Engineering!

My dad’s new primary care practitioner is a busy bee or possibly an eager beaver. He got us lined up with a couple of specialists, and now we have two therapists and one nurse coming to the house every week. I don’t know how much this will benefit my dad, who never remembers anything the therapists teach him, but I believe it will improve my math, engineering, and physics skills, because when I take him to see doctors, I study and do problems while we wait.

A long time ago, I developed a policy which I don’t follow nearly often enough: “Never wait.” Of course, it doesn’t really mean, “Never wait.” It means, “Never JUST wait.” When you’re stuck waiting on someone or something, come up with something useful to do to fill the time.

Waiting-room magazines are horrid, especially in offices where liberals or women choose them. Women’s magazines are sick, shallow, and depraved. It’s strange how no one talks about this. Men have great magazines about things like guns, hunting, mechanical things, and so on. Women’s magazines are about MEN MEN MEN MEN MEN. More specifically, they are about how to out-compete sluts by being a bigger and less sincere slut. If you don’t believe me, read Cosmopolitan some day.

Men chase women, but we don’t sit around reading magazines telling us how to torture and abuse and twist ourselves into woman magnets. Men’s magazines don’t tell us how to starve ourselves, dress like prostitutes, drive women crazy in bed, fool women into marrying us, or get over painful breakups so we don’t turn into stalkers who call their boyfriends’ offices 500 times a day.

Men don’t have long, painful breakups. The first thing a man notices when he dumps a woman is the sudden sensation of freedom, and it tempers the feeling of loss. “I can drive as fast as I want! I can wear the shoes she hates! I don’t have to pretend I like to dance! I’ll never have to watch another movie about cancer! MY GUNS ARE GOING BACK ON THE LIVING ROOM WALL!”

I’m not about to poison my mind with old copies of O or Vogue. I have to have something else to do.

I’ve been working through the Schaum outline on differential equations, but I decided to set it aside because the problems aren’t really suitable for waiting rooms. Some of them require integral tables, and while a Schaum outline is a thin, handy book, adding an integral table to it turns it into a cumbersome package.

My new thing is the Schaum outline on solids. This is an engineering topic involving the way solid stuff behaves when you subject it to forces. I think. The names of engineering courses are confusing. The title of the outline is Strength of Materials.

I really like this stuff so far. It gives me confidence that mechanical engineering isn’t very hard. I know engineers will yell when they read that, and maybe I’m wrong, but so far, it looks a lot less challenging than physics.

I looked at lists of things ME’s study, and it was not like what I studied. I started with courses a lot like the ones ME’s start with, and then things got worse and worse. The material got more and more difficult and esoteric. It looks like undergrad ME’s don’t continue pushing themselves the way physicists do. They go into courses about applying simple first-year physics. Which gear to pick when you design a machine. How much concrete you need to build a strong garage floor.

Maybe it’s like law. Law never gets any harder than it is during the first semester. You spend one year acquiring skills and general knowledge, and after that, you apply the skills to new material.

I’m sure there are ways to make mechanical engineering very hard. I suspect it’s like math. Getting a math major is about one-thousandth as hard as getting a physics major (says a physics major with all but one math major course), but you don’t have to limit yourself to the relatively easy math courses. You can make math as hard as you want if you pick the right things to study, and I’m sure mechanical engineering must work the same way.

There is no easy way through a physics program.

Thing is, I am not interested in the hard engineering topics, if they exist. I just want to feel more competent about building things and so on. Physicists can’t build anything.

I scored a brand-new, highly regarded solids textbook for 21 bucks on Amazon. That was sweet. I used to think a $60 text was expensive, but I see a lot of three-figure prices these days. I don’t know how anyone can pay for college. The Schaum outline was 7 bucks, new. Lectures are free on Youtube. I figure I could become a de facto ME for $200. No one would ever want to hire me based on home study, but I would always know which gear to pick.

I wouldn’t want to work as an ME. My understanding is that they learn all sorts of cool stuff, and then they get stuck in horrible jobs where they measure things all day. I think the only fun they ever have is building things in their garages.

I’ve seen horrifying Youtube videos by disappointed engineers. They think they’re going to build autonomous robots and Ferrari engines. Then they show up for work, and someone hands them a box of parts and some micrometers.

I wish I knew what my Uncle Johnny did for NASA. He was in liquid propulsion back when we had a space program. No idea what liquid propulsion is. I don’t know what he did or whether he enjoyed his career. I know he liked using his skills at home.

He knew a lot of things but he wasn’t really that great with practical applications. I remember he fixed a refrigerator on my dad’s boat. It would tilt when the boat listed too far. He made a crappy little plate and screwed it to the fridge and a cabinet, I think. I hate the term “redneck,” but that’s how it looked. I expected a miracle, because I was so impressed with his credentials, but a guy who fixes lawnmowers every day could have done better. After four years of study, you should be able to stabilize a fridge in a way which is completely seamless.

He’s from Alabama. Do I ask too much?

Maybe I overestimate engineers. Maybe they can’t do do anything, either. Perhaps they’re like physicists. Maybe only the exceptional ones are able to build things.

Maybe Johnny measured things all day for NASA.

“How long is that bolt, Johnny?”

“Fifteen millimeters, plus or minus one tenth.”

“Great work.”

“When do I get my pension?”

“Your eyes are full of hate, forty-one. That’s good. Hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength.”

I feel like no one who doesn’t have a milling machine and a lathe is serious about mechanical things. You need those tools, a drill press, a belt grinder, and a metal-cutting band saw if you want to do anything with metal. If you’re poor and extremely determined, you can do a lot with files, but I digress.

MIG welder. You need a MIG welder, too.

I guess I’ll do some problems. If I fail, I’ll realize I’m too old and stupid to learn anything new. My biggest problem will be learning engineerspeak. Physicists gave them every basic tool they have, but they had to change the name of everything. Out of spite. This is my theory.

Moment is just torque. Stress is just pressure. Come on, guys. We invented this stuff.

If all goes well, some time next year I’ll be able to pick the correct gears out of lists. That will be exciting.

If I succeed at this, I will be insufferable to engineers. More than I already am. “I learned your stuff in a year. Why do you exist, again?”

If I fail, I’ll just quietly not write about it.

Watch this space.