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I remember clearly, last year on the 4th of July, I was at work while the rest of Wausau was at Marathon Park eating brats and greasy hamburgers smothered in fried onions; and, of course, washing it all down with plenty of beer. This year, there was nothing stopping me and boy am I stuffed.

Yes, I have as you know, gained my independence (which is a euphemism for unemployment) and this year I can enjoy the Independence Day weekend. I went to the park last night with Julie and had a great time -- even with the tornado warnings. until the "all clear" was received by those in charge of the celebration, though, all of the concession stands were shut down, not even a beer could be had and if you don't need a beer in a crisis, when do you? But it didn't last long and the festivities soon resumed.

The drummer for my former band, Dan, was playing in the beer tent with his current band Frontier. He came prepared with his own cooler of beer which was soon emptied by the rest of the band about as soon as they found that even they couldn't buy one. As soon as the word came down that the tornado threat had passed, though, Frontier resumed playing and Julie and I headed for the grand stand area where we could get one of those hamburgers (or two).

Not only did they shut everything down and we had to wait for the grills to heat up again, but by then I was famished and when we finally got to order, I over did it -- but I'm feeling much better now. Let's just say that I had no desire to ride on any of the carnival rides -- not that I would have anyway...

Anyone who checked in here early this week will by now already know that I am actually a day early in posting this week's installment. That's because we are leaving in a couple of hours to go up north to St. Germain for the remainder of the weekend. Julie's parents reserved a campsite and I'm going camping with the in-laws . . . it's been a long time since I've been able to go on one of these excursions and despite what you may think, I am looking forward to it.

I'm looking forward to doing nothing much at all, my only real goal for the weekend is to finish my first braille novel: Stephen King's "The Green Mile," book one in the six book series. I'm still reading very slowly but I'm improving and I think that reading by the camp fire will be very enjoyable --but I'll have to be careful not to get any melted marshmallow on the book.

Well, I suppose I should get my butt in the shower so we can hit the road, so until next week: have a great weekend . . . I know I will.