"It wasn't getting enough power.....so I rewired it...."
I’m 47. I fix just about everything, on principle.
I could afford to pay someone now, but I know what it’s like not to have that luxury, and I’m unwilling to let those skills atrophy in case I need them in the future. I’d rather spend the money on the tools necessary to do it the first time and then become more accomplished at it the succeeding times.
And the way things are going, I have a feeling those skills (and the tools to accompany them) are going to be life preserving.
It does take time. I consider it a useful hobby, and an ongoing challenge now. Then again, I don’t spend my spare time gaming, watching crap from Hollywood, or being glued to the tube all weekend watching sports.
My wife is an accomplished gardener and cook, so between the two of us, there isn’t much we can’t do.
"It wasn't getting enough power.....so I rewired it...."
Google it. Find a you tube vid. Repair it yourself.
I used to get in trouble for taking stuff apart. I did not always get it back together correctly.
I find the folks under 25 (my kids ages) to not be as curious about how stuff works. I am no DIY genius, but I love trying to figure out how stuff works, from well pumps to my own body.
But I trat they will do okay by us when they have to. I just look at our service men and women. I have faith in them. Every cycle the kids have done OK.
I’m in my fifties with a Masters in Electrical Engineering and lots of practical field experience..... My hobbies are car repair, woodworking and refrigeration....
When my son decided to go to college with a football scholarship ( division 1 school) , I told him he needed a degree that was also a vocation .... He went EE...
He graduated last year and walked into a $60K job which is promising to increase to $80K next year based on his performance...
However when he was sixteen he wanted to change the oil in his car by himself... He accidently drained the transmission fluid and added 5 quarts of oil to the engine thinking it was empty... I watched with amusement... He got to the end of the driveway before the car wouldn’t shift... Lesson learned... Lol...
He’s much more me mechanically adept now and has practical engineering skills....
Many don’t know which end of a hammer to hold. Garage sales of today are goldmines for power and hand tools when boomers’ possessions are disposed of. Quite often guns, camping and fishing stuff too.
Bkmrk
Constantly getting, "why don't you call somebody, save yourself the trouble", from friends.
We have a generation of "wusses" who are scared of getting their hands dirty once and a while or are embarrassed about doing lowly manual labor for themselves.
They don't, I guess, see the pride and sense of accomplishment a person can get from doing his own work.
Saves a few coins also :)
Should I be worried?
“...how to use tin foil to make too small batteries fit correctly...”
Next lesson, the old penny-in-a-burned-out-fuse trick.
I learned to do a lot of things because I didn’t have the money to pay someone to do it. I also learned a lot from helping friends and family in the same situation. I now have a theory that is why should I pay someone to srcrew up what I can screw up perfectly well on my own. Most of my experiences with so called experts haven’t been very positive.
“If the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.” Red Green
The words “hammer” and “duct/duck tape” were never used in that article.
Sad.
I used to fix everything except electronic equipment. Even rewired and rebuilt my house without outside help.
I could set up my AC unit to come on automatically 30 minutes before I got home. It was easy!
Now the most simple tool or appliance seems to have an electronic touchpad that automatically defaults to the OFF position when no power is on.
I don’t think things have changed that much. I have been fixing things all my life for people who didn’t want to try. I have seen kids that will take apart a new toy to see how it works. People who tinker with stuff are born that way and will try to take apart anything given to them. Most like me started when they got their first rattle. I repaired a toaster when I was in first grade. They were a lot more fixable item around back then. Back when electronic stuff had discrete parts you could find smoked parts and replace then. I got my a metal finder with a bad diode in the rectifier bridge. Less than a dollar in parts to repair. And parents were more likely to let you blow out circuit fuses. When I was in Jr High I took apart my saxophone and put it back together.
Some people learned how to repair stuff because they had to. And some people repair stuff because it is there.
My husband was visiting his sister and husband in their ritzy house in San Diego. There was some loose wood staple in the basement and the b-i-l (aged 42) couldn’t pry it out by hand. My husband (age 40, who has many tools at home) asked if he had tools so the b-i-l checked his “tool box”: a child’s kit with a mini-flashlight, two small screwdrivers and mini-tape measure. They had to go the the neighbor’s house to borrow a pair of pliers.
I used to work for a phone-in mail order company that sold hats. Our customers were mostly retirees or older folks. If people didn’t know their hat sizes, I’d tell them to get a cloth tape measure to measure their heads and I’d convert the inches to a hat size. I think only once in three years I spoke with a customer who did not own a cloth tape measure, so they had to use a string. That was twenty years ago.
Today I am 38, have a cloth tape measure in my house as well as a sewing machine. I’m no expert dressmaker, but I make repairs to clothes as needed. I don’t know a single woman my age or younger who owns a sewing machine or cloth tape measure. Perhaps a few may have a spool of thread and some needles, but that’s it.
Kids who learn trades will be able to name their price in the near future. “Have a faucet leaking? That’ll be $300 please.”
“The light bulb doesn’t make contact in the socket? Electrical is a lot higher. That’ll be $400 please.”
I’ll stick to my machine shop and make all the gizmos I want.
I can’t turn my cell phone in to a projector. BUT, I can machine chunks of metal in to a working internal combustion engine.
“no idea what to do when things go wrong...”
Sure they do...just take it to the apple store at the mall.
What a crock.
The under 40 crowd is designing the very gadgets that have Boomers on the phone with tech support when they can’t figure out how to make them work.
I work with under 40s in an engineering setting every day and they are sharp.