Happy 4th of July, everyone! Gosh, it's hot. The weather.com says that it's 88 here right now, and feels like 92 with 55% humidity. I just stepped outside a few minutes ago, and it felt much warmer than that. Hight today, 96. Ouch. We're almost at human body temperature, here. The good news is, in San Diego, where we will be in approximately two weeks, the temperature is a scorching 79. Once again, the projected highs for the next 10 days average around 75 with lows each night in the mid 60's. Yowzer! And not a drop of rain in sight. Ah, but there are yet two weeks to endure before we leave for sunny California. Sunnydale, here we come. No. Wait. That's not a real place, is it? Dang. I've also been researching this little island off the coast of California, about 22 miles from LA. It's called Santa Catalina Island. Most people just call it Catalina, now, I think. I guess this is the home of the famous city called Avalon. I'm hoping that we can take a side trip to the island, but it looks like it takes the better part of a day to do this. We only have one day that's not scheduled in the LA/Anaheim area, so we have to choose between something like a trip to Catalina or a tour of Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Hmm...tough choice.

We went to the horse races last night at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie. We stayed for all 10 races (we were planning to catch the fireworks display, but as of 10:30pm they had still not started, and we were tired) and only placed $2 bets for each race. We let the kids pick a horse for each race and Christi and I picked one each, as well. The scary thing is this: Out of ten races, Stephanie's pick was in the money 9 times! She had almost $23 when we left. Rachel did better, finishing with almost $24. She had a couple of good runs. I bet $5 for her on "Victory Dawn" in one race (this was $5 that had been won from an earlier pick). Victory Dawn won the race, paying $8.50. Then in the final race, after a bitter disappointment out of the favored "Spiked Punch" in race 9, Rachel had me bet on "Dimmit County" to show. At the start of the race, Dimmit had odds of 38:1. Dimmit finished second, paying $11. Go Rachel! I did horribly. Of course, I take a little more risk than Christi does. I came oh, so close to getting a superfecta in one of the races. A superfecta is when you pick the first four runners in order. I got the right runners. They just finished in the wrong order. I didn't see how much it would have paid if I had won. Good thing...because in race 10, with Dimmit County coming in second with such high odds, the superfecta, on a measly little $2 bet, paid over $21,000!!! Yeah, you read that right. That's quite a return. Wonder if anyone did that??

Tonight, we are taking in a Fort Worth Cats game. The Cats are Fort Worth's professional baseball team. I forget what division they are, triple A or something like that. Anyway, after the game tonight, they are having a fireworks display. We will probably stay around for that one, since it will be Fort Worth's city fireworks display this year. We always have a good time at the Cats games, too. Much better than the Rangers. These guys play baseball because they like to play baseball. Not because they want to be greedy, whiny,....oh, heck. Don't even get me started!!

Happy 4th everyone!

Missed anything?
The Beatles--Abbey Road/Alice Cooper--Killer - July 04, 2012
The Beatles Eponymous Album - June 26, 2012
Autism's False Prophets - February 12, 2011
Santana--Guitar God? - November 11, 2010
Tribute To the Red Sox - September 29, 2010