<p>OK…How long does it take for an engineer to _______?</p>
<p>I’ll start. My husband started researching new TV sets about 5 years ago. We were supposed to get it for Christmas that year. WELL…a year later he was still researching. I finally said “I’m going to buy a TV today…wanna come?” He almost had a heart attack. I went to Sears Hardware, picked out a TV from a catalog and told the guy to put it into my van. You know…the TV works JUST fine. I couldn’t wait any longer for Consumer Reports and every other possible research. It’s a TV for crying out loud not medical treatment.</p>
<p>My husband bought materials to make our bunny a new cage about six months ago. He drew a beautiful design with ramps and perches – a veritable rabbit castle. The implementation stage of said rabbit castle has not yet commenced. (And yet, the number of airplane building projects which have gone from start to finish in that timespan…)</p>
<p>It’s not so bad – I mean, six months, right? But consider that we’re still supposed to be in the honeymoon phase when “honey do” means something. :-P</p>
<p>Married to an engineer? Fah! I say. I’m an adult child of an engineer, and I seem to have spawned a child with The Knack. How do you think that leaves me? I am practically non-functional – I have engineer instincts, but have only a hint of The Knack. Pity me.</p>
<p>It’s not like choosing between Yale or Harvard here. Or Curtis and Juilliard.</p>
<p>A similar story:</p>
<p>I gutted the first floor of our house the year we bought it, redid everything. Wife kept putting off getting living room curtains for close to 6 months after I had finished everything, as she could “not find anything she liked”.
We still had the bedsheet dropcloth pinned across the bank of windows facing the street.</p>
<p>Next weekend I started bringing in drywall. Conversation went along the lines of “Waddya doing?” “I’m pulling the windows, sick of looking at the sheet.” </p>
<p>Perhaps he does not want to be the sole bidder on the construction phase of the project. Maybe you need to issue a Request For Quote to the industry at large.</p>
<p>Or perhaps he feels that by completing the design the problem has been reduced to one that has already been solved, thus any additional effort would better be spent on the next project.</p>
<p>A third possibility is that he is waiting for you to pester him enough so that he feels justified in running out to buy that new table saw, router and 347-piece tap and die set that he has had his eye on.</p>
<p>Ah BassDad…come on down. We HAVE all of those tools!!! I love my engineer husband and my engineer wannabee daughter, but sometimes the research gets to me.</p>
<p>Oh…he’ll never get over the shock of the TV. Now I’m getting ready to contract with a gas company to put in the little heating stove in our almost finished (yes…it’s one of engineer dad’s projects) downstairs. HE wants to put in the piping himself because no one else can do it. We’ve had the stove for TWO years…in the box. I’ve waited long enough. It will be working by the end of January.</p>
<p>As an engineer myself, I can sort of sympathize with the TV thing. Just when you get one picked out, someone comes out with some great new feature that blows the old one out of the water. A week later, everyone has a new model with that feature and you have to start the analysis all over again. Just when you think you are done, the process repeats itself. </p>
<p>Then you start figuring that if you wait just a little longer, the prices will come down and the technology will improve. Just look at how much better the TV’s are now than the ones that sold for $100 more five years ago. Its almost like buying a PC that will become obsolete between the time it is ordered and the time it arrives a few days later.</p>
<p>moral: If you want a new TV, sometimes you have to get the old one to have an “accident”.</p>
<p>I’m feeling a bit “picked on”. I am an engineer, H is an engineer, oldest S is studying engineering now. Don’t you feel sorry for my younger S who is not the least like the rest of this engineering minded household? Poor kid!</p>
<p>Ah, a thread after my own heart! I love H dearly, and he is a wonderful man … but he is an engineer through & through!! Actually, almost all of my friends are engineers, because I was one of “The few, the proud, the IA’s” (that is Industrial Administration) at my dorky engineering school. I am surrounded by those who research until it’s obsolete, check — double check — then triple check whatever they do, etc. On the plus side, we never have to pay a mechanic (although those pesky computer glitches in newer cars are a real issue)! And home repairs are done in house, as well.</p>
<p>So, how long does it take an engineer to set up a fish tank? It’s still in the basement closet 10 years later! He wanted to build a stand to put it on first.</p>
<p>thumper - as an engineer I’ll give some advice on the research. People who wait never win. New technologies will always be introduced and the time spent researching and researching and researching in an attempt for the newest most advance item to be purchased at the right time takes away too much time that you could spend enjoying the item. Early adopters pay more, and people who just go with the flow end up buying before new things are introduced but that’s just the way the economy works. Innovation is keen to free market. I say screw it buy the TV, computer, etc etc when you want it. Odds are you will end up happier than spending 5 years researching televisions.</p>
<p>Don’t EVER ask him a “simple” computer question. You will never understand the answer.</p>
<p>Our favorite family story is when we got to Carlsbad Caverns and were about to rent the little tape player thing that tells you about the formations as you walk along and H whips out a splitter from his pocket and loudly announces that we only need to rent one tape player because “he has a splitter”. The kids were mortified.</p>
<p>How awesome … your H not only found a wonderfully practical use for technology, but he embarrassed the kids at the same time. Two for one!</p>
<p>Both H & I are pretty nerdy, and we used to take our kids to science museums everywhere we traveled. Our kids learned all about physics, mechanics, fluid dynamics, etc. — whether they wanted to or not!!!</p>
<p>Any of you spend the first 10 years of your marriage with next to nothing because everytime you wanted to buy something, H says, “Oh, I can make that” - and never does?</p>
<p>
Even my kids have learned that one!</p>
<p>Biggest mistake I ever made when we first started dating was to ask him “What does an engineer DO?” Answer lasted about 45 minutes. I married him anyway; can’t say I wasn’t forewarned.</p>
<p>Ever try to get one of us to move furniture up the stairs? We are inclined to go into lengthy debate about how to reduce the amount of total force required. When I moved into my apartment, I took about 45 minutes figuring out the method which requires the least amount of force to get the couch that wouldn’t fit in the service elevator up the stairs.</p>
<p>You think?? Nope…I just don’t want to get bounced from this forum.</p>
<p>Speaking of manuals…how many of you engineer folks have EVERY manual that has ever come into your house? We do (and for items we no longer own). AND how many of you have EVERY packing box (you know…just in case you move and need to pack up the DVD player or the microwave in that styfrofoam packing)? We do…and for many items that we no longer own. </p>