High Tech 4th of July

Last week, I received a pair of goofy looking 3-D glasses from architecture firm Hickok Cole. It's part of a continuing campaign -- an anniversary of some sort, but I can't remember exactly what. Anyway, I almost threw them away, assuming they were just 3-D glasses and I didn't have use for them. Aha! At the last minute, I saw that they were for watching fireworks. I had never seen such a thing, but I predict that next year we will ALL be wearing them on the 4th of July.

Somehow the plastic lenses splinter light into all colors like a prism. This makes watching fireworks a Timothy-Leary-like 3-D experience. Typically, fireworks bore me after around five minutes. First, seeming merely repetitive and then somehow progress into being disappointing, until the Big Finale. But this 4th of July, I lay on my back, my 3-D specs on, saying Wow, Wow, Wow, over and over, for the whole show. The only thing that interrupted my revery was having to share the specs with Al, so he could begin his own litany of Wow-ing.

Can't wait to check out Hickok Cole's Web site this week, to see what others say about their fireworks glass experiences. Now THAT'S a successful marketing campaign.

P.S. We also had a uniquely West Virginia high tech cooking experience on Independence Day -- beer can chicken. Basically, you put a beer can inside a whole chicken, stand the thing upright and grill on medium for one hour and 20 minutes. No watching, no basting. Totally delicious. Here's the high tech part -- we actually have a contraption that looks like interlocking bell curves on a stand. You can do without this, but it makes the chicken just a little more stable. Ah, technology!