Fireworks and Music

I've pretty much chosen to work on the same days that my girlfriend does, and because she works on a weird 2 days off / 3 days on and vice versa schedule, I've not been as active a poster as I was when I had to go to school during the weekday. I think that I've adjusted very easily to the summer, but I'm still excited about the upcoming school year. Today, I found out that my graduate school is going to send me my job assignment as a TA (teaching assistant) very soon. You'll be hearing about that soon.

On the night of the fourth of July, I drove the several miles on the freeway to the big city just as all of the fireworks were going. Therefore, I had an opportunity to see fireworks from about seven different communities as I passed them along the freeway at about 75 miles an hour. In one sense, it was kind of cool to see this large celebration thing occuring in several towns all at once; the sense of the larger community I had then was unlike any I had ever had before. Yet, the downside of it was that I noticed all of the illegal fireworks that were exploding in places that they shouldn't have been (i.e. crowded neighborhoods). The fire risk from those things was very high, and it was obvious that the police were having trouble being in all places at once. This was one of those occasions were you have to trust that nothing happens, and then wait until the whole thing is over.

On a more staid note, I went a music festival on Sunday in the downtown, waterfront park of the big city. The scenery at sunset was really beautiful - oddly urban and natural at the same time. The music was also pretty good; we saw Etta James, which I must admit I had heard before, but I wouldn't have been able to say so if you had asked me before the concert. Unfortunately, the place was packed. There was barely any place to sit down - and even if you did sit down, more than likely you were staring at someone else's bum, because they, unfortunately, chose to stand up. Oh well, I had a nice time anyway.