While visiting relatives in our hometown of Tulsa last week, I found myself on kitchen duty with my brother-in-law one afternoon. Cleaning the kitchen during the holidays is somewhat like trying to hit a moving target, because the activity never really ends — it just reaches a lull between two peaks.
But we eventually conquered the task, and with a final triumphant flourish I closed the door of the dishwasher and bent down to start the machine. When I hesitated for a moment to familiarize myself with the settings, my brother-in-law …

We enjoy watching the TV show American Inventor. During a recent episode, my son observed that the most successful ideas are not all that revolutionary. Rather, they are improvements to an existing product or idea, or a new way to combine ideas.
The winner of this year’s contest is a product called “The Guardian Angel,” which combines the venerable Christmas tree topper with a modified sprinkler system. Firefighter Greg Chavez invented this product to protect families from Christmas tree fires.
Sometimes we try to dig too deep, when the next great …