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joe yang
6th July 2003, 02:00
So my kids are suddenly too old for fireworks, I'm entretaining adult friends and we have way too much ordinance. :D

Daishi
6th July 2003, 03:07
IS this one of those stories that come in stages?


Dale Heisler

joe yang
6th July 2003, 03:50
No, there is a happy ending. But I have a real problem with fireworks. I was a little worried.

Steve Williams
6th July 2003, 15:53
Originally posted by joe yang
I'm entretaining adult friends

Should this be moved to the mens room?? ;) :D

joe yang
6th July 2003, 23:32
Who knew fireworks could be sooo booooring. In PA, we can't get real fireworks, only stuff that sparks and spins. However, there is some pretty cool stuff available. I always wait till the Fifth of July, when it goes on sail, usually half off. If you spend enough money, like a couple hundred bucks, yeah I know, they usually throw in another $20 or $30 worth on top. With a little planning, you can put on a pretty good show, multiple effects, whistles, pops, swirls, fountains, whizzes.

You can probably tell I'm into it. For years, my son helped carry the torch. This year he had better things to do. Then the grown ups all split. I'm left with my wife, my daughter, my mom and two nieces ages 17 and 5.

So I let my 13 year old and the 17 year old put on a pyrotechnics show. What a mistake. They made a case fireworks last for an hour and a half. They had a ball. Mom finally went to bed.

One piece of pyro at a time. They cleaned up and stacked the spent shells as they went along. It was like a pyrotechnic tea party. No mayhem, no risk, no chaos. I loved it. You have to love girls. If there is any doubt what men are good for, one word, fireworks!

Shitoryu Dude
7th July 2003, 00:39
I spent the 4th out on Hood Canal where we have a beach house - I must have watched many thousands of buck$ go off in the form of high-end fireworks. I figure I had a two hour show for free, a great deal of it about 100 yards in either direction. It was great! Just stood out on the balcony and watched roman candles, shells, and a variety of rockets while I nursed a cold beer.

The best part is that when it was over I didn't have to sit through a few hours of bad traffic to get home and I had a primo spot without having to show up hours early to fight for it.

:beer:

joe yang
7th July 2003, 00:50
We always used to go to a Red Barons game on the 4th. Last year, the kids got bored, so we stayed home this year. When they where little, it was great. A nice stadium on the side of a mountain, hot dogs, beer, fireworks, a big production, with a small town feel. And you never knew what would go wrong. One year it was a rain of smoldering debris on the parking lot. Another year it was a forest fire on the mountain side. All from the vantage of clean, comfortable bleacher seats.

Mike Williams
7th July 2003, 11:22
I grew up in Holland, and the whole country used to turn into a virtual war zone on New Year's Eve. Apart from the huge amounts of ordnance, kids would start these huge bonfires on street intersections - often with somebodys car underneath. We used to listen to the local radio stations on January 1 just out of morbid curiosity to see who had killed themselves in the most spectacular fashion.
They've tightened up the laws a lot on illegal fireworks and bonfires, but people still smuggle ammo in from Belgium. A couple of years ago someone was arrested smuggling a string of Chinese Crackers with two million rounds on it. Police said that had it been ignited it would have gone on for four hours...

Some childhood memories (Do NOT try this at home):

* Having our box of ammo sat open on the bonnet of a neighbours Mercedes, having a banger land in it, grabbing the banger and chucking it away before it went off. :eek:
* Chucking Strijkers (an illegal banger) into rubbish bins - they'd blow the bottom out of them. One of my mates then threw one under a passing police car. We ran like hell.
* Chucking bangers into canals and timing it so they'd just go off under water.
* Banger Chicken - how low can that fuse go before you lob it? When you do lob it, can you get it to explode mid-air?
* Scavenging dud fireworks the next day for their powder, and building our own bigger, badder, better last bang of the celebrations.
* Finally - bottle rocket fights: one year me and a mate got bored with shooting bottle rockets into the sky where they'd dissappear over the roofs of houses (narrow Dutch street, with tall buildings). So we got a couple of cardboard tubes (held over the shoulder, bazooka style) and shot the bottle rockets down the street at each other. That soon cleared the pavement of bystanders. :eek:

Sadly the Enschede Disaster put a lot of people off fireworks generally - and combined with tighter laws, new-year's eve doesn't quite have the sizzle it used to. Maybe this is for the best...

Cheers,

Mike

joe yang
7th July 2003, 22:25
Anyone remember "jeanies"? Take a dud firecracker, break it in half, set it down, light the spilled powder in the opening, then just as it starts to spark, stomp on it. You always saved up your jeanies till last. Then you set them all off, one at a time, wearing sneakers. When you got finished, your feet hurt. :D