happy 4th?

what a day.

i guess it's officially a tradition now ;-) two years ago jessica and i (and 2 more of our HS friends) saw fireworks together in memphis. last year, jessica and i (and a handful of my jersey friends) saw fireworks in highland park... this year highland park fireworks were cancelled, so jessica and i went on our own to east brunswick.

it was a very laid back day -- we got lunch at a diner, then watched "meet the fockers", then slowly packed up a picnic and went over to the county fairgrounds in east brunswick and staked out a spot. we played some silly no-skill-required-whatsoever card games, and chatted a bit and waited for it to get dark. chuck (our math grad director) spotted me and chatted for a bit, then sent biao, a chinese student my year to come over and say hi too...

once the fireworks started, we realized that we, and half the other people at the fairgrounds, had our view blocked by a line of big trees and had to scoot over several dozen feet to see... still not perfect, but good enough -- it was a good show :-) i enjoy hearing little kids go "oooh" and "aaah" at all of them too :-)

after the fireworks was a headache and a half. they ended around 9:45. we got in our car, expecting to wait for a little bit.... around 10:20, we were in one of about 8 lanes of cars facing towards where we had entered the grass lot... all the sudden, people got out of the cars to check it out and came back to report that we can't get out that way, and half the cars in the lot that had been waiting for over half an hour needed to turn around. that's fine... stupid, but fine. what really annoyed me was that, in the process of turning my car around, some guy (not a policeman, or anyone in charge at all) starting waving wildly at me through my car window and hollering at me that i couldn't go out the way everyone was facing... when i said "i know, why do you think i'm turning around?" and he kept hollering, i was about ready to roll down my window and slap him, but thankfully he backed off :-P... anyhow, 40 more minutes later, we finally made it out (and we were parked within 3 rows of the street... parking went MUCH farther back!)... it was the most ridiculously disorganized traffic jam i've ever seen.

thankfully we made it home just fine, and the farther we got away from the fairgrounds, the better the traffic was. jessica always says she doesn't like driving because people are so rude and only look out for themselves when you give them all big machines... normally it doesn't get to me, but today i agree, and am glad not to be in the car anymore!

anyhow, ranting about the horrible hour and a half bit to get home is done.

minus that, it was a quality day. it was FANTASTIC to visit with jessica, and to have a laid back sort of afternoon. :-)

i have to be at work in 12 hours, maybe i'll go to sleep soon :-P

night y'all.