FOURTH OF JULY, 2016

A pic of the Seattle Skyline on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, July 13th, 2016. Taken with my Canon A520 camera -- my Nikon snapshot camera's memory card is full. :-(

Last year I wrote a blog post on the Fourth Of July -- and now this year I find myself doing the same thing.

My new US Flag and Sammy the Cat.

I like holidays. I think part of it is because some holidays aren't celebrated as much as they used to be celebrated. May Day would be an example. In other parts of the world, May Day has always been an overseas version of our Labor Day. Here in the U.S. we have our own Labor Day at the end of Summer. Historically, in the U.S., May Day was only celebrated in some areas of the country that had German or Scandinavian immigrants. Up until the 1960's they still had the custom of making May baskets in some areas of the country.

A new US Flag, for sale at a local Fred Meyer 'box store'.

You'd make a 'basket' out of colored construction paper, with a paper handle glued on it, put some flowers in it, hang it on someone's door, ring their doorbell and run away.

Now, here in the U.S., May Day is more of a time for street protests -- and sometimes small riots.

But I digress.

Several of my US Flags I had outside during the Fourth Of July. It was mostly cloudy this Fourth -- it cleared up during the evening.

This Fourth Of July was a decent one for me. I went over to a friend's house where we ate hot dogs, beans, potato salad, and corn-on-the-cob: the traditional Fourth Of July meal. All around my friend's apartment complex, people were lighting off fireworks: big rockets that made starbursts in the sky.

One of several pics I got of fireworks in Auburn, a city 12 miles (15-20 km) south of me. My Nikon's "Fireworks" setting worked better than planned.

I took my Nikon L32 with me, and was able to get several decent photographs of skyrockets bursting in the air.

A series of pictures I took of local fireworks in Auburn. Most of these are "mortars", skyrockets set in a large, thick cardboard tube. Most of them were probably purchased at a nearby Indian Reservation.

We also watched two movies, I, Robot (starring Will Smith) and Mel Gibson's The Patriot. The Patriot was appropriate, as it is a movie about the Revolutionary War, and the Fourth Of July was the day that the Thirteen Colonies declared their Independence from the mother country.

A bunny rabbit near an open space next to my dentist's office. Taken this past week on my Nikon L32.

Mount Rainier obscured by clouds -- pic taken from my dentist's office in Tukwila, WA.

Earlier this year Mount Rainier could easily be seen from the same window.

A pic from the inside of the dentist's building. Trying to be creative with the camera.

They have the best coffee at my dentist's, ironically. It is made in one of those coffee makers that make coffee by the cup.

This Fourth I put out my flags. I bought a new flag which was on sale at the local box store, Fred Meyer -- part of the Kroger chain. I don't have any flagpoles out front, so I just shove the poles into my front hedge. As I said in a previous post, this Fourth has more meaning for me than previous Fourths. The country is going through some turmoil, and during such times it makes one reflect upon what it means to be an American.

As you can tell from some of my photos, I had a visit to the dentist's office this week, during Thursday afternoon. It was a warm and balmy day. A bunny rabbit was out munching on grasses, and I got a picture before it ran away. Luckily, I only needed some previous dental work checked. My tooth is healing better than expected, thank God.

THE SUN IS MOVING SOUTHWARDS :-(

Otherwise, life has been the same. The weather has just started to pick up -- for about two and a half weeks we had mostly cloudy weather, with temps around 65F / 18C or so. Now the sun is back. The "solstice sundial" I wrote about in earlier blog posts shows that the sun heading south, as can been seen in these two pictures, taken on different days over the past two weeks:

The sun setting over my 'solstice' hill, June 25th.

The sun setting from the same position, July 13th or 14th. You can see the sun behind a different tree about 1/4 way to the left of the picture. I took this picture with my Canon A520.

Just after sunset the Cedar River Trail looks like a golden, shining path.

In a way, seeing the sun head south again is depressing, because it means the days will get shorter and shorter, and soon enough -- Winter will be here. Sometimes I get the post Solstice blahs, just as I get the post Christmas blahs. It just happens. Both times of the year seems like gifts from God -- one is a time to celebrate religion and family and put up lots of colored lights, the other is a time of light and warmth. And when both seasons are gone, it's a bit of a let down.

Earlier today I took a ride on my bike, and took my trusty Canon A520 with me. A couple flowers have sprouted up alongside the Trail... They're probably weeds, but they still look cool:

This flower or weed is so bright a white that it shows up during twilight in early evening. It looks like a relative of the Yarrow plant.

I have no idea what sort of flower or plant this is. But it's a bright cheery yellow on a cloudy summer morning.

HARBINGER OF FALL

The other day while riding my bicycle I noticed this low branch of Oregon Big Leaf Maple leaves. They're already in Fall colors. Yikes. I think the cool weather we had over the past few weeks (since Solstice) -- combined with the hot April we had -- has fooled some of the trees. Or -- at least I hope that's the reason!

As I write this, it's about 22C out, and still cloudy. The weather man says it will be sunny later today. I'll probably work out later today, and do some yard work.

For those readers who are into the radio hobby, it's been a dull month or two lately. HF is mediocre, and the MW / AM band is fair to mediocre at night. KBRE 1660 / 105.7 The Bear comes in after 2 a.m. most nights in varying quality. I've sort of lost my enthusiasm for the radio hobby because atmospheric conditions have been so poor.

The late afternoon of June 26th, several families had picnics at the local "beach", a large sandbar at the Cedar River Trestle. It's a popular place for locals to picnic and swim, and has been for several generations.

I am planning a blog post of some Seattle pictures and Spring pictures I never got around to posting here. I hope to post some new pictures on my Flickr soon, which is located here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/120507399@N03/

My Flickr has a lot of pictures taken of the Cedar River area, the Seattle area, a few of the Seattle Skyline, and other pictures taken with all my cameras over the past two years or so.

ATTACKS IN FRANCE -- THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS

My thoughts and prayers go out to the French people: they are getting hit hard by terrorist attacks and it's disheartening. Here in the U.S. we've had some shootings that have obviously made the news, Orlando being the worst, numerically; and Dallas being the latest bad one. But the latest attack in France was terrible, with the guy running over families and shooting at people. Hopefully the authorities in both countries can figure a way to quell this kind of horrific violence.

A sunny day near the unknown flowers alongside the Trail. The closest thing I'll get to a selfie this blog post.

I hope my American readers had a safe and sane Fourth, and my overseas readers are having a great July overall... Stay safe, everybody.

CC 7-16-2016