Jul
04
2011

Fireworks Fall Down Around This Whole Town

(Add / View Comments) (0)Monday, July 4, 2011 - 10:25:19 pm
(Posted Under: Livin' In The USA Livin' In The USA, This Desert Life This Desert Life)
There was little time after our awesome Independence Day dinner to make it downtown to check out the fireworks. Well, no time actually, since we thought it started at 9, didn't get moving until 8:50 and didn't leave the apartment until 9.

The timing worked out fine, as I guess the fireworks actually started at 9:10, which was right before we reached University. We found a good place to park on 9th Street, popped the hatch and sat in the back of the car with a pretty decent view of the fireworks display from Tempe Beach Park.

While it's certainly not my first 4th of July fireworks, it's the first I've spent within the Tempe City Limits. And as such I had to plug in the iPod and turn the car on for a bit. Sitting in the back of the car, just the two of us, with Fireworks playing, it was awesome.

Katie said that the Tempe fireworks were supposed to be the biggest in the state, which isn't hard to believe, as when they finally did finish and we got back in the car it was 9:50! Wow.

Not that this is news to anyone, including me, but sitting out there for the 40 or so minutes that we did highlighted just how busy Sky Harbor is. I couldn't even say how many planes we say coming in during that time. It was interesting too that they seemed to go right through the fireworks. Perspective was probably playing somewhat of a role in it looking like that, but I do know that the flight path is right over Tempe Beach Park. Several times it looked like a plane was going to be taken out by fireworks.

Towards the end of the display it looked like there was a monsoon on the way (which didn't happen) with the winds picking up and blowing a lot of dust (much like Saturday night when we left the Sail Inn), which made for a pretty spectacular scene with the fireworks going off and painting the entire sky all different colors.
Jul
04
2011

4th Of July Dinner

(Add / View Comments) (0)Monday, July 4, 2011 - 08:36:36 pm
(Posted Under: This Desert Life This Desert Life)
I think we were planning on having more of a relaxing 4th of July, but the productiveness of today has been awesome. And all paid off tonight, having an awesome 4th of July dinner outside on the newly put together patio set. Even if it was 100°F (at 8:30!) out there.

Photobox ImageOur 4th of July dinner this year was nachos, patriotic funfetti cake, by luminaria light. And it was a great opportunity to break open the pint bottle of Corona I've had since Christmas '09. Given how late it was, I wasn't sure if I'd get through it or not. The 100° temperature, jalapenos and hot Picante sauce quickly proved that wasn't going to be a problem. [wink]

An awesome 4th of July!
Jul
04
2011

One On One Time With Genevelyn

(Add / View Comments) (0)Monday, July 4, 2011 - 04:31:18 pm
(Posted Under: Genevelyn)
Genevelyn finished up her medicine on Wednesday, and we went back to the vet on Saturday to check that she was better. With her mood, and certainly her appetite there was really little question that her bout with parasites was over. So it was nice, but no surprise when they phoned later in the afternoon and confirmed it, giving her a clean bill of health. Everyone is happy about, including her. She's not going to miss our 7am daily ritual of squirting medicine down her throat, which she resisted more and more the healthier she got.

Today we executed a mass cleanup, which involved doing everything we didn't get to earlier this weekend, including giving her tank a final disinfecting and clean out. Out with the paper towels (and weird music video look), in with some new reptile carpet, and she finally gets her branch back today. She's going to happy about that.

Over the weekend we'd picked up some Scotch Velcro tabs, to keep the carpet down. Crickets crawling under the last piece drove my wife nuts. These things are an absolute design fail. They're adhesive Velcro squares, packaged in such a way that the adhesive sticks firmly to the packaging backing, rather than the square. So when you pull out off, you get the square and the adhesive left of the backing. Fail. A quick Google of the situation revealed that we weren't doing anything wrong, there are many complaints about that issue. How brain dead is the quality assurance department at 3M?!? No amount of applying heat, or hot water helped any. We did eventually manage to peel off 10 with enough adhesive to mostly stick the the squares to the bottom of the terrarium. Despite the drama of these, Velcro-ing the carpet down is an awesome idea and will improve our life greatly!

Since our little girl was better, we gave the bathroom for a clean and took her in there for some bonding time. Hilariously, the one place I didn't want her to go was behind the toilet, and of course...that's the first place she wanted to head. Punk ass! We corrected that situation, and put her on my leg, where she sat for about 5 minutes while she got used to being out of her terrarium. She's so cool, and I really regretted that I hadn't brought my camera in with us. After a while she went over and chilled out on Katie's leg (and contemplated how to get behind the toilet again) for a while.

Too cool. We've been waiting to play with her out of her terrarium for weeks and were both pretty excited to get to do it today. Now that she's healthy we should be able to do it more often.

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