Fourth of July Photos - Live from Imperial Beach!

I'm going to try to keep this under fifty words. These were all shot from the north end of Imperial Beach, looking south toward the pier. I needed light and stability, so I shot pretty much from beach level. There are more, but they're not as good...

Big Bay Boom 2011 - The view from Imperial Beach

There were hundreds on the beach where we were.

Some were bright enough to light up the entire beach.

Some of the explosions were even heart-shaped.



Fireworks were going off in San Diego too, but no one here seemed to notice.



The morning after, the beach was quiet and nearly empty. Only a slight scent of fireworks hung in the air.



 More photos are online at Imperial Beach Patch.

After some delays, I finally decided to start blogging for the Patch network. Patch is an online newspaper located in smaller towns than the also-online Examiner covers. But whereas Examiner is all about "experts" putting their spin on things, Patch keeps it objective. It tells you the facts in true news fashion, and lets you decide for yourself, instead of being told what to think about a situation and why.

So is there much in common between them? Not a whole lot, except for the whole "online" thing. And like many of the other online news organizations, Patch offers a platform for blogging. After being invited to participate by Khari Johnson, Imperial Beach Patch's editor-in-chief, I decided I wanted to be onboard.

I'll probably post more links here to Patch articles, then I do posting links from Patch to the Washroom. For now, this is my first blog post for them. Check out a link or two. It's worth reading.

Perspectives, Neighbors, and Walking the Dog at 1 a.m.

"As far as I can tell, there are three types of folks in Imperial Beach: those who have been here for years, those whose military service brings them here, and those who simply arrived and don't want to leave. I'm in the third group.

Fact is: I'm relatively new to California, only having been here a few years. I'm originally from parts south - Mississippi, Arkansas, those kinds of places.

When I was much younger, still in high school, my family visited San Diego as part of a vacation. I discovered that I had a warm spot in my heart for this part of Southern California that never quite went away. But it was decades before I returned.

My girlfriend accepted a job out here about five years ago. I helped her drive across the country to move and settle in. Her new job was in Chula Vista, and she got an apartment in Otay Ranch. Two years later, when I finally decided to make the move myself, we got a different, larger apartment, still in that part of town.

If I was to say it didn't do much for me, I'd be minimizing it. In actuality, I found it a soul-numbing, mind-draining sort of place - not at all the California I wanted to live in."

Click to keep reading at Imperial Beach Patch...