Ryan, Meghan, Erin, Anne, Matt, Jason and Jess came over last night. We hung out, barbecued and then we broke out the fireworks. Once it got dark enough out, Ryan, Matt and I had a Roman Candle battle. We went into the back yard where it was pitch black, lit them at the same time, ran to different parts of the yard, shooting the roman candle shots at each other. Picture this: It's pitch black until you're temporarily blinded by the roman candle fireball shooting out of your tube. Until this point, you're pretty much guessing where the other guy's at, until yous ee it light up the area he's in and you adjust your aim. Meanwhile, one's coming back at you and you're trying to dodge that and not take one in the eyeball. This was a great adrenaline rush, dodging balls of fire.

I read in the paper yesterday that 9300 injuries occur from fireworks. Jess is now a number. An errant bottle rocket went crazy and bounced off her, nicking her arm enough to draw blood. Didn't explode on her, didn't kill her, but it was clearly enough to add to the statistics.