What are YOU doing for the 4th?
 

Well, the 4th is in the middle of the week this year. Does anyone have any special plans? There are quite a few events going on in my area that I'll probably try and get to. But, in all likelihood, these plans are subject to change with little notice.

As you can see...
""THE BEAST""
...is ready for the day...

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m...tionBEAST1.jpg

We will be at home with the A/C on full blast and the TV turned up to mask the sounds of any fireworks for our noise phobic dogs. Every year it's the same. Sometimes we might stand outside to watch the displays from the distance, but we're always home to make sure our dogs are safe.

PLEASE - if you own dogs, don't leave them outside and unattended during the 4th! I had to say that. So many dogs run off and get hurt or lost on this holiday due to fear of fireworks.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday!

The beer gnomes will drop a keg of fat tire ale off in front of our house, to be tapped in pajamas.

the street will get closed off, we will blast march music and the kids will parade in decorated bikes. We will miss the 90 year old lady who used to lead on her 3 wheeler.

We will eat BBQ, throw water balloons and chat.

at dark we will do fireworks and hope the people who have "crazy fireworks" don't burn any thing down.

it's good in the hood

We usually go to one of the many public displays here. Did Newport News last year, Norfolk the year before. This year it's looking like Virginia Beach for fireworks over the ocean. Should be fun.....I hope.

Always public displays for me. Haven't purchased my own fireworks in years. Too many free events in this area!!!!!

Packing to move,having lost the house we were lease-purchasing (can't secure a home loan,defaulted on all the investment and down payments) almost a year after having lost everything that was inside that house to a house fire (was 6-30-11),sigh :(...thanks for fixing the bank situation,Mr. Obama,and yeah,we "the private sector" are "fine" :notamused:

Sorry,don't mean to be a downer,but,LOL,you asked :p:roflmao2:

Sorry to hear that. Yeah...the "private sector is fine"......I have been out of STEADY work for three years now. What a friggin' joke this economy is.

We're throwin' firecrackers, shootin' off rockets and scarin' the crap outta our cats.

No real plans beyond that for the 4th, wife works until midnight, which seriously curtails my own personal fun. It's weird... got the whole "marriage" thing right this time around and I actually enjoy hanging out with my wife.

I feel for you,my friend,been there too (wasn't allowed to work "due to spinal injuries" for 26 months before last year's disability approval). MHO is we're just in the dark side of the economy cycle...in a few years,we'll look back on this as "wow,those days' sucked financially",but a few years later we'll be like "dang,here we go again",LOL,ebbs and flows :P

Yes. Mine is also due to a spinal issue. Injured at work and ended up having surgery. Been doing the insurance company battle for three years now. Workers Compensation is a HUGE joke.

So is the SSI/SSDI (disability) things...you know how the law always said that they had to back up and pay you benefits from the day you first applied to the approval date? That would have been a bit over $38,000 owed to us after having fought 26 months (though technically,I was fighting to return to work,not for benefits...I'm dumb like that sometimes :P),I was paid a total of between $6,000 and 7,000 (can't recall the exact amount). When those checks came (one per month,in addition to the benefits monthly payments),I quickly blew tham on two Vassago builds,and that Origin 8 CX bike,as well as a slammed '95 V8 S-Blazer,thinking that that amount was within the range that the Wife wouldn't scoff to awful bad at,and believing there was another $31-31,000 coming,LOL!

I never had to have surgery,though it was discussed-the risk vs potential gains was just too far apart (they would have been rebreaking my neck in the C2-C4 area for parts of the procedures). I have my days...it's been pretty active the last few weeks-I suppose partly due to the stress about all this house stuff,but I strongly believe (as do my Doc's) that riding,at least,leaisurely,non-rough-trail-or-mtn-biking aids in how I feel. Basically,I feel better when I ride more,so long as I don't over do it. Doc's opinion is the strengthening of the muscles back there,plus staying more limber,and fitter overall. Still,I normally can ride 50+ miles on an average day (never gone past 68 miles though),I can abrely walk the dog around the blockl more than once,weird :)

Mine was an L4-L5 fusion. Not bad considering. But I ran the entire gamut before having surgery. Pain Specialist, Epidurals, physical therapy to see if the disk would fall back into place. Well, it didn't so hence the surgery. I fatigue out pretty quickly when I am walking but I can ride for a LONG time. Doctor says it's a good thing to ride the bike so I do that as often as I can.

I can't get into a lot of details about the compensation thing as it's still in litigation. However, I have learned that workers compensation laws are NOT written to protect the workers. I can see now why so many people forego any sort of battle. It's just to damned hard. But my case is now coming to a close and, hopefully soon, I'll have this monkey off my back.....

Yeah,if your case is still ongoing,most definately do NOT talk much about it on open forums (or blogs...trust me on that one :twitchy:). I know the pain and issues you speak of. Basically,in my own words/terminology,when I broke C2 and C4,all but a few vertibrea were just sorta smooshed together,there are blocks of 2-4 fused with 1-2 between blocks,discs were ruptured/just-disintigrated,etc...and what's worse,I'm no longer 5 foot 9 and 1/2,I'm only 5'9" now,LOL! Believe me though,it was a long time before I got to this point of being able to make jokes/wise cracks about my injuries. The dumb thing that I did was to return to work 6 weeks after the accident (3-31-01 was the accident date,in Richfiled UT along I70),and later that same year (11-1-01),only 35-40 miles west of Richfield UT,I sliced my left index finger into two pieces from tip to knuckle (right down the middle),severing nerves,tendon,splitting each bone/knuckle,and actually had to walkmost of the 6 blocks to the hospital,nearly bleeding to death (transfusion required) before a "good Samaritan" came by and drove me the rest of the way. Nothing inside the finger now fromt the knuckle to tip is native,it's all polymer-plastics of some sort,with cool titanium screws holding it all together (the only ti I own,haha! :roflmao2:).

Yeah,it's my lumbar region that causes issues walking,though having issue with C3 that it actually can "slip out of place" just a mili-width of a fraction of a measurement-when it does,it goes from "being in contact with" the chord,to putting the minutest amount of pressure on it,I then get numbness/tingling issues,but more prominently,I get "false pain signals" from my right hip,of which there is nothing wrong with. Now,that happens randomly for the most part,I can make it slip,but the rare occasions that it has (and it has been pretty rare),it's been random for seemingly no reason other than I cranked my head too far-too fast (dang miniskirts! :innocent::roflmao2:).

Hey,good news since I ranted here though-like Fennious and Ferb,I know what I'll be doing tomorrow-we may have found the perfect for us rental property today-especially after several long chats with the owner,we'll be checking it out tomorrow :D (thus getting back on subject,I do apologise for accidently hijacking :o)

No big deal. Always nice to hear from someone else that has had a similar experience with the world of the "red tape".....

Going to be riding down to the Los Alamitos Joint Forces base to watch the C17 fly-by, then back up to Cerritos to ride around the fair and then watch the firework show tomorrow night.

Yeah,me too :) Ahhhh,red tape,the one resource that never need be renewed,LOL! :P

Play scrabble with a friend and later watch the fireworks?

Welp,we did getta see some cool fireworks,right from our driveway,as for 3 blocks,neighbors tried to outdo one another,LOL! Awesoem,dang near professional display.

What else we did was we found and secured a new place to live :D...now the fun part,packing,moving,and trying to figure how to fit a 2 story houses worth of junk into a nice long singlewide trailer :twitchy:

Also,after researching the people we lease-purchse contracted on this house from,we find that they were found guilty of federal bank fraud and embezzlement in excess of $2.5-4.2 million...:twitchy:10 days after they contracted to us last August (means they were on trial and kept quiet about it when they took our moneys,hopes n dreams,AND that they apparently have a history/habit of ripping people new ones...)) :notamused:

I've been in contact with the US Attorney who convicted them,and the FBI agents that worked their case,the agent in chrage of that investigation is "VERY interested in talking to me when he gets in from vacation,I (the agent I was talking to) spoke with him...". Sounds like a buncha BS to me too,but here's a link to prove it....

http://www.justice.gov/usao/tne/news...k%20Fraud.html

Well,we hadda move over last weekend into a much smaller place (my Citizen folder is here as is my son's 20"er,the rest are in storage until I either buy or build a shed/workshop here :(). Bad place for utility riding,not the best place for daily riding safely-not as far "out in the sticks" as we were before last year's housefire/move,but far enough that I'll be pulling the Bandersnatches parts back off the Xtracycle to put it (Bander) back together,at least for now :(

BUT,what it lacks in ridability (living here),it makes up for in quietness,plus it's a sub-5 minute walk to the boat dock we have access/rights to offa local lake :thumb: