From Dave Griffey at Daffey Thoughts:
Yep:
As a person with a bit of art about me, I chuckle at the “How to Draw” books you can purchase. They often look like this. Same with “How to learn piano.” They’re basically like a book that says ‘How to fix an automatic transmission if four easy steps. Step one: Remove the engine.’
Most ‘How to books” could save trees and paper by saying the same thing: How to? Hard work, lots of practice and lots of trial and error.
Go here to comment. Agree a thousand times! My favorite are plumbing videos which somehow never show rusted pipes, tight access problems, unique pipe set ups, etc. There is a good reason why we call in experts!
My late father-in-law was a good shade tree plumber and electrician and he tried, unsuccessfully, to impart plumbing knowledge to me. I once asked him why the never attempted to teach me some basic electrician skills. He looked at me and said, “Don, I’ve seen your plumbing. I do not want my daughter to be a widow.”
My father would do his own electrical (his father was a master electrician and taught him basic stuff). My father could also do basic plumbing, but he did not do so. Why? I asked. “I’m too rich.”
.
It was the only time I ever heard my father make any claims about his income level.
I can do just about anything but it’s kind of a curse, because my wife knows this.
Mr. Griffey needs to consult Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
One of our shirt-tails is a contractor and used to have a diversified business, though I don’t think it included plumbing or wiring. Lately, he’s just been doing window installations. Evidently, he earns better coin by specializing, or so he told my brother.
Hunter Biden could have used such an art book.
Mr McClarey…
I like your father in laws response.
:^)
Knowing just enough construction to make you dangerous…that’s about the extent of my small t talents.
I’m in the 20 percentile for finger dexterity (tested in high school long ago), so I can’t do carpentry or plumbing. I can do electrical stuff, and did so in the lab, but it looked awful. No neat splices, wires sticking out…When I repair, it always looks like a kluge job.
Plumbing often leads to one thing and another and another…
I changed a wax ring on a toilet once that led to desoldering a new supply valve that led to desoldering the supply pipe to the basement. Argh.
Now there are no solder shark-bite connectors, I still wouldn’t trust them in a wall, but they are very very good in a pinch.
A-D: what’s a “shirt-tail?”
“Hard work, lots of practice and lots of trial and error. “
Playing guitar has taught, and continues to teach, me that very lesson for a little over thirty years now.
A-D: what’s a “shirt-tail?”
Descendant or younger in-law of a sibling, or, stretching it, step-sibling.