A little about me. I grew up half in the tropics and half on a farm, which sounds made up, but that’s just how my family worked. The farm half is where most of my opinions about products come from. There was always something that needed fixing, and there was never money to buy the same thing twice, so you paid attention. You noticed the chainsaw that started every time and the one that didn’t. You noticed which boots made it through three summers and which ones quit halfway through one. Nobody called it research back then.
We also traveled more than most families, usually camping — a trailer when we had one, tents when we didn’t. I’ve been to almost every state that way. These days I’ll take a rental house or a hotel over a tent.
Other stuff that turns out to be relevant: I’ve put shingles on roofs. I’ve had dogs, cats, and fish tanks pretty much my whole life. I got scuba certified years ago and still use it. I’ve been to Hawaii, Canada, and Peru — made it up to Machu Picchu, which was worth every bit of the altitude headache.
So when I review something here, that’s the question in the back of my head: is this the chainsaw that starts, or the one that doesn’t? If you want the boring details on how the numbers get put together, they’re in our editorial standards.
