RobArt Penguin

I was looking back on some of the things I used to make. I’ve always been a tinkerer. My engineering friends would scoff at the idea of me being an amateur engineer because of the rigors of getting a professional engineering degree, but it runs in my blood. My grandfather and uncle were trained engineers. My grandfather has patents in his name. My uncle rebuilt antique cars. When I was a teenager and living in my family’s basement, I built a greenhouse so I could have plants without natural sunlight. I also entered a space race with my friends, the first to launch a flying saucer with solid fuel rockets. I won because my craft got thirty feet off the ground. I’ve always been able to troubleshoot broken things (with the help of the internet) and figure out a way to fix them, dishwashers, dryers, washing machines with broken agitators, bad light sockets. But I’m not an electrician or a auto mechanic. I have my limits. I built a snow making machine that only made ice. One of my favorite shows was a TV series with Andy Griffith about a guy who built a working rocket in his backyard: “Salvage” and “Salvage 1” (1979). If I wasn’t devoting myself to writing, I may be building my spaceship in the backyard. It’s a time management thing.