A loud report "bang!", a bright flash of light ( of different colors ) "flash!), a puff of stinky smoke "poof"
"Bang, Flash, Poof" a way of setting money on fire while also releasing pollutants linked to health problems and environmental harm.
As a small child I remember burning my hand after lighting fuses with a small lighter, the lit fuse blowing out a jet of burning hot combustion gases nearly instantly after the flame of the lighter touches the fuse, the heat energy from the butane flame high enough to overcome the energy of activation to start the chemical reactions between the fuel and oxidizer in the often lacquer coated green colored fuse, or common cannon fuse or corded fuse, effectively a chemical delay combustion device that creates a small time delay between when you light the firework and when it starts "going off" emitting light and sound and smoke. The word "Fuse" has many meanings, but here it refers to fireworks fuses. The piezo button light propane torch was the next innovative product my adoptive father purchases for use around the house and garage, that became the main way to light fireworks that also prevented finger burns.
I associated fireworks with family celebrations for Independence Day or July 4th, spending time with friends and family, eating potluck style foods and beverages with a community local engagement that was happy, fun, enjoyable, that made me feel included and connected to people I lived near and knew as a child. These were my benevolent friendly family and neighbors, or "In Groups" where inclusivity meant feeling part of the group or something bigger than myself. In this way today I am part of the Kingdom of God, the Body of the Church, on Team Jesus, as a reader and doer of the Holy Word. I hope that comes across in the way I am writing my blog postings lately, since that was a long time aspiration to give God praise in my secular worldly writing.
Fireworks Made in China
Most fireworks are made in the PRC because they were invented in ancient China. As is the case with many popular entrenched first mover industry players, this gives a local chemical supply chain, fireworks factories tuned for high volume production, specific nuanced industrial know how to make reliable fireworks, and the use of controlled chemicals that have restricted access in America, Europe and in other industrialized advanced economies that are less like the "Wild West".
In this and other ways Fireworks manufactures in China leverage competitive advantages but in terms of mature supply chains of the required chemical inputs to fireworks as well as the economic machinery for mass producing the cardboard tubes and color labeling as many similar methods utilized for high volume manufacturing in China from 1980 onward, part of the economic miracle of democratic reforms of FEZ or free economic zones with tax free or ultra low tax business opportunity that enabled higher business profits such that many consumer goods popular worldwide from appliances, to clothing, jewelry, drugs and much more are still made in China today as of 2024, though rising wages and sanctions and other economic problems means that even China is outsourcing manufacturing to lower cost parts of Asia where labor and land and business taxes are lower, making it cheaper to manufacture goods in Laos or Thailand or Indonesia etc.
A strip of firecrackers very cheap to manufacture, made mostly of paper, glue, fuse, aluminum powder & potassium perchlorate or flash powder. Pennies to make, they sell for 10x that amount to distributes, who then move them to retail markets where they are sold for the 4th of July for example so that people can celebrate with sound pressure bursts and colorful light with family and friends during the warm summer weather of family gatherings centered around 4th of July parties 2024. High value added means that a well established fireworks brand like "Black Cat" can move millions of strips of firecrackers.
Mass Manufacturing Lowers Cost Per Unit
When a good is mass manufactured in the tens of millions of units, this reduces the cost per unit to a price floor or a cheap as possible per unit, making any sale of that unit a high value added sale, even if markup applied at several levels between the manufacture and final retail customer somewhere very far away from where the fireworks were made. This is the case with many medications like insulin that are mass produced, such that a box of insulin pens price gets increased at 6 different levels between the insulin & insulin pen manufacturer and diabetic patient who requires insulin. Each pen costs about $16USD2024 to make, to that's about $80 for a box of 5 pens. The retail price of that box of 5 insulin pens can be over $1000, or in many markets over $500.
Understanding Insulin Costs
This is why so many people who require insulin cannot afford it, which is bogus or a scam because insulin is mass manufacture like commercial Beer in large steel tanks that hold thousands of gallons, as bioreactors, such that it costs less than $5 per gallon or $1.45 per liter to manufacture Novolog or Humalog insulin. Formulating insulin into shelf room temperature stable fluids in precision filled well made injector pens the major cost of the Pen, as the insulin in the pen costs less than $1 to make, the rest of the cost from the test, quality control, injection moulding, complicated packaging, distribution and other overhead supply chain costs.
Explosives & Infrastructure
Explosives for demolition and mining are also mass produced, to take down old rebar reinforced concrete buildings, demolish old industrial mining equipment or large decommissioned machines, to break down unsafe bridges that are being replaced with improved stronger stabiles dampened bridges feature better foundations, better structural support, mass dampers, improved concrete formulation with fibers added. There are long lasting concrete for remote hard to access bridges, known as slow cure long life concert, that have a 200 years service life while typical commercial concrete breaks down within 50 years.
Long life concrete costs 5X more but lasts 4X longer, but that added cost only worth it to governments if the bridge not easily accessible for repairs or maintenance. Did you know that nearly all homes, buildings, and roads require regular maintenance, and I am not just talking about landscaping or trimming grass, bushes, shrubs, trees and similar plants that grow naturally near and around common infrastructure.
Human Cell Maintenance & Repairs (Autophagy)
Every cell in your body does regular maintenance as the cells wear out after a few days, few months or few year depending in what kind of cell and in what part of the body or organ or flesh it is located and operating. When we don't eat anything for 8+ hours our body goes into nutritional ketosis and shortly thereafter it turns on Autophagy or Cell Repair Cleanup where the body starts eating broken cell components, doing cell recycling with old cells, breaking down tumors and cancers cells, the body hunts down any cell parts it can use to make ATP, amino acids for new cell membranes and organelles, lipids and similar required for cell construction & maintenance. Once the new cell is made it has enzymes inside that enable 10,000 chemical reactions happening at 1000 miles per hour, going like that 24 hours per day, and if that process stopped death would ensue within 30 seconds. Amazing right?!
Roadtrip to Visit Family / Vacation
Meg's DEXCOM G7 pulled out of her arm unexpectedly last night and we are without a glucose meter or glucometer, in a very rural area of Douglas County, Oregon. I am waiting for one of the drug stores to open in North Roseburg, Walgreens for example, so I can go purchase a glucose test kit with strips. That means she will use a finger prick blood testing strip method to manage her blood sugar today, tomorrow and Saturday, since the replacement DEXCOM G7 units are at our home in Issaquah, Washington 7 hours drive at freeway speeds one way or nearly 400 miles away.
Selling a Home to Finance Building a New One
We are staying at Meg's aunts house, but this home will be sold before we can return to it in the future, so this is a last enjoyment of this home before it is listed and sold. Her aunt moved to her new husband's home, so this one mostly disused. She recent invested over $80k into updating this beautiful home to improve is sale price. She thought about renting us this home for $2400/mo with its many acres of land and large shop building, but later decided that it was better to sell it, in part to fund a building land development project she & her new husband are developing along highway 101 near the Pacific Ocean near Bandon, Oregon. It will cost over $100K to develop the land so that they can build a small home there, possibly a few years long project, but she will use the funds generated by selling this land and home and shop building to fund the other project.
A Local 4th Of July Party 20204
There is a 4th of July party within walking distances up the street on this dead end rural road, quiet and lovely, that the neighbors came over yesterday and invited us to attend. Everyone we have spoken with in rural Oregon has been incredibly friendly and polite. The lack of traffic congestion here is like a miracle compared to what we are used to in King County, Washington State, ~10 miles east of Seattle, where stop & go highly congested roads with lots of brand new low skill drivers from all around the world are a common experience when commuting to and from work, driving for work, or coming and going for other reasons.
Considering Moving to Roseburg by Moving Away from Issaquah, Washington.
I love it Roseburg Oregon and Meg & I are exploring a way to move here in the future. It's the kind of America that we remember as kids, where people have polite ethics and are friendly and kind. It's a low crime, low density, rural area where many people have a family farm, share things, have social gatherings with their community or neighborhood neighbors. It's the kind of lovely faith friendly family friendly place where I would love to start a family, though in our case that Meg & I and our kitty cat Sweet Pea.
On the other hand, I love my job as a bus driver and having lived in and around the route areas in Bellevue, Wa, my entire life, I also know where everything is and all the alternative routes and how to get around easily with navigation information at the tip of my mind so that I don't have to play with sat nav on my smartphone to find my way around. I am not naturally gifted at roadway navigation in unfamiliar areas, and it takes me a few weeks of driving around to get a feel for where most things are located. I consider myself a mediocre driver, even though I hold a commercial CDL as a professional School Bus Driver with thousands of hours of driving experience.
I Aspire to Become an Elementary School Teacher
I am determined to become an elementary school teachers because its emotionally, mentally and spiritually healthy for me to work at a positive happy fun school environment with young children and optimistic staff and faculty that use clean language and have a positive outlook educating the future since children will become the leaders and members of society who wield the ability to create positive outcomes a entrepreneurs who make profitable business that create wealth and prosperity that is foundation of small businesses and a thriving economy.
Oregon Overtaxes Business, Inhibiting Local Economies
To this end the county taxes in Douglas county, and Income Tax is the State of Oregon, balance against the lack of sales tax and lower housing prices, but there are not a lot of good paying jobs in Roseberg Oregon either, the same reason that the traffic congestion nearly non-existent. I spoke with the founder of a local classical Christian School called the Geneva Academy for just less than 2 hours at My Coffee. Brian Turner very highly intelligent and had an interesting angle on the importance of educating children to be problem solving self motivated learners who learn how to learn, engage in critical reasoning and communicate clearly with rhetoric that effectively shares intelligible ideas fast and easily with other people.
Clear Communications are Important
Effective clear communication in a common language a lubricating force in an modern economy for it forms the linguistic verbal foundation for marketing and advertising products and services, since its businesses of all kinds and their profit generating value added activities that energize economic functions in modern economies.
Proper Role of Governments
Governments operate by taxing, regulating and controlling business so that businesses engage in ethical moral actives that do not harm the employees, or customers or the environment or at least have the aspiration to reduce or limit emissions or reduce negative impacts of pollution emitted, to protect the employees with personal protective equipment, or to use non toxic cleaning agents or solvents in a fume hood to protect the lungs of people working with poisonous or hazardous solvent chemicals. This is why water sprayed at rock mines to keep the dust down since breathing dust not healthy for the people working at the quarry or mining operations.
Fumes, Dust, Soot & Particles are Unhealthy To Breathe
Breathing rock dust means the ceramic particles get deep into the lungs where the irritate the lung tissue, blocking gas exchange and reducing respiratory efficiency, causing labored breathing and a loss of blood oxygen saturation similar to COPD from smoking cigarettes or breathing smog from traffic for long persons of time, especially super fine dust know as particular matter or PM. HC, NOX, SOX, Tire & Brake Dust & more, traffic corridors are a hot spot of poisonous substances and particles bad for human health.
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