4th of July, 1989

The Invite

[ House Rivalry ] Message #127 Fri Jun 16, 1989 6:46pm
From: Armoror
Subject: trenchcoat

  sounds good to me.
  And yes, I s'pose I should mention it now that the subject has been
raised...
  MEGA-PYROTECHNICAL-INCINDIARY-LOUDLOUDLOUD-PARTY!!!!!
  This 4th of July, on Seaside Beach (down near Monterey).
  There'll be ~$0.5k of grossly unlawful, un-safe'n'sane
fireworks.
  DO NOT PLAN ON ATTENDING unless you like LOUD NOISES in
your immediate vicinity, or at least can stand them.  People
won't be going over to the next dune to do their 'works.... :-)
However, they will be intensely discouraged from aiming them
at anyone (at least in our group  :-)
  There will be a BBQ grill.  I'll probably plan on getting
down there around 3-4.  I'll lead a convoy for whoever wants
to leave when I do.
  Further details will be posted/mailed later, along (hopefully)
with a map.  For a description of what our previous 4th parties
have been like, read my (spcecdt's) toe file.  This party will
be VERY tame compared to the description you see there, since
we no longer have the private site available, but will still be
lots-o-fun(tm).
[ House Rivalry ] Message #132 Sun Jun 18, 1989 6:25pm
From: Silverlock
Subject: heh heh

we'll go!  I'll even bring my flamethrower-in-a-can
so I can use it somewhere I don't have to worry about
burning down the neighborhood...
[ House Rivalry ] Message #133 Sun Jun 18, 1989 9:57pm
From: Dave?
Subject: 4th of July

I'm looking forward to it!!!! And, yeah, you bet I'll stay to the very
end of it...

Gonna be a good summer...
From ceowyn (The Archmage)
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 89 21:29:23 -0700
To: spcecdt
Subject: the shipment...


has arrived.

got a big box from a mr. floyd thompson filled with all manner of
brightly coloured stuff.

hmmm...maybe i'll hold it for ransom...
[ general ] Message 9297 Wed July 5 1989 6:38am
From: koreth (koreth@ucscb)
Subject: 4th of july

pretty nifty.  i wonder what john will cook up to outdo himself next year...
[ general ] Message 9303 Wed July 5 1989 2:55pm
From: Zaphod, Fugitive Galactic Prez (spcecdt@ucscb)
Subject: bottle rockets

    hmm... in my bottle rocket war with Ken I was hit twice.  didn't hit him
once, even though i expended more rockets.  'course he had Black Cats, which
flew a lot straighter than the Sky Travels I had...  :-)  After the first hit
I put on eye protection.
    5 rolls of film... 185 pics... yow.  back by Friday hopefully.  I'd like
to see Q's videotape of the affair.
    This was definitely one of the best 4ths ever.  The scale of pyrotechnics
wasn't up to what it was back when we were celebrating at the sand plant, but
I had a lot more friends at this one than ever before... :-)
    And of course since we got away with this, next year will be even 
wild-'n'-crazier.  heh.
[ nocturnal cuisine ] Message #23 Wed Jul 5, 1989 2:53am
From: Lydia (demeter@ucscb.UCSC.EDU)
Subject: Beach party

was very fun.  Much sun, much sand (it ended up
EVERYWHERE), many loud noises.

I would also like to announce that a crew of five (me, Fritz,
John McGowan, John Weber, and Jeff [account trent]) ended up
cleaning up  after everyone was gone for about 1/2 hour . . .
the police came but didn't say anything to us, I think because
we looked like such good citizens cleaning up the beach ;-)
I think they had gotten a report of the famous last explosion
at our site.
[ nocturnal cuisine ] Message #52 Sun Jul 9, 1989 1:05am
From: highlander (falcon@ucscb.UCSC.EDU)
Subject: additional stories

i had called robby and kristin from work on the 3rd and
asked if they were comin up.. they said they would but they had
not money (for things like gas). so i donated $10 for the
cause and by the time i had gotten home had a message on my
machine saying to expect them shortly. i had sent a piece of mail
to mike knight earlier saying i'd come to SF and kill him if he
didnt show up, but when i got home, i found a note that said
"martha? Martha?" so i knew he was already here... (long story there).
shortly i got a call from him and told him to come by.. we went
and got some dinner with scott and steeve and then went to see
Dead Poet Society with john and mike k.  when we got back , john called
and said that robby, kristin and their housemate, trish had arrived 
and were at the armory. a food run was planne so we all went out
to what turned out to be the largest run of the summer so far.
robby, kristin, trish, and mike knight all came back to my place
where i taught all but kristin (who was slightly sick) how to play
pinochle and then we proceeded to play until about 7am on the 4th..
we then went out to get some food and hit safeway, came back, ate some
and then started to drop off one by one, tryin to catch some sleep
before heading out to monteray.. woke up at 3pm and got ready
and gave john a call to find he was about to leave.. told him to wait 
for us and then we went on our way.  got there to find the large
number of cars as mentione by john and told him we needed to go get
gas and stop at 7-11 and figured we'd catch up with them on the way
(hoped so since i wasnt sure if i could remember how to get there
from last year)... well, robby was driving about 65-85 the entire
way and we never pass anyone and were startin to think we were 
ahead of em. well, we took the sand city exit at the last moment
and kristin recognized the McDonalds.. (what a landmark, eh?)

we proceeded to look for parking and found it was crazier than
the year before.. finally found one way way down and started on our walk
back, me carrying the large bag of works i ordered with john originally.
found john already there and the site the exact same place as the previous
year... then, going by my comment on the walk over of "listen for
the bottle rockets, thats what mike goes into first" mike started
lighting of his bottle rockets and things slowly progressed from there.

here i'll let john continue up from when he opened his works
and then put my input later.
This web page maintained by John DuBois