'Splosions!

If you know me at all, you know I freaking love the 4th of July.  It's such a wonderful holiday.  I could spout off a bunch of founding fathers stuff and yay America and whatnot.  It would probably ring false and/or sarcastic though.  Probably because I would be at least partially sarcastic about it.  I love my country very much, but I think I'm pretty realistic about it - we're messed up in a lot ways.  If you haven't watched Newsroom yet, you really should.  Sorkin, man, he'll get you riled up.  This might be one of his best speeches ever.



So even that last half it rosy colored glasses in my opinion, but it was at least better.  And I get the point.  It's not anymore, but it could be again.

All the same though, I love the 4th of July.  BBQ's, chilling outside with friends and/or family all day, then watching people blow shit up.  It's a great holiday.  It's brilliant.

So last night we went and literally got on a train to fireworks town.  No seriously.  After work we headed to Osceola, Wisconsin, boarded a train, rode for about an hour, took a short bus ride and arrived in Marine, Minnesota for fireworks basically on Main Street.  Which were pretty much right over our heads.  Like, bits of firework falling on us, right over our heads.  Pretty awesome.  It was a great time.  Really the only thing that kind of sucked was that the air temperature was roughly that of the surface of the sun.  Holy fuck it's hot out.  So incredibly out.

Then we took a bus back to train back to Osceola and drove home.  Which is to say, we had a great night but didn't get home until really late and I haven't even looked at my pictures yet.

So here are some pictures from Lake Superior quite awhile ago.  (Thus the old signature.)

doesn't that look inviting?

Don't you want to go sit there next to the lake?

Aaaand pile some rocks on the arm of your chair in a... neat looking way?

Happy Fourth of July, Y'all!

Weird Rock

All of our landscaping at our apartment building involves rock beds. There's very little mulch here. We're apparently rock people. That works for me as I think the rocks look very nice. And they don't stink like mulch does. (I remember one year in college when there was a parking spot sized pile of mulch ready to go outside my dorm. It sat there for weeks and it just STAAAANK.)

For the most part on their own the rocks are pretty boring - some of them have some cool coloring or shape, but they're mostly forgettable. (Which is probably the goal in apartment complex landscaping.) There are a few here and there though, that are very unusual. This is one of them.