05 July 2006

Fireworks

I am not going to writing this morning, not in the way I am used to. I have to go to the District, and get the Black truck back from the Speed Shop in Falls Church and I am taking a few personal days.

That meant an early up and a scan at the Company e-mail crappolla from Monday, when I lay like a walrus by the pool.

The fireworks started to roll over late yesterday; another violent front of thunderstorms that hi the transformer across the street and cut the power. It was spectacular when it got to the Mall; the park Police ran a hundred thousand people off an into some sort of shelter as the winds went horizontal and gusted to sixty knots.

Later, the Dominion Power folks were nice enough to get our lights back, though the cable idiots were unable to restore television channels to cable. How is a modern family supposed to watch the fireworks?

That is how we came to be standing on the overpass on Route 50, where the curve of the earth just barely permitted the higher of the fireworks detonations downtown to be seen. We were stadning mostly with the Mexicans from the subsidized housing, and they seemed to like it.

With all the excitement, it was not unexpected that we missed the first batch of fireworks from North Korea, a series of short-range rockets as prelude to the big Taepodong 2 shot.

We would call that the finale here in the fireworks show, but it failed 42 seconds into boost, which the Space Shuttle did not.

I am not sure what they were thinking, except it was great symbolism. If they think it is going to do anything except get the Japanese to ring the peninsula with Aegis cruisers and SM-2ER interceptor rockets, and spur more money to be poured into missile defense here, I don't know.

Lot of fireworks, though  even for the Fourth. Natural and otherwise.

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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