[today’s run: 2 miles]
It seems I’ve developed a bit of a reputation as a ‘fixer’. Even my neighbor, after us being here 4 years now, made comments about me being able to fix things.
There are very few things I actually know how to fix. But I’ve developed a bit of a knack for taking things apart and putting them back together. Sort of.
I put in a lot of disclaimers because my version of fixing is usually about a 50/50 proposition. It could be that the end result will be better. Or it could be worse.
When I was a kid we use do have metal toy cars and trucks, about shoe-size, some larger, from Tonka. I think I started my fixing ways while working on those. They used a metal tab-in-slot system of holding the body on the frame or the cab on the body. I took them apart. I usually didn’t put them back together.
I built go-carts from wagon parts. I took bicycles apart and put them back together. I remember getting a watch, I think it was a pocket watch. Yup, I took it apart. Nope, it didn’t survive.
In my teen years I put together a stereo system. I built models and balsa planes with glow-plug engines. I built kites from sticks, string tape and newspaper.
My Uncle Lee, who was recently here to visit, one time gave me a camera. It didn’t seem to work quite right, so I “fixed” some on it. Oy. It was not improved.
I’ve destroyed a lot of stuff in my career as a fixer. Some intentional and some unintentional. There are some vehicles out there in the wide world which are not better off for my efforts. One particular oscilloscope I ended up selling to a guy and shipped off as a box of parts. It didn’t come to me that way but that’s the way it left.
I’ve repaired on our houses since our early days of home ownership. Some things worked, some didn’t. Some I had to tackle multiple times and never did get quite right.
I think I am finally getting a little smarter. At least I don’t normally dive in and work on something that is of high importance unless I’ve done it before or there just isn’t any other choice. Knowing when something is completely dead is part of the secret. If I can’t kill it, it relieves me of any burden for it’s broken condition.
And the information available today with the Internet is a big help. You can find a manual or webpage or video of about anything that you would want to do.
So what do I get for all of this? Why buy a surplus mass spectrometer online, haul it home and take it all apart?
One thing I’d like to get is some money. Maybe not a lot. Maybe I just don’t want to lose a lot. But when I can sell the scrap metal and sell some parts on ebay or at a hamfest, I feel like I turned a nothing into a something, in a deconstructive way. If I get a broken radio for next to nothing, get it working, use it for awhile. I like that.
And I get an education. I learn about how things are built and what the fragile parts are likely to be. And just in general learn how their guts go together. I’m not sure why that is satisfying, but it is. A biologist learns how nature works, decoding the works of God. And I learn how radios work and machinery and whatnot, decoding the works of product engineers.