4th OF JULY, YEAR OF OUR LORD, 2014

My Fourth of July this year went swimmingly (pun intended – at least in part).

It started out slowly with me waiting on my wife and daughter to get ready to go out (you know how that goes fellas).

There is a new IHOP in Simpleville (well relatively new) and she wanted to go there to have a late breakfast. So she and I and my oldest daughter went. I thought the service was excellent but I was less than impressed by the food portions. Especially when weighed against the price. I told my wife that we could have gone to our favorite restaurant in town, O’Charleys, and eaten for only slightly more and had much bigger portions. But that’s what she wanted so I gave it to her. The IHOP is also on old Moovies (video rental store) that is it is the same video rental store we used to go to in town. After it went out of business IHOP bought the place and renovated it turning it into the restaurant. They really did a nice job of the renovation, but it was odd to me to go in there as I distinctly remembered the video store it used to be, and how it once looked.

After that the girls did some shopping and then we went and got my youngest daughter from a friend’s house (where she was staying) and had a nice little visit with the family while we waited on them to fix pizza for my daughter. A fun, relaxed visit. They also have done a really nice job with the front of their house, creating almost a little Zen garden.

After leaving there we went to another friend’s house so that my daughter could pick up her friend to come stay at our house overnight. That family has a pool and while standing on the deck it looked so tempting to me that I decided to dive in with all of my clothes on (I had no swimming trunks). Which I did. (Well, not all of my clothes, I first took off my socks and shoes.) I swam around about 15 minutes or so and enjoyed it immensely, though swimming in blue jeans eventually feels like you’re swimming in lead. Nevertheless I would have stayed in longer but my daughter had to get home to go to work – the last day at her crappy job (I’m very glad she quit).

So I got out and dried off on their deck and while I was drying off the father came up on his tractor and we all ate ice cream together (their family and our family). We yakked awhile and had fun and I examined a bat they had found dead in their pool as well as a baby snake they had found nearby and preserved in alcohol. At that age and size I could not tell the species but Steven thought it was a Highland Moccasin.

Then we came home and I cleaned the house a little and then took a short nap. After I got up I watched the Brazil-Colombia game which was a very exciting match and excellent game. (So many of the games of this World Cup have been absolutely awesome, and this may end up being my favorite Cup of all time.) The post-game display of sportsmanship between Rodriquez and the Brazilian team was superb as well. Seeing Neymar get his back broken though was hard for me to watch. I knew instantly that his back had been broken by the way he hit the ground acted afterwards. Having had my own back broken I know what that is like. So Godspeed on his recovery, and I hope and pray it is full and complete. He’s an excellent player and broken back is a tough thing indeed.

After that I read over and studied the New Basic Game D&D Release. I happen to love what I’m seeing so far and I’ll say more on that later as I’ll write a full review on my Gaming Blog once I’ve had time to finish reading the whole thing and play test it a bit in a couple of weeks. If you’re interested in the new D&D Basic Game release then click the link embedded in this sentence.

After night fall I went outside. The night was cool (more like an Autumn evening than July the 4th) with a clear sky and a half moon. I heard fireworks and is my wont every July 4th (when I’m not shooting off fireworks) I went looking for local displays. We live way out in the country and so many people shoot off fireworks and the sound and light shows can carry for miles, though because of heavy tree cover they can be hard to see sometimes.

Anyway I grabbed my binoculars and got in the car and rode around in about a five mile radius from my house. Found a really good show near Fork Shoals elementary where neighbor horse and cattle ranchers were having a contest against each other. That lasted about half an hour to forty-five minutes or so.

Rode around some more, crossed the river and found a really good display off Terry Road. They were lighting up pretty good and it went on for a long while. So I pulled over on the side of the road and listened to music and watched the show.

By that time it was getting late and on the way home I decided to ride down to McKittrick Bridge where as kids and teenagers my friends and I had many hour’s long bottle rocket and firework fights trying to take and control the bridge. I really miss those fireworks fire-fights, they were immense fun and I remember we’d make launchers and carry out attacks and just blow the hell out of each other on warm summer nights under a full moon. I can still recall the thick clouds of exploded gunpowder that would hang across the bridge and river as one side or another would launch an assault and try to dislodge whoever was holding it. God we had fun! If only we had drones back then, huh?

Now that was really living for a young boy, and about as much fun as you could have as a kid, and the memories were sweet as I recalled them. That was a youth well-spent.

By the time I got home it was midnight and I waited up for my daughter to get home and then I went to bed.

All in all a truly superb Fourth of July.

I hope you had one as well.

Jack.

BRAZIL-MEXICO

That Brazil Mexico game was extremely good. No goals, but incredible skill and amazing footwork on both sides.

The officiating was a little dicey to me and there were a coupla really rough tackles and unnecessary fouls.

The goalkeeps were what really impressed me though. Both goalies were astoundingly good – uncanny I’d even say. The Mexican goalkeeper seemed to have almost preternatural powers of anticipating where the ball would be before it got there.

I was pulling for Brazil as my South American team but Mexico acquitted themselves very well.

A performance I respected.