I've always thought growing grass was a terrible idea. As a kid I was pretty practical and I didn't see any benefit to having a green lawn full. I was also pretty well aware of the amount of effort required to maintain the lawn at home growing up since the mower was often my job. I hated mowing it and my parents weren't even really big lawn freaks. We had weeds and dandelions and bare patches. I always marveled at the crazy amount of time and effort our neighbours across the street wasted on keeping their yard green and presentable.

Now I've grown up and I feel pretty much the same way. It might not make my neighbours happy but at least I didn't follow through with my plan to pave it and paint it green. As a child I assumed the problem was that people wanted a large green square in front of their homes and concrete seemed to be a very practical solution to that problem.

Not all time is created equal. I've started getting up a lot earlier lately and I've found that for me the hours from 6 am to about 10:30 can be really productive. I have a pretty easy time getting focused and if I can get myself in front of a project then I really take off and get things done. Compare that to the early afternoon from, say, 1 until 3 pm and the afternoon version of me seems to be asleep by comparison. I'm unfocused and mentally wander around looking for shiny objects.

September's only just started and already I'm behind. It's not just me that's feeling it. Candace is getting started on reading the stack of books for her Masters Degree before classes start in a few days. She's also still moving her stuff in to our place from her old house. My daughter's schedule is full again of skating, piano and gymnastics and still no room for Aikido. I've noticed the past few years (and it seems obvious in retrospect) that September is more than just the back-to-school time. It's when everybody seems to stop relaxing, knuckle down and get back to work on whatever it is they do.

I've mentioned before that I have trouble getting myself focused when the workload grows. I don't think it's an uncommon reaction to want to go out and do something different when everything you're in the middle of seems to get boring and stagnate. For example, I had a little success working on a web app login page the other day so last night I sat down at the computer to figure out the next step. And spent an hour-and-a-half reading xkcd. Not just the comic but Randall's blag too. That kind of took me full circle in a "holy shit how does this guy have time on his hands like this" sort of way.