4th July

[tutusue]

Re: 4th July

Happy birthday to you...*insert cymbal sound*
Happy birthday TO yooooooou...*insert double cymbal sound*
Happy birthday dear AMERICA...*insert drum roll*
Happy birthday to you...*insert full rendition of "God Bless America"*

[craigwatanabe]

Re: 4th July

Happy Independence Day. Celebrate Freedom. Celebrate America.
God Bless the USA.


Photo taken last night at Aloha Tower fireworks show. (Larger)

great shots Mel. We didn't make it to the fireworks display in Hilo so these pics are nice to see.

[surlygirly]

Re: 4th July

We had a good ol' boys 4th. Since our stupid HOA banned fireworks in our neighborhood even though we live outside the city limits and technically can't do that (they sent out a letter two days ago amending this and saying that we can set them off on our own property, but not the street or the sidewalk), we went up to some friend of a friend's boss's ranch, shooed away the donkeys and set off over $1200 worth of fireworks. No sparklers for us! We put on an awesome show and all "my boys" were happy because they got to blow up lots of stuff. (we were all very safe about it, don't worry)

Happy 4th!!

[Kaonohi]

Re: 4th July

Here in Ocean Beach, San Diego, the Police have again cordoned off the parking lot for the beach by the lifeguard tower. It will be a command center where officers will observe, arrest, process, and detain taxpayer/prisoners who dare to exercise the freedom to drink a beer on the beach. It used to be legal, but voters voted to make drinking on the beach illegal, even if you are not causing a problem, which the vast majority of beach drinkers do not. Our city whimpers endlessly about never having enough money but it has enough to squander on overtime for Police to observe, arrest, etc, the taxpayers engaging in yet another victimless crime. If you want to destroy somebody's freedom, just put it on the ballot, the voters will never let you down. So it is appropriate that the taxpayers will not be able to go to the beach to celebrate their freedom. If they voted it away for other people why should they have any for themselves? Of course there will be some parking available, a couple of miles away from the beach, high on the hills and quite inconvenient. Be careful what you wish for, be equally carefully what you vote for. Freedom isn't Free. How did this ever become a country by, for, and of busybodies? And more to the point, WHY?

Luckily, the whole country isn't like that... yet. There's 49 other states, a few territories, and if you check out their laws you will see that more freedom exists in some than in others. Unfortunately many of the more popular places, or more metropolitan places have less freedom.

Check out New Hampshire, where the motto is "Live Free or Die!" Check out some of the Southern East Coast and the mountain states. They all have more freedom than Hawaii or California.

Maybe it's time to move!

Friends of mine are begging me to come to South America, where I can find real freedom again..... (but I don't believe them).

[Ron Whitfield]

Did anybody else hear...

...and if you live on Oahu you must have, the two late night and exceedingly loud explosions at least an hour apart in town?
Don't know if these were aerials or mere concussives, but they were two of the loudest sounds I've heard in years. Might have been detonated near the mountain sides as there wasn't any echo from my vantage point near McKinley.
Funny, this year there were virtually no pre 4th illegals that I heard, but Wahiawa nearby Schofield was choke with on the 4th, and the two biggies made up for the lack otherwise. They were intense! No word from the media about damage that I've seen.

[Kaonohi]

Re: Did anybody else hear...

...and if you live on Oahu you must have, the two late night and
exceedingly loud explosions at least an hour apart in town?
Don't know if these were aerials or mere concussives, but they were two of the loudest sounds I've heard in years. Might have been detonated near the mountain sides as there wasn't any echo from my vantage point near McKinley.
Funny, this year there were virtually no pre 4th illegals that I heard, but Wahiawa nearby Schofield was choke with on the 4th, and the two biggies made up for the lack otherwise. They were intense! No word from the media about damage that I've seen.

I heard one over here on the Windward side. Loud, but distant. I wondered what it was!

Every 1st and 4th I was in the habit of taping one end of an 8" diameter 6' long cardboard carpet tube, punching in a cannon fuse hole near the closed end, filling it with a mixture of air and acetylene from my brazing torch, plugging my ears and touching it off with a sparker.

It was loud. People on Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps station could hear it, and for 3 valleys up the coast as well as in Hui Iwa and Temple Valley.

Directed upwards it didn't blow out any windows, but echoed off the mountains, and I guess the parabolic shape of the valley helped.

Safe, as long as you didn't get in front of the open end, and legal (for those holidays, anyway).

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: 4th July

We used to do similarly in Waikane Valley in the late 90s. Had a rig to hold a ballon filled with the gas and another arm to hold the punk with a VERY long string to pull on for the 'trigger'. That's the last time I heard anything comparable to the two I mentioned.

[Kaonohi]

Re: 4th July

We used to do similarly in Waikane Valley in the late 90s. Had a rig to hold a ballon filled with the gas and another arm to hold the punk with a VERY long string to pull on for the 'trigger'. That's the last time I heard anything comparable to the two I mentioned.

And I thought it was my echo!

[Ron Whitfield]

Ha ha!

Your's were probably louder than ours, no real compression with a balloon, but in the general vicinity nothing rivaled our gas bangers, and certainly not as loud as the two cracks the other night. I mean, when everything had quieted down around 10/11pm the first just ripped the air apart, and the same for the 2nd. Painful to the mind.

[Walkoff Balk]

Re: Ha ha!

when everything had quieted down around 10/11pm the first just ripped the air apart, and the same for the 2nd.

Are those the silent, but deadly ones? You don't know who dealt it.