Brian On _______

I love fireworks. I love the BOOMS, the crackles, the sparkles and the faint smoke trails. I love the concussion of the shells being fired and the split second delay it takes the sound to reach my ears after my eyes have already seen the explosion of light. I love the oohs and ahhs. Set it all to a John Phillip Sousa march and I'm in Heaven.

That said, I'm just about fed up with the idiots in my neighborhood (I live just outside city limits) who think July 4 begins at 6 p.m. June 20 and doesn't stop until who knows when (God willing, July 4 at midnight). Judging by the constant bangs and stacatto pops, Either my neighbors are all pyromaniacs with too much money or there have been a lot of drive bys recently. "You young whipper-snappers are gonna set my house on fire!"

I remember loving shooting off Roman Candles and popping firecrackers as a kid, but looking back it seems so stupid. How did I not kill myself or maim my friends/family? And the cost! Good grief! It's kind of like my argument against cigarettes: how can you afford such a habit? My neighbors have probably each dropped $100, and that was before it was even July! I feel like shaking my fist from my front porch: "Get a savings account!"

Like I said, I LOVE fireworks and I LOVE celebratin our independence, it's just that in my old age I perfer to love it done by professionals and on the fourth day of the seventh month. I am old man. Sigh.

Then again, I've been an old man for a while now. I realized that the day I was at Falls Creek and thought the skirts were too short and the music too loud.

Someday, I'm going to throw out all my socks and just go out and buy like 20 pairs of the same brown socks. Then I'm going to throw them all in a drawer. I'm never going "fold them"/roll the up into pairs when I do laundry either... just throw 'em in the drawer. I'll never have to worry about an odd number of socks and they'll always be a perfect match.

You've got to have goals in life.

Ka-rip! Ka-rap! ka-rippolo tipollo tap,
O O rincto lincto hi-o totamus,
Hopula skipula copula gotamus,
Chink-ta-lak chink-ta-lee ka-willa ka-walla ka-victory!
Ooh Ooh hoog-u-la choog-u-la koog-u-la can,
Rag-u-la tag-u-la melcian man,
Let 'er go rip let 'er go ruse,
Ting-u-la tang-u-la turn 'em a loose,
ZIP! BANG! OBU!

Yep. Still can.

Life's Simple Pleasure #21

New windshield wipers.

It's an amazingly wonderful feeling when your check book balances to the penny.

It's also an amazingly wonderful thing when that balance is positive.

I'm sorry, but there's no way the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon. I don't care how many years you give it, it takes way more blind faith to believe a river did that than to believe God carved it with His own hands.

Der Mächtige Missouri Fluss, oder Der Rhein Fluss... Nehmen Sie Ihre Wahl
(The Mighty Missouri River, or the Rhine)



Germany and its culture and language somehow have a more profound impact on Missouri than one might think.

For example, before the capital city and my home, Jefferson City, was named after our third president, it was known as Old Muenchenberg. Today, Jeff City's "sister city" is the original Muenchenberg in Germany.

You want another example? Jefferson City is situated within the Missouri River Valley... or at least that's I thought. The "officially recognized" name for this geographic region is the Missouri Rhineland.

I live in the frickin' Rhineland.