off pretty slowly and finishes with a pretty spectacular finale.

It being July 5th now, there is still considerable fireworks activity in my neighborhood. If this year plays out like previous years, I'll hear the bangs of fireworks fairly steadily for the next three or four days. Forgive my unpatriotic attitude, but I would dearly love to see the county helicopter and a few extra cruisers in the neighborhood, attempting to curb this activity.

If you remember early in this blog, I had a Twitter account and I used to display those updates on this page. I got bored playing with Twitter and never really found a good use for it, though, so I stopped updating. Recently I've been having fun writing fake headlines on Facebook and I've been posting those on Twitter as well. Surprisingly, I've picked up a few followers by doing so. A few weeks ago a headline involving MLB garnered me some sort of MLB tweeter, and last night a Sarah Palin headline garnered me a new follower. I'm resolved to continue posting headlines and see if the trend continues or even accelerates.

One more random topic in tonight's post: Pat bought me a WoW game card for my birthday. Hooray! 60 days of WoW!

Back soon!

"You might be a redneck if your lifetime goal is to own a fireworks stand."— Jeff Foxworthy