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The Iceman
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41 minutes ago, KamuSnow said:

Not sure about NJ but in PA since 2017. No m80s etc., but smaller stuff and skyrockets, etc. Bottle rocket fights are still illegal however, lol.

M80s etc will always be "underground" stuff and illegal in my lifetime. In the late 80s I paid like $3/pc ($60 for 20pcs?) from "some guy" and yeah they could  blow your hand off.... 

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13 minutes ago, Birds~69 said:

M80s etc will always be "underground" stuff and illegal in my lifetime. In the late 80s I paid like $3/pc ($60 for 20pcs?) from "some guy" and yeah they could  blow your hand off.... 

Back in the day in the back of Popular Science there was a classified section where they had ads for 100ft of underwater fuse and a fireworks catalog for a dollar, lol.

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3 minutes ago, KamuSnow said:

Back in the day in the back of Popular Science there was a classified section where they had ads for 100ft of underwater fuse and a fireworks catalog for a dollar, lol.

My dad (in the 1970s) would get explosives from "a guy at work" and our family would sit outside on the 4th blow them off. Dad (probably a bit loaded) would miss the lawn and land on the driveway. Next day he would wonder why the driveway/asphalt was cracked with blown out chunks. Then he would have to buy tar/asphalt filling to patch the holes/cracks because my mom was bitching at him.....lol, crazy shit in the 70s!

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33 minutes ago, Birds~69 said:

My dad (in the 1970s) would get explosives from "a guy at work" and our family would sit outside on the 4th blow them off. Dad (probably a bit loaded) would miss the lawn and land on the driveway. Next day he would wonder why the driveway/asphalt was cracked with blown out chunks. Then he would have to buy tar/asphalt filling to patch the holes/cracks because my mom was bitching at him.....lol, crazy shit in the 70s!

Yeah, lol. I was up to 300 feet of fuse at one point - 2 rolls of red, 1 roll of green. I got a kit to make estes type rocket engines, and used to tape them to a stick and plug the upper end with some loose powder on top of the compressed fuel = large bottle rockets. Safety first, for the most part. Wouldn't go there nowadays, you'd wind up in the local newspaper, lol.

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10 minutes ago, KamuSnow said:

Interesting having a love of weather and fun with fireworks in common. One of my fantasy careers was being an astronaut, but I was too tall to be a pilot, not that I would have necessarily accomplished that. Just tying together weather and fireworks, lol.

It's the correlation with thunder 

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16 minutes ago, KamuSnow said:

Yeah, lol. I was up to 300 feet of fuse at one point - 2 rolls of red, 1 roll of green. I got a kit to make estes type rocket engines, and used to tape them to a stick and plug the upper end with some loose powder on top of the compressed fuel = large bottle rockets. Safety first, for the most part. Wouldn't go there nowadays, you'd wind up in the local newspaper, lol.

Back then, safety wasn't a priority and literally no one got hurt?? Just hungover memories. (I was too young)

Half the shit people did back then would be considered such a crime now...strange. (No political stuff here)

Visiting my Father tomorrow for his 88th B-Day...these are some pretty good memories to share w/him. I have a Dorney park memory he'll get a kick at as well...it involves a VW bright orange station wagon we had to push to pop the clutch/start to get home. It wasn't white trash but 70s...

70s.jpg

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1 minute ago, Birds~69 said:

Back then, safety wasn't a priority and literally no one got hurt?? Just hungover memories. (I was too young)

Half the shit people did back then would be considered such a crime now...strange. (No political stuff here)

Visiting my Father tomorrow for his 88th B-Day...these are some pretty good memories to share w/him. I have a Dorney park memory he'll get a kick at as well...it involves a VW bright orange station wagon we had to push to pop the clutch/start to get home. It wasn't white trash but 70s...

70s.jpg

That thing is begging to have the word Fanta in big letters somewhere.

 

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3 minutes ago, RedSky said:

That thing is begging to have the word Fanta in big letters somewhere.

 

And probably worth a shit- load of money restored. 

And my uncle (Father's brother) had the good old green VW beetle. Also worth a shitload of money restored...I honestly think he drove in that more tanked than sober. It was the 70s!!!!

image.png.9f6b0e8f3db6c4d5b0a83d88112e9d47.png

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1 hour ago, Birds~69 said:

Back then, safety wasn't a priority and literally no one got hurt?? Just hungover memories. (I was too young)

Half the shit people did back then would be considered such a crime now...strange. (No political stuff here)

Visiting my Father tomorrow for his 88th B-Day...these are some pretty good memories to share w/him. I have a Dorney park memory he'll get a kick at as well...it involves a VW bright orange station wagon we had to push to pop the clutch/start to get home. It wasn't white trash but 70s...

70s.jpg

Happy Birthday to your Dad!

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37 minutes ago, KamuSnow said:

Happy Birthday to your Dad!

Thanks!

My father is still "with it" but my mother (also 88) has dementia and doesn't know who I am (or anyone) . Sucked at first (2005) but nothing you can do and it doesn't phase me anymore. Simmons lack of shooting pisses me off moreso. He can do something about it where as my mother/older folks can't... 

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On 6/26/2021 at 8:48 PM, Birds~69 said:

And probably worth a shit- load of money restored. 

And my uncle (Father's brother) had the good old green VW beetle. Also worth a shitload of money restored...I honestly think he drove in that more tanked than sober. It was the 70s!!!!

image.png.9f6b0e8f3db6c4d5b0a83d88112e9d47.png

OMG the summer before my senior year in college (summer of '82) I was a new student's counselor doing sessions from the end of June until the beginning of August, and one of the other counselors had one of those - I think even the same color (with bench seats in front and back and it was naturally a stick).  On July 4th that summer, we had off that weekend, so 9 of us jammed in one of those - 3 in the front (including the driver) and 6 in the back with 3 lap-sitters), driving from Amherst, MA to Provincetown, MA, which is right on the tip of the Cape Cod hook (it was around a 90 mile trip each way).  What a blast!  The car owner/counselor's parents had a beach house on the bay side of the Cape in Brewster where we stayed for a couple nights (in the attic). On the way back, one of the other counselors who had met up with us there,  had his own car, so we were able offload 2 for the trip back, only having 7. :lol:

It is shocking how small the Beetles look on the outside but they were actually roomy inside (I guess if you're young :lmao:).

Hope your dad had a happy birthday! :thumbsup:  My dad's birthday would have been a couple days before yours (June 25th) and if he were still around, he'd be 97 this year.

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3 hours ago, Hurricane Agnes said:

OMG the summer before my senior year in college (summer of '82) I was a new student's counselor doing sessions from the end of June until the beginning of August, and one of the other counselors had one of those - I think even the same color (with bench seats in front and back and it was naturally a stick).  On July 4th that summer, we had off that weekend, so 9 of us jammed in one of those - 3 in the front (including the driver) and 6 in the back with 3 lap-sitters), driving from Amherst, MA to Provincetown, MA, which is right on the tip of the Cape Cod hook (it was around a 90 mile trip each way).  What a blast!  The car owner/counselor's parents had a beach house on the bay side of the Cape in Brewster where we stayed for a couple nights (in the attic). On the way back, one of the other counselors who had met up with us there,  had his own car, so we were able offload 2 for the trip back, only having 7. :lol:

It is shocking how small the Beetles look on the outside but they were actually roomy inside (I guess if you're young :lmao:).

Hope your dad had a happy birthday! :thumbsup:  My dad's birthday would have been a couple days before yours (June 25th) and if he were still around, he'd be 97 this year.

My family (6 of us including myself) plus camping gear in the VW wagon went to the mountains sometime in the 70s. I don't think my Dad planned it out because on some of the hills we couldn't make it above 30mph....people passing us. Looking back, kinda funny. 

Thanks. I think he's happy w/people around and feeling ok for his age. He has his garden as well. Unlike me, he hates the winter. Probably because his bones start creaking. He turned 88 and doesn't look/act any different than 87 so I take this as a good sign. 

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Ok, I get it, fireworks are awesome. But can we PLEASE save them for, oh I dunno, tomorrow night (or tomorrow, at the very least)??? Someone has been setting off one huge firework every 30-60 minutes this afternoon in my neighborhood and it's giving me a freaking heart attack each time.

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26 minutes ago, CoolHandMike said:

Ok, I get it, fireworks are awesome. But can we PLEASE save them for, oh I dunno, tomorrow night (or tomorrow, at the very least)??? Someone has been setting off one huge firework every 30-60 minutes this afternoon in my neighborhood and it's giving me a freaking heart attack each time.

This must be your worst nightmare. The 4th falls on a Sunday so people will be (or have been) getting tanked and exploding stuff the whole weekend and probably through Monday since that's the "observed" holiday. Personally, I like the whole idea of explosions 24/7 the whole weekend til Monday and don't get upset in the least bit. After that, I understand...

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45 minutes ago, Birds~69 said:

This must be your worst nightmare. The 4th falls on a Sunday so people will be (or have been) getting tanked and exploding stuff the whole weekend and probably through Monday since that's the "observed" holiday. Personally, I like the whole idea of explosions 24/7 the whole weekend til Monday and don't get upset in the least bit. After that, I understand...

I think it would be ok if it was more often than just one huge BOOM every once in a while. I'd hate to have actual PTSD right now. That said, I have a whole big-a$$ box of fireworks to set off tomorrow night at my parent's farm. :)

 

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14 hours ago, stemwinder said:

Summer cicadas been buzzing here for the last couple of days.  Just a couple.  Tree frogs have been singing all spring/summer.

Does anyone know if the frogs eat cicadas?  They must have been happy this year with Brood X.

We've had a few cicadas for the last week or so, nothing over the top. Lightning bugs seemed to have peaked, plus that wind late Thursday probably did a number on them.

We've got the tree frogs here too, and the other night my wife found a "mini-frog" on the storm door - it was about 5/8" long. No, it wasn't a cricket, although at first glance it looked like one, size-wise. First time for that!

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56 minutes ago, KamuSnow said:

We've had a few cicadas for the last week or so, nothing over the top. Lightning bugs seemed to have peaked, plus that wind late Thursday probably did a number on them.

We've got the tree frogs here too, and the other night my wife found a "mini-frog" on the storm door - it was about 5/8" long. No, it wasn't a cricket, although at first glance it looked like one, size-wise. First time for that!

I had one sounding off in my living room.  Thought it was a trapped bird.  Finally let it out onto my deck during the storm Thursday night.  Figured it would be happy in the moisture.  Hope he jumped off the deck before the crows got him in the AM.

 

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37 minutes ago, stemwinder said:

I had one sounding off in my living room.  Thought it was a trapped bird.  Finally let it out onto my deck during the storm Thursday night.  Figured it would be happy in the moisture.  Hope he jumped off the deck before the crows got him in the AM.

 

That's funny! We first started hearing them in the woods about 5 years ago (in the afternoon), and at first we thought they were birds calling back and forth, but we'd never see them. So we looked up tree frogs, and that's what we found that matched the sound, gray tree frogs.

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On 7/10/2021 at 12:21 PM, stemwinder said:

I had one sounding off in my living room.  Thought it was a trapped bird.  Finally let it out onto my deck during the storm Thursday night.  Figured it would be happy in the moisture.  Hope he jumped off the deck before the crows got him in the AM.

 

Wish I could make a weird sound to call a female.

Critters are the only redeeming aspect of summer.....I would say BBQ'ing as well but I do that in the Fall/Winter as well.

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5 hours ago, Birds~69 said:

Wish I could make a weird sound to call a female.

 

Surely you don't mean a female frog - :o 

Joking aside, the trees around here are full of frog calls at night.  Never paid much attention before, but they were around over in Englishtown/Manalapan NJ too when I visited last Saturday.  Must be the high Dewpoints this summer.  There were lots of 17 year cicadas around here. Plenty of mosquitos too.  

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  • 4 weeks later...
10 minutes ago, CoolHandMike said:

Caught this headline in the local rag: "Winter in Berks might be rough, forecasts and signals show"

https://www.readingeagle.com/local-news/winter-in-berks-might-be-rough-forecasts-and-signals-show/article_2a893f8e-f771-11eb-935b-07a250729df9.html

One (retired) met is calling this year analogous to 2010... :blink: Here's hoping!:weenie::weenie::weenie:

Well so far the hurricane season is almost to a tee the same as 2009.  I don’t know about the winter of 2010 but the winter of 2009-2010 PHL picked up 78” of snow. 

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2 hours ago, CoolHandMike said:

Caught this headline in the local rag: "Winter in Berks might be rough, forecasts and signals show"

https://www.readingeagle.com/local-news/winter-in-berks-might-be-rough-forecasts-and-signals-show/article_2a893f8e-f771-11eb-935b-07a250729df9.html

One (retired) met is calling this year analogous to 2010... :blink: Here's hoping!:weenie::weenie::weenie:

We can hope, right?? :weenie:

Interesting speculation in the NYC forum, about how winter years that end in 1-2 kind of suck, for instance...

2011-12 dead ratter

2001-02 dead ratter

1991-92 m'eh, an occasional nickel & dimer in there

1981-82 a good winter as I recall

1971-72 starting to get a bit before my time, but I don't think it was anything special

Is there some sort of physical cycle at work here, or just random coincidence? I suspect the latter, but maybe that's because I'm a weenie who wants a snowy winter.

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