Things we can and can't have

Every year, the manufactured housing community down the hill from my house has a community yard sale. The sales tend to be highly underwhelming, but they're a good bike ride, and ever so often there's a gem, such as the quad receiver I bought a few years back.

This year's prize was an Atari 5200 game console, complete with some games and a couple of the 5200's infamous joysticks. Ooh, I wanted one of those back in the day (I can clearly picture the display in Pamida), and the price was totally reasonable (30 bucks). But I knew, based on my 1990s swap-meet days, that it would almost certainly not work, and it would definitely not fit in my bike bags (the console itself was comically huge). And so I went home without it. I hope some other nerd snapped it up.

I did, however, buy a Matchbox version of the Citroen Ami - the adorably funky small electric car/"quadricycle" that we can't have in the US, sigh - and brought it home for boyo.

Independence Day 2025 / Sea Dragon

I biked to feed my brother's cats and stopped by a yard sale on the way home. An old printing business is selling off their old tractor-feed stickers for like 25 cents a case, very very tempting, but being on the bike saved me from myself again.

To get out of the blast zone in our neighborhood we went for a hike. My wife looked at her Gwoogwoo Photos and noted that we usually go hiking on the 4th... well, why not? It was nice to hike even if my kid made me run to the restroom from the top of the hill. No matter. We climbed it again.

We were hungry afterwards and looked for restaurants to eat at. Everyone was closed except for our beloved nearby Chinese cart. Eating their reliably tasty food inevitably makes me think of my formative Chinese food experiences at the Sea Dragon restaurant in Fort Dodge, IA. I did the inevitable search and found that (1) the restaurant closed in 1997, and (2) one of the owners died late last year after being hit by an SUV. I like this line from her obituary:

Even in retirement, she taught herself audio and video editing, amassing hundreds of YouTube followers, and an impressive number of copyright strikes for her homemade music videos.

In sadly unsurprising news, there was at least one article blaming the person walking: something like "There are NO marked crosswalks at this location." Unbelievable. Not only should it be OK to, you know, cross the road, it doesn't look like there are any marked crosswalks anywhere remotely near that location.

It also may not surprise you to know that after the boy went to sleep, I rode around my neighborhood silently on the bicycle, taking in the scene. There were moments where I came across a firework going off in the middle of the street, and I paused to look at it and not spoil their moment. Then I rode off into the hazy night.