Blowing up 1,300 pounds of fireworks

is an insane amount of fun, but it's also a great deal of work--at least to do safely and in a choreographed manner, as we did. (Pouring gas on them and dropping one match would also yield a cool result, but a differently cool one. We'll stick with what we're doing now.) Our annual Fourth of July party was the biggest ever, with well over a hundred people coming for the food and many more arriving just for the show.

I've written before in this blog about how amazing it is to stand under t...