<p>Growing up, our TVs have all come from someone else’s discard pile and my dad “fixed 'em” for us, installing bits and pieces which were never a part of their original innards. </p>
<p>We’ve had our current tv since D was 1 (now 16). We were tv-less because DH and my dad were taking a few YEARS to decide which tv to purchase. I was ill and my dad came to babysit while I went to doctor. He lasted 2 hours with four kids aged 5,2 (twins), and 1. Packed 'em all up in a the Suburban and bought, for the first time, a tv, still in the box, with no electronics, Popular Mechanics/Pop Sci/Consumer Report, etc. magazine’s assistance. </p>
<p>Gets everyone home, kids all sitting on couch, and puts tv on coffee table which he put against the wall. Carefully repacks all the foam and plastic wrap (really), then plugs it in. Nothing… nothing… nothing. Kids start fussing (3 of them are toddlers after all). Anyway, turns out, tv has no way to receive signal except by cable or rabbit ears (have none). Dad called cable company and said he’d pay 'em $100 extra if they could have a guy there within the hour. They did, Dad paid, and we had cable tv! </p>
<p>Can still not believe Dad bought that without technical assistance. haha</p>
<p>I must have gotten the kind of engineer that’s not organized. My guys have great ideas, do projects, etc., but have no concept of cleaning up after themselves. That would be too detailed for them.</p>
<p>Often when DH is looking for the superglue or a tool…I’m the one who knows where it is! We make a great team. :)</p>
<p>This has got to be my favorite thread, ever. As the mother of a prospective engineer (college freshman) who has watched him over the years take apart remote control toys and use the motors to build wind-generators (with hand-carved wooden propellers made out of hand-laminated balsa – works of art, really!) along with hydroplanes out of old tires, boats out of soda bottles and copper tubing (never did figure out which appliance the copper tubing was stolen from!) – I have often wondered where on earth this kid came from. </p>
<p>Then I realized reading this thread that I must be a frustrated engineer myself – the car-packing thing is me, to a “T”. I can’t stand it when someone brings out something new after I have already started to pack the car for a trip – screws up the whole plan. I also have that intense need to research every single thing before I buy it – sheets, telephones, toys, tv’s, computers, cars, etc. I even research books before I buy them, so that I always buy them from the cheapest website. On the one hand, I save a lot of money by postponing purchases until I finish my research. On the other hand, if I computed the value of the time I spend researching things, I am probably not saving any money.</p>
<p>One question for the group – does anyone else know someone who is hyper-protective of their books? I never crack the spines, never put a mark on the spine of a paperback book, never leave one open facedown, never dog-ear a page, never allow them to be anything but pristine, as though they have never been read. Before I buy one, I have to make sure it is the most perfect, unblemished copy on the shelf. I cringe if someone wants to borrow a book, and my most valued books are in plastic covers.</p>
<p>I also hide my tools so no one else can use them. And yes, I have my own. :)</p>
<p>Orchid: also a non-engineer here. I am the OCD car packer in our family. I alphabetize my spices. My engineer men-folk do not care about order; they must be mutants. I, too have my own tools, but the men-folk always borrow them because they can’t find their own. They know that there will be h**l to pay if they don’t put them back.</p>
<p>However, I am quite profligate with books: cast them on the lending/borrowing winds because I love the idea of sharing books I like.</p>
<p>I have a question. How many people know engineers who don’t share any of these traits. The reason I ask is that my father was an aeronautical engineer and meets all of the aforementioned quirks. However, my S is majoring in systems engineering, is in his second year and likes it, but is NOTHING like the typical engineering personality. </p>
<p>His last purchase, a cell phone, entailed walking into the store and buying the first one he saw (no research). He has never built anything in his life (and wouldn’t know a screw driver from a wrench). Is a total slob (no alphabetizing). Packs a car in the squash and crush method, often forgetting key essentials (like his coat for the last ski trip). </p>
<p>Does this mean he is in the wrong major? (He is doing well in all of his classes but maybe they get harder.)</p>
<p>A great book about books is Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader. She has an essay entitled Never Do That to a Book, in which she talks about how some people believe in courtly love for books, and some believe in carnal love for books. I guess you’re in the courtly camp.</p>
<p>Analyst, there are always exceptions to the rule! However, I am willing to bet that once your S becomes gainfully employed, his career path will be different than that of the stereotypical engineer. Engineers are in demand in many different areas.</p>
<p>Analyst, I believe that a great deal of the engineer personality traits are “nurture” not “nature”. Successfully surviving engineering school requires one to be a compulsive, triple-checking maniac.</p>
<p>I knew one of my twins would be an engineer when they were only 3 years old. They had matching tricycles and a lot of sidewalk and those two boys built a ramp out of a hunk of plywood and a 2x4. They built it themselves! Had thousands of hours of fun riding those trikes over that little ramp.</p>
<p>My dad had a thing about ANYONE using any of his tools so he had gallons of paint made up, this hideous blood red, and spray-painted ALL his tools, from screw drivers to hammers, even the chain saw. He could spot one of his “borrowed” tools from a mile away. My DH liked this idea so much, he has blue on his tools.</p>
<p>Kelsmom, I think his path will be a little different. He hopes to get a job with a Brazilian oil and gas company after undergrad (where he would work as an engineer) but then get an MBA and probably go into another field. He did a language immersion program in Peru last summer and will do one in Brazil this summer and is taking an international research class for J-term now. </p>
<p>I don’t know if he is a compulsive triple checking maniac but guess I will just trust that since he likes his engineering classes and does well in them that it will all turn out OK. If that changes, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to transfer out in third or fourth year since he does have the language classes.</p>
<p>I hope the “triple-checking” gene is not essential to be an engineer, because DS definitely missed that one – he is more of the mad scientist guy – “let’s stick this to this and plug it in to see if it works!”</p>
<p>Not that there’s anything wrong with being a compulsive triple-checker. It is, after all, the life I myself lead (Virginia Tech, Class of '78!!!) :-)</p>
<p>I am math impaired but I research things- I do buy them however- and after I buy them I try not to see what came out the next month.</p>
<p>Re ipods I even bought the previous version instead of a new one after mine was stolen when I read reviews of sound quality & tested it for myself.</p>
<p>My H isn’t an engineer either- but one characteristic he had when I married him, was that he was meticulous in his work.
Silly me, I thought it would carry over toward his home repairs.
But apparently unless he has enough time, money and motivation to do something * right* he doesn’t do it at all
So now I find myself doing it half assed, just so it gets done.
Funny- that doesn’t seem to bother him ( he does find himself complaining about the way I do things occasionally, but then when I ask him if he wants to do it, he scurries off )</p>
<p>Beck - that is one of my pet peeves. I finally broke my H of laying books facedown- I am still working on him about folding page corners.</p>
<p>Sorry to keep this thread going. Read it earlier this week and LMAO, now I have a chance to contribute finally.</p>
<p>I confess to being an engineer husband, though not at all like the ones described here. I work with lots of other engineers and recognize many of the same traits, though.</p>
<p>OK so my DD got in a little fender bender 2 weeks ago. But the car is so old that the insurance company totalled it. Now the car is sitting in our garage without a hood, front bumper, side bumper and front light assembly. My ambitious engineer husband has found a website that will ship used car parts to us and then he’ll fix the car. Of course, I know, that once the parts have arrived he’ll take forever to start the project and it will absolutely never get finished. First he’ll have to clean out the garage, then he’ll have to purchased the right tools, then he’ll plan out (and draw) how he’ll fix the car. By then he’ll lose focus and interest and the poor, old, disassembled car will sit in my garage for years. Eventually, what is left of the car will be donated to Goodwill or one of those places that will actually fix a dead car.</p>
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