Some Recent Summertime Musings

It's been an enjoyable summer so far. Of course, I am made for this time of the year, so that I'm living so happily at the present time is really no surprise, but I needed an opening statement, so now that that's out of the way, I'll proceed to my musings, in no certain order, of course (you're welcome JA).
First of all, I should mention my fire-pit. A few weeks ago I decided it was time to build one of my own. I've always thought a nice fire-pit looked like the perfect place to listen to some good music, drink a good beer or so, and chat up whatever friends I could persuade to stop by. I did a lot of research (i.e., googled fire-pits) and decided to construct one that was both practical and aesthetically pleasing to me. It seems there's a lot more debate about what's practical and attractive, hence the seemingly unnecessary "to me" at the end of the previous sentence. "I" decided to create a fire-pit that is about a foot and a half deep (with a brick size additional six inch rectangle cut in the bottom middle of the area for proper drainage), three feet in diameter, walled up to ground level with bricks and topped with good ol' rough Indiana limestone (which I took from a rock cut by the highway). I broke up into many small pieces some of the stone and used it, along with some sand, to fill the circle and voila', I was finished. Now that it took me 10 hours one Saturday to do this seems absurd, but there really was a lot of hard work involved. Which, might I interject, is a wonderful respite for my keystroking, screen-watching, flourescent light bathing on a regular basis self! I had hired a great guy (seriously, call me if you need this) to cut down a couple of very tall trees in my yard that I was afraid could topple on my house at any time, and once all the cuttin' was done I kept for myself 6 large pieces of the trees for seats around me as then unbuilt fire-pit, and they are serving their purpose perfectly. The whole outfit is a rugged-looking, but (to me, at least) awe-inspiring piece of art. It is a reflection of my naturalist side, and nestled between my garage (plenty far enough away, don't worry) and the woods behind my house, it provides me with an escape from the mostly friendly, but restrictive nonetheless confines of house and office. Perhaps I should post a picture, maybe I will, but for now I'll just say it has already provided me with a set of unforgettable adventures. My boys love it, my friends seem to enjoy it, and I am thrilled to have it fifty feet from my home office. Most recently my bestest of buds, Jabel, and his splendid wife and darling daughter joined myself, aj and our four yahoo's for a foray around the fire enjoying the perfect weather and refreshments. Life is good.
Other things have crossed my mind recently as well, though, and although not as word worthy (for now) as my fire-pit, I'll sprinkle a few of them down so all can know what's been happening in my little world. A couple of weekends ago aj and I went to see Rascal Flatt's in concert at Verizon in Indy. It was a great time, and she's gracious enough not to point it out, I should've taken a blanket. She suggested, I protested, we went blanketless, and the ground was a spot moist. But, I'll not complain, for along with the RF boys we saw Taylor Swift (don't laugh, it wasn't all that bad!), and Soggy Bottoms. Not the band, just the butts. AJ's in particular.
I came across a phrase today I'd not heard before, "global village". I'm not sure what to do with it right now, but it has a neat feel. Perhaps if we all felt as if we were village-mates, we wouldn't be hatin' so much. Damn the world needs Bob Marley back...
I also read a couple of interesting things about Casanova today. The man, not the movie. The latter was interesting, and Heath Ledger (God rest his soul) pulled himself up marvelously from his strange, er, encounters on Brokeback Mountain to make it so, but it's the former that I looked in on today. On the web's greatest site, Arts & Letters Daily, I came across an interesting review of a book about the loverman himself, and found he was quite as experienced as I've heard. Check it out here.
Last weekend I went with my boys and aj and her youngins to see Wall-E. Cute, cute, cute.
Earlier this week I watched a few minutes of the VH1 documentary on "The History of Rock and Roll". Buy it for me here. Just kidding. Unless, of course, you're gonna do it. It was fascinating, to say the least.
Baseball season for my boys is coming to a close. Boston's Boys Club team, the Mariners, unexpectedly went "from worst to first" in their tournament last weekend, and it was a dynamic event. They won only two games during the regular season, but come tourney time they rose to the occasion and won it all. He has been playing catcher a lot this year, and I well up with so much pride watching him back there working as hard as an 11-year old boy can. Britain finished up his Lawrence County tourney after getting ousted in the first round. No worries, he'll be back. As a matter of fact, though only 9 Brit stepped up a league to play on Bos's Lawrence County 11-12 year old team, the Cubs, and has wound up pitching in several of the games. I'm quite proud of his undaunted courage playing against boys that are much larger than he is. He's a trooper. And, it's a lotta fun for me as a dad watching one son pitch while the other one catches. It's like the toss they've been playing out on the lawn since they could barely walk, except in a bigger yard. In a related note, I picked up Steven Curtis Chapman's latest album recently, on which is a brilliant song called "Proud". Wow, it's amazing, check it out.
Well, that's about it. Your assignment for the week is to check out album by Vampire Weekend by the same name, especially the track "Oxford Comma". Peace...