Watch where you’re pointin’ that thing, Mister!

Was out running errands at lunch and whippin’ my way back to the office after a successful jaunt.

Was on Highway 280, crusin’, and singing along to, I believe, Nelly, when I came around a blind curve to see a CHP pointing a gun at me.

Disconcerting to say the least.

I took leave of my senses. When I regained them, I realized it was a radar gun. Or actually lidar (uses laser instead of radio waves).

The good news is, that as I was cruisin’ and holding an in-car concert, I was following a mini-van. Meaning when I got clocked I was doing 65 mph, the legal speed limit.

Karen lives to see another day, ticket free.

But it took me a good ten minutes for my heart rate to settle back in.

Image via.

Strategy.

Yes, planning session. Must have.

Approach. Direction. Map out the route. Implement. Execute.

Yup. Vital.

Necessary.

What’s that? Work? No, no, I’m not talking about work.

Food. At the baseball game. Tonight. Yup. The Good Man and I are currently engaged in a lengthy instant message conversation planning this out.

What needs to be consumed. Where it’s located. How to obtain efficiently.

Nice.

BTW, I learned this blitz strategy from my Mom. Attending the NM State Fair.

“Ok, we start out in the Spanish Village for a burrito…then across the way to the Native American Village for fry bread and honey…Mom needs a corndog…Karen wants funnel cake…”

You know the drill.

Hey, I learned from the best.

Dreaming of a Cha-Cha bowl now (bless you Orlando Cepeda!)…

Photo source.

Thar she blows!

Yup. There you go. The Good Man and me are legally licensed to run off like two crazy kids and hitch our lives together, willy-nilly without regard for consequences!

YIPE!

juuuuuust kidding!

The good news is that the county produces this handy illustrated booklet to help us get through “the rough patches”.

Last evening, we solemnly flipped through the pages.

Who knew that keys to a happy marriage included regular exercise and washing your vegetables before consuming?

Ah well…: plugs nose and jumps in :

____________________

PS: ok, that’s not the *actual* license above, rather a pretty souvenir the State of California provides…the real one is quite ugly…form-like, in triplicate and all that governmental schtuff.

Spare MY Air please!

Another Spare the Air day in the hazy, blisteringly hot Bay Area.

Yesterday afternoon, needing a break from the desk and recycled indoor air conditioning. I went outside to take a walk and didn’t last long. The block ahead of me lay in wavering smoky haze and the heat was oppressive.

This morning I walked to the train station and felt a distinct burning in my throat. Given that my dad suffered a terminal lung disease, these sort of burning lung moments do not give me humor.

The local paper is reporting more of the same.

Ugh.

Image via.

So…what did YOU do for the Fourth?

How was your holiday? Didja do something nice? Fun? Cool as heck?

Yeah, how did that bbqpoolkidsfamilymomanddadhotdogsfireworksinthebackyard turn out?

Good? Great, happy to hear it!

My Fourth? Well.

The day was mostly quiet. As the sun was setting, that’s when it got interesting.

The evening kicked off, well, here:

That’s the, uh, San Carlos Airport.

And those there are, uh, you know, your standard issue Cessna type aeroplanes.

See…our next-door neighbor is a pilot. He started in the military then had a career piloting the “vomit comet” for NASA.

These days he’s semi-retired, making money by piloting incredibly expensive Gulf Stream and Eclipse jets for the Bay Area wealthy.

So an offer was made to The Good Man and me…see, he’d rented a plane for the evening…wanna go see fireworks from up there?

Yes! YES WE DO!

And we did!

Our original course was the big show in San Francisco.

However, San Francisco being what it is…this is what it looked like up there.

Gorgeous sunset. But miles and miles of fog. Not so swell for watching fireworks.

We headed down the peninsula, intent on taking in the fireworks near the much clearer San Jose, at the Great America amusement park.

Problem is, Great America is in the San Jose Airport airspace, and they don’t think weekend fireworks cruisers are all that interesting. Humorless, they are, as they keep busy landing and taking off a near steady stream of commercial airliners.

So we headed back up to mid-peninsula in took in the smaller shows in Redwood City and Foster City.

You ain’t never seen fireworks until you’ve seen them from up there.

Wow.

Can’t offer much in the way of fireworks photos. Between it being dark and the motion of the plane, none turned out. But damn…it’s amazing to see!

Oh, and the ol’ “vomit comet” pilot showed us what just two G’s feels like (fighter pilots get up to 9).

Feels like getting out of the damn plane and walking around on the ground again, please!

Yeah, I’m pretty sure I had a cooler Fourth of July than you did….:)