San Jose/South Bay Fireworks for July 4th 2006 // June 30th, 2006

Here is a list of firework shows in the San Jose, South Bay area. If you know of any others, please list them in the comments.

Great America in Santa Clara will not have a firework show on the 4th, but the 1st through 3rd instead (lame).

  • NBC11 Festival for Independence (Downtown San Jose)
    This will probably be the biggest firework show on the 4th. Traffic isn’t that bad if you take the streets just north of downtown to get out. Forget 87 since it is closed until midnight.
  • Church on the Hill (San Jose)
    This one is the closest you’ll find to Willow Glen. I have a balcony view of this show. Photos may or may not follow.
  • Central Park (Santa Clara)
    I don’t know what to say about this one… I lived 2 blocks from Central Park for about 4 years and never noticed their 4th of July events.
  • Cupertino
    Fireworks Display at Cupertino High School, Cupertino Parks & Recreation
  • Morgan Hill
    This outpost town claims “Northern California’s largest Independence Day Celebration”, whatever. Head down there if you want to watch a 30 minute firework show then spend 1 hour in traffic trying to get out of there. More info…
  • Gilroy
    Just head to Morgan Hill and be thankful your high school’s mascot isn’t an acorn.

Also, the Merc has a listing of locations as well. Hopefully they won’t put this article behind their membership walls.

Again, please add any I may have missed in the comments.

update:My photos

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San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales Arrested // June 22nd, 2006

San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales and his top budget aide Joe Guerra were arrested and released by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s department this morning, according to Deputy Sheriff Serg Palanov.

[from The San Jose Mercury News (good job Merc... place a breaking news story behind your login system. For better San Jose news, head to CBS5 out of San Francisco) ]

It hasn’t been reported why Gonzales was arrested, but it is likely it has to do with the NorCal garbage contract scandal. The allegations are that the mayor helped Norcal Waste Systems get an $11.25 million contract. The Mercury News has a timeline of the events

Too bad this didn’t occur before the elections, when it could have helped drive up voter turnout.

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I Really Should Just Shut-up & Work on My Projects // June 16th, 2006

It appears that I, like many people, would rather talk about in-progress projects than actually work on them. I often have many project ideas going on in my head that I never see to completion for one reason or another. Usually I say I am going to do one thing then work on that idea for a while then… nothing, I move on to something else only to see someone else project similar to my first idea, and be successful. That stings, trust me.

So in that department, here is the latest on one idea I had of mine; Zombies. Yeah, that’s right, a zombie project. Remember that domain I sold? WorldoftheDead.com? That was going to be a part of it. I wanted to go from web to print then to screen, but since that would be so difficult for me, I figured to just keep it on the web.

My idea was to create a fictional world in which a global zombie outbreak occurs, from zero hour to decades later. I was going to detail the lives of many survivors in this new zombie world. That is about as far as I got. I never got around to working on my idea. I just put it off continually. It is all still in my head even though I’ve had this idea for a while, and the idea of turning it into a book or movie since 1997. It was all based on a recurring dream I had every few months from the time I was about 8 or 9 until 17 or so.

I’ve kept this idea in the back of my mind even after selling that domain (it wasn’t that integral, and remember I have the dot org address), but then I see this today;

“World War Z” also tackles the zombie genre but is set 10 years after a great global zombie epidemic and is a serious oral history of the zombie future told from many perspectives around the world. Crown Publishing is putting the book out in the fall.

[ Pitt outbids DiCaprio for zombie film rights ]

There you go… there are no unique ideas anymore, only people who shut-up, get off their ass, and just work on their ideas.

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‘The Shield’ Set to End in ‘08 // June 5th, 2006

Update on ‘The Shield’, one of my favorite television shows;

Even though FX aired a preview of the coming season with no premiere air date (just a ‘coming soon’ if I remember), it looks like season 6 won’t air until January 2007. Then the final season (#7) will most likely air a year later in 2008. Bummer.

“It has been the privilege of everyone at FX to work with Shawn Ryan, Michael Chiklis and their colleagues on The Shield,“ said Landgraf. “It has always been our intent to have the show exit television as it entered, as one of the best dramas series ever. We’re thrilled Shawn has come up with a great way to end the series and that it will require one final season for his vision to reach completion. We look forward, along with fans of the show, to following Vic Mackey on his final ride.”

via TVBarn.com

Also, the article provides some other interesting tidbits;

  • All Series Regulars on Board for Sixth and Seventh Seasons
  • Forest Whitaker is scheduled to return in a limited basis for season six

And one last quote from John Landgraf, President and General Manager of FX Networks, “We look forward, along with fans of the show, to following Vic Mackey on his final ride.”

So, let the speculation begin on how it all ends, or perhaps more appropriately, comes crashing down.

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