Hand-y

I've always enjoyed working with my hands. One of my earliest memories of this is when I "helped" my dad put together my tricycle. I remember sticking his screwdriver into a tub of axle grease and smearing it onto the tricycle bearings. I think I was about three years old. I also loved taking things apart. I knew I wasn't supposed to do it, so I'd hide in my closet or in my bedroom or somewhere secretive. One time in particular (I was in 4th grade), I hid in my closet and took apart a watch that my grandfather had given me. It wasn't worth anything, and I probably thought I could put it back together. I loved looking at all the tiny gears and springs and such inside that watch. I never did get it put back together again and I'm sure I deconstructed many more watches and clocks and radios and things over the next few years.  I used to build things too. In fifth grade I took detached the wheels and trucks from my skateboard and my brother's skateboard and attached them to a flat piece of plywood. I put two sets of wheels in the back and one set in the front. I made some brakes that I screwed to the side of the plywood and then carried my street luge (this was before street luging was even a recognized activity) up to a nearby hill, sat on it, and then bulleted down the sidewalk. This was near a busy street and I'm sure my mom would've killed me had she known. Unfortunately the brakes weren't enough to stop my luge, so I had to employ sneaker brakes as well. I think that luge was taken away from me soon after that. Over the years I continued to build things, or take apart things, or work on things - bikes, cars, electronics, appliances, etc. Some I have been able to fix, others I have not. I wanted to write about this today because I took apart a Macbook at school today. I had never done it before, but I had some awesome step by step instructions from the Internet. I was replacing a bad optical drive in a teacher's laptop. It was really exciting doing this and I was so proud that it worked afer I was completely finished with it. I was thinking about the difference of how I worked this time compared to when I was younger. Today I carefully taped the tiny screws to the laptop to mark their location and took my time reading the steps and following them closely. This is totally unlike me! Usually I will speed through things and end up losing a screw or breaking a part or going Tourettes. But today I didn't and I feel great about that.