This morning's workout was five rounds of

Run 8 lengths of the track (or 8 x 50m for a total of 400m)
30 box jumps
30 squat wall ball tosses

I finished reading Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, by Fritz Haeg today. It's a quick read, being a series of essays about the origin and state of front yards of grass lawns in the United States, followed by a series of impressions from the households who have broken away from said grass lawns and planted food producing gardens in the their front yards. The book isn't a how-to guide on how to replant a front yard with an edible garden, though it does include a general outline on how one might do so near the front. It is an entertaining read for those who have a desire to do more with a front yard than mow it week after week.

Some interesting facts from the book include:

Lawns are pretty much a monoculture of two or so species of grasses. Given biodiversity is a sign of a healthy ecosystem, the lawn monoculture is a sure sign of a systemic problem.

The expanse of green grass in the United States has its origins in English aristocracy, where lawns were a symbol of wealth. Similar to the way pale skin was a sign of wealth in that a tan was a "lower class" sign of needing to work outdoors, lawns were a show of wealth stating we have land that doesn't need to be planted for food production.

Of course, even the English lawns were still USED for something (lawn bowling, lawn tennis, etc.), unlike the American lawn, which provides a "demilitarized zone" between the public and the private home, one that most people won't cross.

Lawn grass happens to be the biggest crop in the United States, covering over 30 million acres, costing people over $25 billion a year. More pesticides are used on grass lawns than on farms. More pollution is produced from an hour of a gas-powered lawn mower than a 300 mile drive in a car.

I'm already a convert to the idea of planting a front yard with edible plants (or yellow ones!), so my like of the book is unsurprising. The when-to-plant guides in the back of the book, as well as the resource sections is fabulous, but not enough of a reason to keep the book. So, I've decided to send the book on its merry way via the Book Crossing philosophy. I'll wait to see if friend wants it first. Otherwise, it's off to a community garden for flight.

I hope to finish up the front yard some time over the next few months, with the birthday present from Kris. I'm still torn between a California meadow and a front yard garden, with Kris wanting the former and quite leery of the latter.

15 overhead thrusts
20 m walking overhead lunges
15 overhead squats
20 m walking overhead lunges
Run 6 lengths (240m in 6x40m shuttles)

4 rounds

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.  For "How do you know
Kitt?" I've listed you as "other" since there is no category for sweet babou... /sigh 

- Kris 

I found out today through reddit (a website that is finally starting to wane in my attention space, but is still very strong), that Yale has posted many of its classes online. In particular, the reddit link pointed to the philosophy course on Death.

"With so much death" around me, I've been thinking more than I ought to I suspect about the topic of my death. I want to believe there's more than just this world, that there might actually be a purpose to all of this, but I can't. I can't believe, nor pretend to believe, there exists a life force out there that gives one flying whit about the outcome of my life. Yes, there may be a life force, I'm not convinced of an absence of such, but I'm pretty sure if it does exist, it doesn't care.

And it certainly is not the vengeful god of those who wrote that big tome of historical fairy tale fiction and conveniently left out the parts that disagreed with what the people with arbitrary power wanted the peons to believe. You know, the ones who killed other people who disagreed with the line that the world is flat.

Yeah. My "god." Not so vengeful.

Yet, I'm convinced there is somewhat of an end. Whether it's the complete cessation of this universe as far as I'm concerned, or merely the waking up to a sterile lab and realizing it was all a dream and I'm not done yet, I have no idea.

But I'd like to have some idea. Some inkling that, while it may not give me comfort at night, will give enough peace of mind to actually finish what I came here to do.

Not too much for a philosophy class on death, eh?

I wonder if I can get a friend or two in on this.

P.S. That book had good parts. In particular the ones that mention guidelines on how to behave in a society where no one actually needed to be told how to behave properly, because they were already behaving properly without all the coveting and the killing and such. But that's a different class, to be sure.