​If there is a special writer whose serial novels you are addicted to, there’s a curious feeling of sadness as you close in the last 2-3 of those books. You don’t want the storyline to end. You want more.
 
As an addict of the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child (and now his son Andrew), the past few months have proven oddly disconcerting for me. At some point, after discovering my addiction, I wrote down all the books in the Jack Reacher series. Then I checked off the ones I’d read (or could remember that I read).
 
Since, initially I chose a book that was written multiple years ago, I did not have the current list of all the books. At the time, there were 21 or so, and since then, I’ve added hand-notes of his more recently written books.
 
Regardless of the current total, Child has written a lot about Reacher. The plots have been adapted to TV and movies, not always the best forums to get a full sense of the character. While I do appreciate expanding the audience visually, it’s still the sitting down with a book to get mentally engrossed in the plot nuances that drives my excitement. I CAN’T WAIT TO TURN THE PAGES! Yes, a cliché, but true for me.
 
The books make me want to get in bed. Why? Because I read before going to sleep. I want to launch myself under the covers, dwelling on his escapades. I want to see the intricacies of how he gets into trouble and the logic, intuition and experience he uses to extricate himself from complicated and intense situations.
 
The plots in Jack Reacher novels, and a major reason they resonate, are in the details that compel you. Details can bore you in many books. Reacher’s choreographing of how he plans to knock someone across the room can take up three pages and you practically fall out of your chair (or bed) devouring those details. You so totally picture what will happen that your mind creates the scene, which is what great fiction does. Paint the picture.
 
That type of praise also applies to the complexities of technology and the various levels and intricacies of law enforcement. You can blab about those things or you can write so the reader wants to know more. Child does the latter.
 
Closing in on his last few books makes me slow down. I savor the pages more, put the book down, think about what’s going to happen next. There’s a lot to be said for wanting to flip faster and faster to get to the conclusion. There’s even more to be said when you so enjoy what you’re reading that you wait and think. “Hmmmm, maybe he will do this. Or perhaps that. Let’s think this through.”
 
As the last few books beckon, the next tactic is one available to all of us when it comes to authors we appreciate – rereading previous books. Despite tracking the novels on Reacher I’ve finished, I’ve been rereading previous books as well. You know they’re really good when you reread one, discover and uncover more that revs your engine.
 
In fact, that perhaps is the greatest compliment you can have for an author’s writing – that you want to go back and read them again. I have confidence that will continue for me when it comes to the Jack Reacher stories.

​Of items you purchase, how often do you feel you get your money’s worth? Put another way, do you feel like the money expended is worth the price of a product or service you buy?
 
I doubt there are any statistics on this. Just perspective and emotion. We spend a certain amount of money on an electric razor and five days later when it seems like the recharger isn’t working and the shaves aren’t as close as you expected, you question why you bought it. “Doesn’t seem like it was worth the sticker price.”

This happens a lot, I imagine, to most people. We have expectations. We see an ad. We come to believe that a new car will find roads with no traffic and ascend a mountain top where you breath fresh air and soak in the incredible vistas. As thinking human beings, we recognize that most ads have a high degree of exaggeration involved.
 
Because we can so easily be disappointed, it’s enjoyable when something I buy exceeds my expectations, or just plain performs consistently the way it is supposed to. For example, several years back we bought an electric heavy duty brush cutter. It’s got a metal blade. The batteries are easily rechargeable. It mows down thick brush.

We have buckthorn heavily infesting our property and as an invasive species, we’ve invested a lot of yard work time and energy into bringing this insidious beast to its knees. The electric brush cutter is central to our progress. It takes down titanic swaths as you swing the device from side to side, letting the blades to their thing.

It's a joy watching all sizes topple, opening up the forest for other trees and bushes to breathe, set their roots deeper into the earth to get the nutrients they need. The tool makes me feel righteous, and though I don’t remember what we paid for the electric heavy duty brush cutter, it is worth every penny.
 
A second item, which also falls into the yard implement category is a rechargeable handheld power saw. You touch the button, the blade twirls, and you can cut down an amazing amount of branches without having to use gasoline or heft a heavy saw with two hands.
 
This tool also gets the job done exactly as designed. It’s convenient. It’s easy to use. It’s handy. It’s simple to operate, recharge, clean and replace the blade when it dulls. What more can you ask for? It does its duties against the buckthorn as well as on larger bushes, and when storms blow smaller trees down, we make quick work of them.
 
Far too often we see and hear massive claims about something that doesn’t remotely live up to the hype. It doesn’t perform they way it’s advertised. The cost seems disproportionate to the results.
 
We all probably have our personal favorites – a bicycle that’s lasted forever; a car that starts in all kinds of weather and rarely needs repairs; a pack of chewing gum that delivers flavor for more than an hour. Simple satisfactions.
 
When you find something reliable, nicely priced, effective, convenient and easy to use, you know you got your money’s worth. It’s a good feeling.

​As my wife and our older daughter drove cross country recently to settle her into a new job, the cruise control on their car went out. It was an older car in the grand scheme of things.
 
Not being with them, I don’t know exactly what happened except that as they tried to use the cruise control, it didn’t work. Directions from the owners manual didn’t help. Like so many other things in today’s world though, YouTube did. They watched the video, Jerry-rigged the apparatus, and went merrily on their way. It even generated a text message photo to show the clown-like fix they administered.
 
Funny stuff, but it also pointed out one of those great inventions in the world. We don’t give many of our day-to-day accepted pieces of technology the credit they deserve. Cruise control is one of those.
 
I remember renting a car, probably over eleven years ago. I flew to Milwaukee and was driving to Appleton. That’s more-or-less a 90-minute drive. Got in the car. Made it quickly to the highway. Looked down at the steering wheel. Began foraging for buttons. Found nothing remotely applicable to cruise control.

When you don’t have something you expect, you’re disappointed. When you expect cruise control for an extended highway drive and the rental car doesn’t have that option, your calf muscle tenses in anticipation of being locked down for an extended period. Yeah, I made it, but my right leg wasn’t happy.
 
Electricity is another great invention that we undersell. Turn on the lights without a thought. Up the AC when it’s hot outside. Crank the heat when the temperature plunges in winter. We do those things without considering the miracle of electricity.
 
From the generation at the source to the successful transmission and distribution to your home or business on a network that stays consistently and effectively operational almost non-stop every second of every year is a true miracle. But we don’t stop to consider this because electricity has become ubiquitous in our first world lives. Flip the switch and we expect the lights to come on.
 
My personal favorite when it comes to great inventions is the bicycle. Those of you who’ve read my stuff for years know I’m huge on bicycling, having toured North America in 1982 and commuted by bicycle to my job consistently for 13+ years. The bicycle is clean energy. As one of my shirts says with a picture of a bicycle: “Renewable energy.”
 
It’s more than that though. It gives you exercise. Riding gets you outdoors, smelling, seeing, experiencing nature, the lay of the land, which way the wind is blowing. When you bicycle regularly, you come to understand the ebb and flow of weather patterns and know when rain or snow is coming.
 
If you stay on your bicycle long enough, you become able to tell time accurately by the angle and location of the sun. It provides you great exercise. It connects you with the earth. And, by the easy stroke of moving your legs with the leverage of a chain to tires, you more than double your ability in terms of speed to move around this planet. That increase your life experience levels.
 
Those are three biggies. Feel free to add your own. What are some other great inventions? 

​What do you call a guy who wears shorts outside when the temperature is -3? An optimist.
 
When I see someone wearing shorts in cold weather, I go up to them and say, “You’re an optimist, aren’t you?” They smile. They nod. They like being acknowledged.
 
And, quite frankly, they’re an optimist. At least in my mind anyway.
 
You’re either crazy to dress and expose your skin at temperatures so low or you have a profound faith in your body that it can deal with and accommodate searingly cold weather. I don’t want to call people crazy (though you could do it with your tongue in cheek and they might get the humor), so I opt out by mentioning their optimistic view of life.
 
Seriously though, extreme cold requires adjustment. This becomes noticeable in latitudes north of Interstate 80 in the United States. You live up there, you need warm clothes during the winter. You must adapt to survive.
 
Frigid days are one reason people in the north move more quickly than people living in the south. They’re going to die if they don’t. Watch a person in Milwaukee move towards his car in January and you can bet it will be with more speed than someone moving to their car in Fort Lauderdale. It’s cold, and they want to survive when that Canadian air is blasting across Lake Michigan at 27 miles per hour.
 
You prepare for the arctic early. Some days in October or November, perhaps December, things start to change in your closet. You wear a short sleeve shirt, and think to yourself, “I’m not putting that on again for the next four months.” Or longer. Time to move it to the spare closet and bring out the warmer apparel.
 
Slowly, week-by-week, you put those summers clothes into hibernation. Just like us mammals, clothes need to go into a deep slumber for multiple months before perking up in the spring.
 
It’s an odd process because there are hiccups every year. You think the really cold stuff has stuck around for good, then suddenly it’s 62-degrees and it feels like 80-degrees after it’s been 30 for four days. You get those misleading indicators that it’s time to hunker down, when weather is just messing with you.
When it hits fully, then it’s time for the transition. Bring out the sweatshirts to wear around the house. Slide on the long johns. Pull out the fleece-lined pants. Check on the stocking caps and boots in the front hall closet. Make sure you know where the thick jackets are.
 
Everybody is different in their approach. There are the optimists, noted above, who swagger around on 19-degree days, the wind hauling its way across the Costco parking lot, pretending cold weather doesn’t exist. Ya gotta respect their optimism or their bullheadedness in pretending that winter is just a fantasy propagated by the media.
 
“If you don’t act like it’s cold, it won’t be cold” seems to be their motto. I get their perspective. I want to believe in it, and will slide on flip flops occasionally for a quick jaunt to the supermarket when it’s 29-degrees out. It keeps me optimistic, defeating the cold, but that hot shower back home sure feels good afterwards.