It's not just me: lots of other people are wondering about businesses and how they do things.

One thing that concerns those who care about quality is how little of it there is in today's marketplace. Instead of creating or selling goods that we'd be happy to consume, companies from the very largest to tiny cottage ones aren't taking the time and effort to produce much of anything worth having. There are exceptions, of course, but just like politicians, pretty much everyone is gravitating toward the golden mean and just making stuff that most people will find palatable.

I don't have any solid evidence for this, not even anecdotal, but anyone making anything quickly learns to cut corners to increase profits. Engineers determine just how little strength is necessary for the product and its shipping, which means we get flaky cardboard boxes instead of the stout ones that could be used as a fort that I grew up with. Buttons, levers, and housing are much weaker than they used to be, back when I guess people made things that felt "about right."

There's no need to use costly ingredients such as sugar or specially grown hops when generic or produced replacements will do since few people will notice the difference or refuse to buy the cheaper product. Yeah, you may lose 5% or so of the market, but those numbers can easily be made up through marketing to those who wouldn't know the difference if it was presented in a Power Point presentation.

Worse, even if you want to sell to the discriminating, corners are invariably trimmed. If organically produced ingredients are desired, they'll often save money on wages, shipping, or some other aspect. If some small percent of goods will perish if kept at a certain temperature, that will be considered acceptable and no attempt made to lower the temperature to ensure a higher survival. Bland fillers will be used to bulk up the volume, or the package will contain a lesser amount to stay competitive, and the consumer is always the one who suffers.

Years ago when Microsoft was introducing some collaborative software, some astute writer noticed that, despite its benefits, it took no account of the actual business world that is inhabited by humans. While being able to share information and documents is no doubt beneficial, most offices are filled with politics, petty disputes, and the quickly-learned realization that one only receives rewards for what is done and who knows it. Having the ability to share information is one thing, actually giving it up or doing so is quite another entirely. I've little doubt that more is hidden, kept private, and restrained than is ever divulged no matter how many tools are available for disseminating it.

People are unwilling, unable, or at least reluctant to ever question their own motives. Sadder, most who even take that step comfort themselves with some rationalization instead of looking brutally at their reasons for what they say or do. Even if someone has a great idea for improving a product, by the time it makes it through the bureaucracy, the defining edges have been cut off, the soul compromised, and ways developed to produce a more widely acceptable result.

It's not anyone's fault: it's the way the world works.

[Note: When I came up with the title, I expected to include a deep and meaningful discussion of high-end vinegars to make my point. Instead, I rambled aimlessly, and I'm uncertain if I made any point at all, salient or otherwise.]

I suspect I'm like many people when it comes to following the 80-20 law, at least as I understand it and keeping in mind that many refers to twenty or so. This law prevents me, of course, from accomplishing very much because it's much easier for me to live in the future than it is to see most things all the way through to completion.

Take now, for instance.

On my projects list, which never gets all the attention it needs, by the way, I have some shelving ready to go up, some fence repair stuff, and various and assorted cleaning and organizing projects. Instead of working on any of those when I catch a minute or hour of time, I'm planning, wondering about, and researching mortar to build an elevated brick planting area. It wasn't my idea, but my sister took my plan, expanded and changed it, and this is what she came up with.

I'd love to have such a thing. Earlier attempts at growing rosemary and the like pretty much ended in disaster when the dogs discovered the fragrant herbs growing in the yard. The smell, naturally, draws them in and they proceed to do what dogs do on things they find noteworthy, rendering the herbs pretty much useless for human consumption. Those that weren't chewed up, dug out, or otherwise thrashed beyond recognition smell like nothing more than dog piss.

So, an elevated bed might help. Since I'm thinking of only a foot or so high, it's not like they couldn't get to the plants, but maybe they'd give them a pass because there's easier places to go, ones that don't involve jumping.

While I have brackets, two screw guns, assorted levels and hardware components ready to put up the shelves, that project no longer interests me. That isn't to say it's no longer a necessity, just that I've grown bored with it now that it's reached the hairier final step: completion.

The replacement boards for the fence are all freshly painted and ready to go, but plugging in a saw or two and trimming the various pieces to fit must be a herculean task because I'm putting it off. Part of that may be, of course, because cutting the pieces might be inexact or even ruin the perfect plans that I hold in my head. I'm frequently hesitant to pull the trigger and see what the reality is.

So, while things pile up that are almost done, I avoid doing them and concentrate, instead, on what's next.

The modern earwig contributes a great deal to our world by eating dead and decaying plant and animal matter, one that arguably rivals my own efforts to better this world. Even so, the little critters give me the heebie-jeebies, and I don't like them one bit.

According to the wisdom contained on the Internet, they don't attack or eat people, at least live ones, but I have troubling memories of receiving bites from them when I was a kid. Now, as far as I know, they've yet to climb into my bed, sneak into my ears, and much on my warm, delicious brain while I slept, but I wouldn't put it past them. They could be the reason why I'm becoming increasingly forgetful.

Years ago, when I was living at the beach, they would occasionally show up in great numbers along a small concrete wall where we'd gather to barbecue and celebrate the warm weather with massive amounts of cheap beer. It was then that I discovered a helpful chink in their armor -- their complete lack of defense against swung hammers -- and exploited it, sending many of them to the great beyond.

Now, however, after years of hiding and not bothering me at all, they've returned, and one could say with a vengeance without exaggerating in the slightest. They seem to love the comfort and concealment my new car cover provides, and every morning when I unwrap my car, a few dozen are found lurking within its folds.

Although I've learned to expect them there, seeing their masses so early in the morning startles me into wakefulness in a way mere caffeine cannot. I jump. I nearly shout. I get shivers both up and down my spine.

It certainly isn't moist inside there, so I have no choice but to discount all that talk of them seeking those types of locations. As far as I know, there isn't much in the way of decomposing animals or plants there, either, so I can only assume they only do it because they enjoy seeing my reaction.

I let them, mostly, scurry away, something they're quite good at, after punching the car cover to dislodge them, but a dozen or so end up on the hood of the car and as often as not get a free ride until they blow off or choose to jump. I'd like to think they've learned not to leave the embrace of the lawn, but these stubborn earwigs must be as adventurous as early American explorers.

I'm not sure what to do, but I still own a hammer.

I'm not sure I have any credence as a religious scholar, but that doesn't prevent me from thinking about religious things. Religion is fascinating, and not least because of the following possible conversation:

"In our religion, we don't eat pork."
"Hah! In ours, we celebrate with a ham dinner, just to keep people like you out!"

Well, a conversation along those lines might have happened once.

I was raised Christian, specifically Lutheran, but I'm not too sure what that means and, in any case, it doesn't seem to have stuck. Most of the holidays in my family were secular ones, with bunnies replacing break-of-dawn trips to church and chocolate eggs taking the place of communion wafers. Mom and I once traveled to Forest Lawn, a decadent local cemetery, to see Da Vinci's Last Supper recreated in stained glass, but I don't think we were there for any religious reasons.

The point is, I wasn't raised as a Catholic, although I had as many Catholic friends growing up as I did Jewish ones. I know the names of some Catholic things, if not the reasoning behind them, and this year I followed some tradition by avoiding eggs for Lent just to see what it was like. The experience, in the end, was awkward, if not particularly religious.

Yesterday, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, was also my niece's birthday, although she's of an age where her kid's birthdays are more of a big deal than her own is. The day, also, I think, falls into some religious Black Hole, by which I mean I have no idea if it has a special name or significance or not.

I pick "not," but I spent a good five minutes yesterday thinking about it. In the possible footsteps and manner of Jesus' followers, I went out for Chinese food yesterday, something I can envision them doing to deal with the grief I'm sure they felt. I know it's difficult for me to cook, or to be bothered with shopping, when I'm feeling down, and I have no reason to doubt such an emotional time calls for some Kung Pao chicken or, perhaps, a healthy portion of beef chow mein.

Then, it occurred to me. Like I said starting out this entry, I'm no scholar, but I think a case could be made for the day between Jesus' death and resurrection as being the only day since Christmas when there was no Trinity. I have no idea what the religious significance, if any, of Saturday is, but the way I see it, if the Trinity started with Jesus' birth and continues until this very day because he came back from the dead and is riding shotgun in heaven, Saturday he was well and truly dead.

So, after some thirty or forty years of there being a father, son, and holy ghost, for that one day only there was no son looking over the world and tsk-tsking at all the people in judgment. God was still there and the holy ghost, of course, was up to whatever holy ghosts do, but the son was dead and if that's true, there was no Trinity that day.

So, until the day I die, I'll give it it's special place, respect the two legs of the triangle, and call it Duality Day.