archiveOctober 2026

Fourteen cents. That was the difference in monthly maintenance fees between the two checking accounts I compared last spring, and it was the only number my spreadsheet could see. What it could not see was everything else: who answered the phone, who owned the building, and who kept the money...

Ten years. That's the number I'd bet on for a typical air conditioner sweating through a Florida summer, and it's several years shorter than what the box promises. A unit rated for 15 years in a dry climate gets beaten down here by salt air, humidity that never quits, and...