Soap makes a huge difference. As soon as the temperature dips down to freezing outside, I switch to fancy soap.

This is not a commercial. I won’t tell you what kind of soap to use (like I did before), because several kinds will work fine. Just experiment. Spend a lot more than you do on your current standard soap.

Your skin will say thank you!

Sadly, my hands still get dry. Lotion fixes this, but then it takes several minutes for the greasiness to die down.

To this day, hundreds of years later, I remember one wrong answer. The word was “chaos.” In my head, I read it as: “chay-ohss.” Not: “kay-oss.” One of the choices was “a Mexican blanket.” I picked that definition. Spanish was not part of my world yet, so “chay-ohss” sounded like a Mexican blanket.

Photo courtesy of Gwilmore on Flikr.

Of course you know that. But sometimes there is guilt involved. If someone falls into the not so much end of the spectrum, we often feel guilty — that we should like them more.

Relax.

Just let people fall naturally where they fit into your spectrum. But give yourself freedom to realize that your feelings toward them may change over time. Or not.

If you buy baby formula, do you check if that company markets their formula aggressively to new mothers in developing countries — at the expense of their children’s health?

It’s hard to be pure in this world. Most decisions end up being the best of the mix we can find. Or we may not examine all the factors that go into a decision.

I’m often too lazy to examine my decisions. And sometimes I know the potential downsides to a decision, but I make it anyway.

My friend Tim Gier, a vegan, makes most of his decisions with a very focused approach. I admire that.

What’s a decision you made that you later regretted?

If you look carefully at the bottom left corner of this photo, you’ll see a “Bus lane cameras” sign, reminding drivers that if they drive in the bus lane, a camera will take a photograph of their license plate (or “registration tag,” as it’s called in London, where I took this pic). Then the government will send a large fine to the driver for breaking the law.

This little system allows buses to move much faster than if the bus lanes were clogged with cars who shouldn’t be there.

Similarly, in my state, red light cameras are at almost every intersection. It’s the same deal — if I run a red light, I will get a huge fine. It amounts to a tax to help cash-starved local governments — but it also keeps me from running a red light.

What enforcement system in your world keeps you on the straight and narrow?

I’ve been married to Heather for more than 20 years. I love her and am always amazed that after all these years, we are still discovering new things about each other.

She started a new contract job recently at a large company that has a fairly formal corporate culture. She has to “dress up” to go to work. Some mornings involve a clothing crisis before the right outfit is found.

Now this is partly a personality thing, but it takes me about 5 seconds to choose what I’ll wear to an event or a work situation. Heather deliberates till she finds the perfect outfit. Since she has really good taste, she scores. (I don’t always score, but she often will warn me of impending mistakes.)

So I came up with an idea to save her time in the morning. What if I took photos of each of her outfit combinations and she could just flip through the set of photos to choose the outfit for a particular day?

No. She didn’t like that idea. Why? “You just wouldn’t understand.” (True.)

So why would he invest so many hours and and so much money in that? (One small set alone is worth about $1,000.) My theory is that he is trying to recapture some of his lost childhood. He remembers when he saved up and bought those cars when he was a kid. As a proportion of his income, the little cars might be similar in what they cost him today, maybe.

I collect little cars (in spite of my primary emphasis on collecting digitally). I don’t pay very much for them. I don’t collect very many. But to anyone who visits my home office, they will see probably 6 or 7 little cars lined up, looking at me. Am I trying to recapture some of my lost childhood? Maybe. Mostly I just like cars and it’s fun to see those little cars every day.

What’s the difference between the previously mentioned collector and me? He goes to great lengths to find specific models. He’s willing to pay a ton when he finds the pearl of great price. I just randomly pick up a Trabant when I see it at Walgreens. Or a friend will give me a Mini.

By the way, the model shown is from the amazing collection. (He very kindly let me take several  pictures — which are in now my digital collection.) That Mustang is one that I owned when I was a boy. Today on eBay with the box it costs $100. Sadly it won’t regain a place of honor in my collection.

We though, “Why spend the money today? It probably has 2–3 years left, and we’ll get a new one when we feel like we can afford it more.”

So Saturday morning, it broke and flooded our basement. Thankfully, recovering from the flood cost no more than a Saturday afternoon and a sore back. But I would have avoided both if I had listened to Jack’s advice.

So my advice to you is this: please listen to your plumber, your doctor or your car mechanic when they say it’s time to get that work done. They probably know more about the problem than you do. And it may cost you more than a Saturday and a sore back to fix that disaster.

That’s a question.

Here’s what I do:

- Ride my bike. I try to ride it places instead of driving. This takes some planning. And it’s rarely possible with the whole family. (Those rides are usually for leisure.)

- Exercise my arms and shoulders. Last October, I pinched a nerve in my neck. A great physical therapist gave me a set of several exercises that have kept that pain away. I do this 3 to 5 mornings a week, using a very simple stretch device.

- Eat dinner with my whole family. With two teenage sons and a ten-year-old daughter, this is not easy, but we do manage to share our evening mealtime about five days a week. This allows us to stay closer and keep up with what we are all doing.

- Read the Bible. This keeps me focused on what’s important. (If you’d like to explore this one, start with the book of Mark or Luke.)