Jack Reacher does it again

I've been a fan of Lee Child's Jack Reacher for some years and just finished one of my favorites:

This one has the most satisfying group of extremely bad bad guys against Reacher ... with a couple of interesting subplots too.

I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say:  four stars and I'll give this my "money back if you don't like it!" guarantee. (Audible will do this too ...)

Enjoy!

What if Brexit were a restaurant? (and my favorite quote this year)

The New York Times has a cheeky restaurant review up in today's paper ... it has my favorite quote of the year in it:

Maybe the people in charge have been taking management cues from Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, which has approached its Brexit plan like a class of first graders trying to build a working jet airplane out of Lego pieces and a flying-squirrel sock puppet.

Business opportunity: backup battery power for grocery stores?

We had our "first major blow" of the year last night. This caused a moderate (for this region) power outage: 100,000 out of power, some for hours.

One of these was our local PCC (of the fabulous Jimmy John's conquering paninis) ... dark and out of power last night around 9pm when I drove by.

I'm not sure what they do in a power outage; maybe they already have enough battery backup to handle all the refrigeration? But if not: what kind of loss do they suffer when ice cream melts and meat thaws? This outage last night was minor, but the one in 2006 was major and parts of Issaquah were out for 1 day plus ... (south of town we were out for 7 days + 15 hours).

The Tesla Powerwall is inexpensive enough for homeowners to be a reasonable alternative to a generator ... but would a custom configuration work for somebody like PCC?

I don't know what the plan is for PCC when the power goes out, but I'm going to check with the next time I'm in getting a panini!

Another Dilbert vs. Open Office strip

Scott Adams read the latest research, I guess:

I'm just going to be leaving a job 12/31 and I have my fingers crossed about the office layout I'll be going into on the next one ....

PCC vs Jimmy John's: a surprising winner

I was out with my Lovely Organic Wife today running errands around Maple Valley and I asked if I could swing by Jimmy John's in Maple Valley to grab a sandwich for lunch:

She said, "How about Issaquah? I have to go by the post office and to PCC. I said "OK", but then the traffic in Issaquah for Saturday was so icky:

That I just said, the "the heck with it, I'll just find something at PCC."

For those not familiar, the stores do business as PCC Natural Markets and there are several ... they are competitive with Whole Foods and similar stores, but are a natural/organic focused retailer that's been around Puget Sound for a long time.

(My favorite quote on PCC: I was in the Issaquah store and some kid asked "where's the real grocery store?")

That being said: not necessarily the place I would have thought I'd get a delicious sandwich, but today I did: the Chicken Pesto Panini!

It was delicious ... and $7.49 ... and the cookies are $1 each (I like the oatmeal orange):

And they have drinks I like ... unlike some Jimmy Johns locally which only have "Fuse" iced tea. Bleah!

I'm going to make this a regular Saturday stop for a while ... too bad Jimmy John's and Potbelly!

Key to 2015 Nissan Leaf Range: tire pressure!

As soon as I picked up my new used Nissan Leaf a couple of weeks ago, I got an immediate annoyance:

A tire pressure alert, that is ... I checked the tires and found that I had about 28 psi in each.

This seemed too high to generate the alert, but at the same time I knew that recommended pressure for this car is 36 psi.

An extended family member had swiped my little compressor out of the garage and burned it up by overuse, so I ordered a new one:

It's an improvement over the previous (Kensun) inflator in that (1) it's a little bit quieter (still loud, though) and (2) it allows you to program the desired pressure level in and automatically inflates the tire to that level. 

I blew all 4 tires up to 36 psi last night, and this morning received the pleasant surprise:

No more warning light, and 70 miles available instead of the 61 I'd seen yesterday (similarly cold foggy weather). I gather that the computer calculates available miles based on several factors including air temperature ... and tire pressure!

Anyway, keeping my tires at 36 should make me a little less dependent on the superchargers around the area ...

I'm defecting to Ireland so I can vote in their elections!

Not really, but one of my other favorite podcasts had an episode last week covering ranked-choice voting and its implementation in Ireland:

Also, the Republican in Maine's 2nd district is slightly ahead but  is subject to ranked-choice voting and that probably won't be resolved until next week. (Although he's reserving the right to sue if he loses ...)

Interesting electoral times we live in!