Happy Independence Day to my American friends all over the world.

I have come to a newer understanding of the US over the last year of supporting Todd, especially since he was deployed to Iraq. I have seen a deeper love of a country and a true patriotism that has allowed my own to ignite and become stronger as well.

I have always lived half an hour from the border, and have felt very little difference between that imaginary line between 'here' and 'there'. Remove the politics and the fact remains, it's the people that make a country.

Have a great July 4th, my friends.

(BTW, I snapped the above pic in May 2003 in San Francisco. The warehouse had been burned out in a fire a few weeks before and there was something so poignant in the burned husk of the building with the flags waving in the distance)