You always forget how much you love something till you haven’t had it for a while.

Jan. 1 I got to have a taste of the first smell.  At 12am I left of a mini fireworks show at my in-laws which was great.  I felt like an alcoholic having his first taste of alcohol in months.  Pretty much since the 3rd party I hadn’t really done much or really thought about fireworks.  I was pretty burned out from the work that went into last years show (2008).  Not that I was sick of fireworks altogether but I just didn’t want to think about a show anymore.  I much preferred just grabbing a few shells and hand lighting them over fusing a 45 minute show together.

So for this mini showI shot off around a dozen shells (Critical Acclaims, Lock n Loads, End of days) and 3 cakes.  Pretty much I was just looking through all the stuff I had left over from the 3rd and picked enough to throw out and have some fun.  I left Lightning at home because I’m still waiting to see if I can get more next year.  I have 2 haunted sitting up top as well which I plan to save for when my buddy Wade’s around cause he liked the effect.  It also blew out last year on the side which I didn’t want to risk happening again.  So the 3 cakes I picked out were Digital Experience, Fishbowl Commotion and Quake.  The first 2 are ones I love and saved because of that.  Quake seemed to be the big winner at the 3rd show so I used that as the finale.  Overall when I was done I had my nose in the tubes just soaking up that great smell.

So this is the first year I have shot anything at New Years.  I was going to last year but in the end just didn’t feel like going out in the cold and snow to do it though I kind of regret it now.  But this year it was insane out.  I had never heard fireworks on New Years before but this year it was insane.  There were people shooting in all directions.  I really think this was an effect of the new local ordinance stopping you from shooting anytime.  Now people have to shoot more during these couple days since they can’t spread it out.  At the same time you still had tons of people who didn’t care and shot whenever they could.  I’m going to ask for statistics from this year soon so I can get a gauge of how it was different.  But that’s an argument for another day 

The second smell I had was that of BBQ.  The icy conditions let up enough for me to bust out the grill and at least make up something quick and simple.  I put some steaks and burgers on the grill and the smell was just amazing.  It was a rush to get that again.  Hopefully will have a better smoker built in the near future that will better handle the harsh winters so I can have BBQ all year long but that is still a bit off and will need to do more research.

Had a post I wrote last year in January still sitting as a draft and will probably put it up this January.

Overall getting ready to build the smoker i have been wanting to.  Got a nice 1/4 inch steel tube that will be perfect for the main portion.  Still looking for a for the burner portion but that will come.  As well going to pick up an Arduino to help regulate the temp with fans.  Hopefully that will be finished up this summer for some fun times.  If I get that running well then it will probably be time to take a Competition class so I can learn get prepared for giving that a shot, but we will see.

On the Fireworks front, hoping to pick up some nice things this year and finish up some nice racks with the tubes I got last year.  As well will probably use the Arduino on a project related to the firing side of all that.  We will see though.  My mom saw some fireworks related Christmas decorations that she would like to get/have me make.  Being that the ones I found online were pretty expensive I thought why not give trying to make some a shot.  Again the Arduino will come in handy for this.  :)  Will need to find some cheap lights in these after Christmas sale to play with.  Have some other interesting ideas in relation to this as well but those will have to wait for next year.

So what’s getting me back into writing about this?  Well been doing some more social networking for work stuff and getting inspired by those blogging peeps to actually try to keep up with some sort of schedule, even if it’s bi-weekly.  While writing about what I’m doing is always still going to be the main focus, I plan to try and keep my ear to the ground and at least comment on other things going on with both BBQ and fireworks.

As well I plan to talk about some local breweries that are springing up all over Northwest Indiana.  Brews are definitely something that go hand in hand with BBQ.

I will be writing a few articles up about some other local Social Media peeps that have gotten me back interested.

As well from a conversation I had on twitter with a few peeps, I picked up @bbqtweetup and bbqtweetup.com because I think actually having meetups to share and talk about BBQ would be great. While others wanted to have one this January, I’m not sure if I’m ready for that quite yet but next January I think it will be one.  I’m shooting for first one this summer, hopefully with the new smoker completed.

Well here is to a more productive next year.  :)

Hope to see you all soon,

Richard