Zen and the Art of Taking Stuff Apart
Apr. 21st, 2005 08:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mangosteenConfession: I'm not what you'd call a handy kind of guy.
I'm not particularly good at wielding tools, I've never had the urge to take stuff apart, and I can't read an electrical schematic to save my life. This may or may not be sufficient cause for Them to take away my hacker union card, if I am actually a hacker at all.
I freely admit that I dig appliance-type objects, and while I have been known to go on the rare all-out yak-shaving extravaganza (like getting an Asterisk PBX to work), I believe that when it comes to electronics, there are some things I like to have Just Work, and intentionally breaking my toys doesn't really have much appeal.
At first I thought that I just didn't have the innate intellectual curiosity that made for a Good Geek.
Then I bought a house.
More importantly, I moved into said house.
I need not worry about my curiosity about how things work.
It was obviously just a small matter of motivation.
Within 24 hours, I replaced the doorbell, removed outlet wallplates in order to trace cables, and learned more about cable TV than I had previously thought was necessary.
Observation: When people told me that I should just skip the middle man and sign over my next three paychecks to Home Depot, they didn't tell me that I'd be doing in in daily twentieth-of-a-paycheck chunks. This is expected to continue for a while.
Observation: Much like cooking, the tools for home repair are built up over time. Sure, you could buy everything at once, but it would be hideously expensive, and you'd do it without the experience of knowing the right tool for any given job.
Admittedly, much like the house-buying process, I'm being broken in easy in the home-repair realm. So far, nothing has blown up, fallen apart, or even leaked (much). The lights light, and the heat heats, and the bathrooms, um, bathroom. Even so, I understand the reward. It's a self-reliance thing. There are things that need to be done/fixed/tweaked in the place where I live, I see them every day, and they're not going to get done/fixed/whatever, unless my sweetie or myself do them. There's no one else to push them off onto, and no hiding in the corner until someone else gets pissed enough to do them.
More later. I'm actually just grooving on being an adult right now.
I'm not particularly good at wielding tools, I've never had the urge to take stuff apart, and I can't read an electrical schematic to save my life. This may or may not be sufficient cause for Them to take away my hacker union card, if I am actually a hacker at all.
I freely admit that I dig appliance-type objects, and while I have been known to go on the rare all-out yak-shaving extravaganza (like getting an Asterisk PBX to work), I believe that when it comes to electronics, there are some things I like to have Just Work, and intentionally breaking my toys doesn't really have much appeal.
At first I thought that I just didn't have the innate intellectual curiosity that made for a Good Geek.
Then I bought a house.
More importantly, I moved into said house.
I need not worry about my curiosity about how things work.
It was obviously just a small matter of motivation.
Within 24 hours, I replaced the doorbell, removed outlet wallplates in order to trace cables, and learned more about cable TV than I had previously thought was necessary.
Observation: When people told me that I should just skip the middle man and sign over my next three paychecks to Home Depot, they didn't tell me that I'd be doing in in daily twentieth-of-a-paycheck chunks. This is expected to continue for a while.
Observation: Much like cooking, the tools for home repair are built up over time. Sure, you could buy everything at once, but it would be hideously expensive, and you'd do it without the experience of knowing the right tool for any given job.
Admittedly, much like the house-buying process, I'm being broken in easy in the home-repair realm. So far, nothing has blown up, fallen apart, or even leaked (much). The lights light, and the heat heats, and the bathrooms, um, bathroom. Even so, I understand the reward. It's a self-reliance thing. There are things that need to be done/fixed/tweaked in the place where I live, I see them every day, and they're not going to get done/fixed/whatever, unless my sweetie or myself do them. There's no one else to push them off onto, and no hiding in the corner until someone else gets pissed enough to do them.
More later. I'm actually just grooving on being an adult right now.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 02:29 pm (UTC)If you're not already, you should be on the Elbow-Joints mailing list; I think
no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 06:16 pm (UTC)Well, see, we thought you'd want the convenience of not needing to do it in twentieth of a paycheck chunks...