How many of you all actually read the instructions upon opening a complicated put-it-together project?  Anyone at all?  I know I don’t…

And how many of you will still be in that same spot, 5 hours later, struggling to fit peg E into hole F with little or no success?  You know, with the family members standing around going, “You need some help with that?”

Unsurprisingly, I’ve done that as well…

But by and large, the spirit of DIY is actually dwindling amongst Americans nowadays.  We don’t often build, we don’t do repairs, and I think, really, we just don’t want to work at it much anymore.

What do you think?

If you build it, you’re unusual; survey finds more in U.S. avoid hands-on projects or repairs

By Rick Barrett
December 17, 2009
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MILWAUKEE — The United States has become a nation of “non-tinkerers,” a new survey shows, and it has harmed the way we live and work.

In a poll of 1,000 U.S. adults, nearly six in 10 said they had never made or built a toy.

Twenty-seven percent had not made or built even one item from a list of eight common projects, including furniture and a flower box.

Sixty percent avoided doing major household repairs themselves, noted the survey from The Foundation of the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association, based in Rockford, Ill.

It’s worrisome because the “hands off” policy around the house has kept people from learning valuable skills — including ones associated with productive careers, according to the association, which has more than 2,300 members in the metal fabrication industry.

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I’d like to thank Craig Swanson for the following cartoon, which has to be one of the best ones on welding I’ve yet to find:

I got this forwarded to me in an email and immediately knew that we had to post this here on Carmen!

Ron Patrick’s Street-Legal Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle

This is my street-legal jet car on full afterburner.

The car has two engines: the production gasoline engine in the front driving the front wheels and the jet engine in the back.

The idea is that you drive around legally on the gasoline engine and when you want to have some fun, you spin up the jet and get on the burner (you can start the jet while driving along on the gasoline engine).

The car was built because I wanted the wildest street-legal ride possible.

With this project, I was able to use some stuff I learned while getting my fancy engineering degree (I have a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University) to design a street-legal jet car without the distraction of how other people have done it in the past – because no one has.

I don’t know how fast the car will go and probably never will. The car was built to thrill me, not kill me. That doesn’t stop me from the occasional blast on the highway though.

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Now that Christmas is long since past, it’s the perfect time for planning ahead and buying this coming year’s Christmas cards!

And what better cards could you possibly find than those of Santa Clause doing what he does best — welding?  That’s right, the jolly ol’ fellow is takin’ off some time to do some long-needed repairs around town.

I’m sure this is the best card I’ve seen of its kind — of which there are very few — and I’m sure you’ll join me in thanking Oliver Chipping for creating this marvelous card!