4th of July Weekend

Wow, what an exiting 4th of July weekend we had – it’s a shame it went by so quickly! I spent a good portion of Thursday night and Friday preparing wings and ribs for my brother’s barbecue/party on Friday afternoon/evening. The weather was great for the first few hours, but we ended up getting some rain on-and-off throughout the evening/night. We still managed to have fun.

The party was a good mix of family and friends, with a noticeable exception of one family member who seems to miss every get-together. Hey – his loss, right? My brother was a cooking machine that afternoon – I’m not sure how many hot dogs and burgers he cooked, but with nearly 60 people at the barbecue, I’m guessing it was a lot.

As the night moved on (and the rain became more steady), we moved the party inside, and of course the guys went to the basement and the girls sat in the living room. We ended up doing more drinking, and I think we’ve already come up with a DBT t-shirt idea for 2009, and a possible theme for this year’s Halloween party. Heck, if we would’ve drank a little more, maybe we could’ve solved the global warming crisis.

On Saturday, my friend Rich and his wife invited us to a barbecue at their house – which is on the fringes of Amish country in Philadelphia. It’s a bit of a ride, but we always seem to have a good time – this day/night was no exception. Again, more burgers and dogs, and Rich made some fantastic ribs as well.

It started off a little slow – I was still trying to shake off a headache/hangover from the previous night’s party. After drinking a few bottles of water and ingesting some food, I started feeling better. I decided to have a little “hair of the dog that bit me,” and the headache was gone. We threw horse-shoes for about 3 hours or so – I’d probably throw horse-shoes every day if I could (that’s why I continue to buy lottery tickets).

Our friend Brian should up with about $500-700 in fireworks, as well as some platforms he built for said fireworks. The man set this stuff up like he had a blueprint on how to do this. At one point, he asked me if I was a pyromaniac. My response was silence. He organized us and the fireworks into stations – he had a master plan and he was making sure we wouldn’t screw it up.

You know how to figure out if a man is serious about his fireworks? There are a number of ways – first, if the man is on a first-name basis with a fireworks shop in Elkton, Maryland, he might be serious. Second, if said man brings blow torches to light said fireworks, it’s probably become more than a hobby. Third, if said man builds fireworks launching platforms with hinges, he’s the real McCoy.

With all that being said, the fireworks display was amazing – it certainly rivaled many towns’ fireworks nights. I got to light some of these big fireworks, and let me tell ya – I can easily see how somebody could get into this. I think we had fireworks going non-stop for about 20 minutes – and the Amish were probably cursing us to high heavens. Oh well, all in a night’s work, I guess. Looks like I’ll have to buy some fireworks on the way to/back from the Outer Banks …