Why, oh why, didn’t I take shop<\/i> in middle school instead of orchestra? I haven’t touched a viola since I was fifteen, but I regret that shop class almost every day since we’ve become homeowners.
\nBooks aren’t that much help either, in that they tend to focus on small, typical projects in houses that don’t have 1967-era wiring, since modified by other homeowners with more enthusiasm than prudence. And I simply don’t have the knowledge base needed to just start experimenting. Unfortunately, my husband has the same problem: no shop class, no natural aptitude, and no memories, either fond or practical, of tinkering in the garage with Dad.
\nFor example, one of the owners wired the house for cable by simply drilling a hole in the exterior brick and the wall board and threading a coax cable through it. So now there’s this coax cable all rolled up in the corner. If we get rid of it, how do we close up the hole? How about the passage the guy made by making a 3″ diameter hole, sticking a piece of PVC in it, and threading more coax through that? The electrician is recommending that we replace our circuit panel. Is he trying to save us from an electrical fire, or trying to pay off his boat early? And while we’re on the topic of electricity, what in the world did Harry Homeowner do with that downstairs receptacle? There’s some kind of tan box in there that seems to be wired into the wall.
\nLess orchestra, more shop. Less calculus, more Aeneid<\/i>. O my wasted youth!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why, oh why, didn’t I take shop in middle school instead of orchestra? I haven’t touched a viola since I was fifteen, but I regret that shop class almost every day since we’ve become homeowners. Books aren’t that much help either, in that they tend to focus on small, typical projects in houses that don’t… Continue reading More reflections on academia<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homekeeping","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}