As we head into a star-spangled weekend, these annual events are guaranteed to put some red, white and blue into your July Fourth outings. Check our weekly calendar, on Page D5, for more things to do. And don’t miss The Times-Dispatch and TimesDispatch.com tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday for your neighbors’ thoughts about what freedom means and coverage of Fourth festivities.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee yesterday put 5,000 choice bleacher tickets for Barack Obama’s inaugural parade on sale to the public for $25 each. They were gone in less than a minute. Albert Lopez, a Ticketmaster spokesman, said 94 percent of the tickets were purchased online and the rest by phone. It was “blazingly fast,“ Lopez said.