Do you really want to park there?

The first night of fireworks in Vancouver was last night. It was our first fireworks in our new home, which is about 3 blocks from the beach that you sit on for the best view of the fireworks.

Unfortunately, we don't get a good view of the fireworks from our balcony - too many buildings in our way - but we do get a good view of the crowds. We also get a good view of the alley behind our building and what people do in it.

There are many public transit options to get you close to the fireworks. We recently had a little sports event here, so there are even more options this year, with a new skytrain line and all. It is quite a walk down to the beach from there, but it was a nice night for a walk, and it's good exercise.

But some people still insist on driving their own vehicles down and paying ridiculous sums of money, or risk parking illegally, to park their vehicle and then walk to the beach with the thousands of others who took transit. They get less exercise that way.

The organizers of the fireworks realize there will be thousands of people down at the beach, and they do bring in portable toilets for the crowds, but apparently not enough.

As the crowd walked away from the beach after the fireworks, many many many males - human males, not canine males, no one in their right minds would bring their dogs to the fireworks - peed in the alleys.

We have a small parking lot next to our building. They peed there too.

So all of the vehicles that were parked in the alley, or parked in the parking lot, got peed on. All of the vehicles people couldn't bear to leave at home will now have urine stains on them. If they're lucky, it's just on the tires.

So do you really want to drive down to the fireworks? Do ya?