Fireworks, Friends, Family

Sharry and I hosted another 4th of July BBQ this year, and my brother Matt and his wife Lauren came up to vacation and managed to just get here in time to set off some fireworks. I think this year I bought just too many mortar shells. We only had two working lighters and one was a regular cigarette lighter and you could get burned easily. It took two hours to work our way through all the launching fireworks I got. Here are lessons learned for next year:

1) I discovered that canister shot is superior to regular mortar fireworks. I should get more of these and less of the regular mortars.
2) Bottle rockets are lame.
3) Boxes of aerial displays are nice for an automatic show. I should pick up more of these from the reservation.
4) I'd like to investigate how difficult it would be to set up a electronic ignition system with solar ignitors from model rocket kits. I would like to set off a huge number of fireworks simultaneously.
5) Get the crack lighters so we don't have to worry about the wind.

Once again, I'd like to thank the county of King for containing unincorporated parts of towns where fireworks are legal. Jeers to the city of Kirkland for being so prissy about shooting really dangerous stuff into the sky. I found out how dangerous fireworks could be when my neighbor blew up two mortar tubes when they loaded the mortar shells in upside down.