Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:49:30 -0700
Reply-To: honemastert <honemastert@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: honemastert <honemastert@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Are Today's Young People Mechanical Nitwits? (NVC) Fryeday
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long long posts and threads deleted
(since I read this thing from my blackberry half the time)
and since I had to read the other's ramblings.. its
time to dish out mine.. (hit N to skip long boring
thread now..) YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!! :-)
To answer that question.. I would have to say
resoundingly *no*.
For kids in the city, their focus is on other things..
I'm 43 this year (a young whippersnapper compared
to some of you old geezers on here ;-) and I watch with
envy as my 8 year old blasts through 100 levels of a nintendo
DS game, that I take twice as long to learn. Or watch/listen
as the kid (with perfect pitch) can name all the notes, chord
progressions and sit down at the piano, transposing music
on the fly. I never had the type of training he is getting (Yamaha
music school, Suzuki method) we couldnt afford something
like that when I was his age. Piano lessons by the local
Bible Church's ministers wife were as good as it got for
me, and that old bitty wouldnt let me play Scott Joplin
'ragtime' music at the recital since it was held at the church..
BAH..
Too many things vying for ones attention these days I think?
Do your teenager (son) a favor. Make his first
car an old VW bug. While not the 'safest' vehicle
out on the road, he'll learn a ton having to 'keep it
alive'
I didnt really learn what all was involved with
cars, engines and the like until I went that route
between high school and through my college years.
Hibbard's Baja Bugs and Buggies.. and Muir's
'How to keep your VW alive' were my guides back
then. Never went the bus route, but should have,
would have been fun.
Fastforward 20+ years now I have the money,
but not the time so I do pay the 'experts', as long
as the so called 'experts' are willing to work with me
and understand my engineering background and my
innate DNA that drives me to understand, ask 'why'
and really learn how things work.
I think the OP and others have it all wrong here..
some of the young guys at Doug's Bugs and Bunnies in Mesa AZ
are the best mech's in town. I've witnessed it first hand
On Friday's after the shop closes.. they hang out,
drink a beer or two and other folks start showing up
in bugs, busses, rabbits, GTI's and the like.
Begs the question.. why is there always a guy named
"Fish" in the local cool (insert your hobby/vice here) shop
In Phx. alone I know a "Fish" at Cactus Bikes (Mtb shop)
"Fish" at Doug's B&B and a Russ "Fish" Walling that
makes/sells climbing gear. Actually Russ and his squeeze
Susan live in Joshua Tree CA. but I digress..
That's why stories like the GM Volt one I just posted
are uplifting to me. Real engineering still taking place
in this country.
Helped my parents move a couple of weeks ago into
the city from the country. It was a bit of a chore
(in a good way) educating him on over the air HDTV and
generally being wiring, a/v, tv computer guy for him and
my mom. Heck they're out of practice,.. they've been
in the same place for 50 YEARS! :-)
We setup a nice UHF antenna in the attic and dumped
their 300lb Zenith CRT (early HDready) set on Craigslist.
Picked up a cheap Vizio LCD set at SamsClub for the
upstairs, then with their budget in mind went *BIG* TV
shopping. Settled on a Mitsu 65" DLP (again, you can
replace the bulbs/lamps yourself!?) for the basement.
Not the best/brightest, (that would be the 60" Pioneer
KURO plasma BTW :-) but the biggest that filled the
space and they could afford.
It was pretty satisfying to see those 11 local OTA HDTV
stations come in and pop right out of that 65" set and my
Father do the WTF look..
"You mean they've been broadcasting this stuff for the
past year or so already?" :-)
Dad got his GED after coming back from Korea
(he skpped out of school when 17 to join up, and promptly
landed in a Chinese prison camp for 18+ months) talk
about a rude awakening! He went on to work as a local
town policeman, then as a security guard for Beech Aircraft
in Wichita, KS
His father (Grandpa Schneider) worked as a wiring harness
electrician on the assy. line at Boeing. He had one of
the first televisions, running from a 'windcharger' tied to a
bank of batteries. Old radio repair manuals, boxes of popular
mechanics interspersed with an occasional girly mags from the 40's
50's (those relatively tame ones?) early 1900's telephone generators,
(yes, Grandpa used to use the thing to 'fish' with at the local lake..
two wires overboard, crank it up, and watch the stunned fish float to
the surface.. ingenuity in the Great Depression :-) All this made for
a great tinkering childhood for me and we technically didnt live
on the farm, but just out in the country.
The elctronic/electrical engeering/tech thing skipped a generation
but I recall Dad never being afraid to fix/work on anything, stubbornly
so at times.
Part of the 'stuff' (junk if you will) that I got to bring back was
Grandpa's old Zenith 5-2-29 'tombstone' vacuum tube radio
(a 1936 model) I recal as a 10-12 yr old hooking the antenna up
to the bedroom window screen and pulling in the atomic clock,
morse code, voice of america and the bbc broadcasts on the
shortwave band. Very cool and strange stuff for a kid, formative
stuff that made me want to know 'how it all works!'
Now I get to work on restoring the beast, and reading up on
how 8VSB (8 vestigial side band broadcast HDTV) works..
Never stop learning, whatever you do, it's a fundamental part
of being a human and being 'alive'.
With all that in mind.. who has time to 'wrench' on their
Vanagon? there are too many other things to do/learn! ;-)
-tim
90 Syncro Westy
Gilbert, AZ
http://www.timschneider.org
