Paul Merrill
Stainless steel is perfect. What other substance is so hard, so rust-free and looks great when it gets scratched? I’ve written about perfection before. I think all humans long for it at some level. But it’s very hard to find. Maybe that’s why I like stainless steel so much. (And a special thanks to my …
The Wall Street Journal used to be a pinnacle of perfection. No more. This mistake (Dec. 31) slipped past the copy editor. The problem? Their budgets are shrinking like everyone else’s. It used to be that they could afford enough copy editors so that this kind of mistake would never happen. Now? We need to …
My family got me a lovely present for Christmas… custom design-my-own stamps from stamps.com. It took me a while to figure out which image to use. I finally settled on something from my Rubbish Art series. So I got them back and they weren’t perfect. The image was offset, even though it had appeared perfectly …
The acceleration was breathtaking. The amenities were amazing. I’d say I want one, but it’s so far out of the realm of possibility that I’ll just say it was a lot of fun. Our test drive was totally free. Mark set up the appointment to take a Tesla P90D for a spin. He drove out, I drove back. …
My dad used to say that. (He’s gone now, so I haven’t heard him say it for many years.) “Love me, love my dog,” simply means we have to put up with things we may not appreciate about some of the people we know. This is such a fundamental idea that I too often forget. …
I love riding my bike to work, even in the cold and dark of winter. Knowing that if I can’t be seen, I can be run over, I bought a taillight so bright that “it can cause seizures,” as a friend described it. That same friend went on to tell me of his ultra-bright headlight …
It’s rusting. Is rust beautiful? Some think so. Others think it needs to be sanded off, painted with primer and given a protective coat. For our bathroom light fixture, we could go one of three ways – leave it as it is, replace it or fix it. The lazy option won out – for the time being. …
Are you climbing Mt. Everest? If you are, you will need the finest equipment available. If you are climbing a small hill near your home, you may not need that quality of equipment. This basic principle should guide how you spend your money. We all love perfection. Many of us like to have the finest …
We had a huge snowfall two days ago. After the snow was finished falling, I came across this amazing leaf. I loved the transition from red to orange to yellow. The small imperfections only added to the beauty. I decided to shoot the leaf on dry deck boards and wet. It was interesting how different …
What would I do with $7.5 million? During our recent long-weekend family vacation, I had the luxury of sleeping late enough to linger on a dream. I won $7.5 million in some kind of a contest. (The kind of contest was not revealed to me – dreams are so funny in how they give us …