Today is July 4th, when we celebrate our nation’s independence and our freedom.  But I already wrote about that at my other blog.  Here, I’m going to focus on the other parts of the holiday : food and fireworks.

A standard item at 4th of July parties is grilled burgers.  So scrumptuous!  I wonder why restaurants are typically unable to recreate that grilled-at-home flavor of the meat.  I grilled today, and it was good.  Also had cheese dip, baked beans, potato salad, sweet tea, and homemade ice cream.  All good stuff (although I could do without the potato salad, but some folks like it).  Another part of 4th of July is overeating, which goes with food, obviously.  Actually, I think this is part of every holiday.  We Americans like to eat (and it shows).

Now onto fireworks… on this holiday we are allowed to buy these small explosive devices and detonate them.  That is just about guaranteed to be a good time.  Who doesn’t like to blow stuff up?  (I realize there’s some people who don’t like to have fun… but they probably aren’t reading this blog.)  Anyway, back to blowing up stuff…  Even if you just shoot the fireworks in the air like you’re supposed to, it’s a good time.  This year I saw something like a semi-automatic Roman candle launcher — it put out several dozen in just a few seconds.  Way cool!  And there were some big-dollar fireworks I saw that launched a lot of smaller fireworks into the air for a neat effect.  It’s amazing what they can do with fireworks these days.

I have some stuff that’s scheduled to be destroyed with fireworks, but it didn’t happen today.  I’ve gotta wait until I have access to a video camera for this.  When it happens, it’ll be broadcast here first.  We will have the exclusive video.  So stay tuned.

I was thinking tonight about how cool it would be to make your own fireworks.  It would take quite a bit of practice, I’m sure, but that wouldn’t be a problem!  I wonder how hard it would be to make some of the bigger ones that shoot out many streams and have a two-stage explosion…  I may have to point our local R&D department in that direction…

If you have any thoughts on that or special memories along these lines about this wonderful holiday, feel free to leave them in the comments section.