What are you good at?

bobcat said:
Figuring out handyman type solutions for unconventional problems. Usually, I can bat the problem around in my head for a while, and come up with a fix. It may not be glamorous, but it usually works.
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Many of we humans can become quite skilled at solving all manner of problems. Working for engineers most of my career, I had to usually figure out on my own without any help how to design, and build all manner of cluges to test things and like @bobcat have been doing so throughout my life. A reason why so many men are automobile enthusiasts because working on that technology requires a creative experienced mechanical mind one can feel accomplishment being successful at. Yesterday fixed a gate door latch on our 2-story 4-plex garbage container corral.

The door and the corral side fence were about 1/2 inch from being even so the latch usually would not close if just swung closed. Originally due to poor door measurements. For years most of us just hand pushed the door in by force. People had crudely poorly tried fixing it and damaged the wood where it was mounted. I could have fixed it years ago but it was only a trivial nuisance.

Needed to use my electric drill, so I had to get out a long outdoor extension cord from my carport spidery closet hooked into a laundry room outlet in order to drill new holes. Because the two sides were uneven, I picked out large nuts in my loose junk fastener box with diameters larger than the wood screw diameters to shim out the difference with 2 nuts per each wood screw. Could not use the steel cable keeper or its eye bolt location so cut that with large diagonal cutters and remounted the eye bolt screw up above. Didn't have hardware or tools to clamp the cable professionally so just cluge tied it around the eye bolt.

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David777 said:
Many of we humans can become quite skilled at solving all manner of problems. Working for engineers most of my career, I had to usually figure out on my own without any help how to design, and build all manner of cluges to test things and like @bobcat have been doing so throughout my life. A reason why so many men are automobile enthusiasts because working on that technology requires a creative experienced mechanical mind one can feel accomplishment being successful at. Yesterday fixed a gate door latch on our 2-story 4-plex garbage container corral.

The door and the corral side fence were about 1/2 inch from being even so the latch usually would not close if just swung closed. Originally due to poor door measurements. For years most of us just hand pushed the door in by force. People had crudely poorly tried fixing it and damaged the wood where it was mounted. I could have fixed it years ago but it was only a trivial nuisance.

Needed to use my electric drill, so I had to get out a long outdoor extension cord from my carport spidery closet hooked into a laundry room outlet in order to drill new holes. Because the two sides were uneven, I picked out large nuts in my loose junk fastener box with diameters larger than the wood screw diameters to shim out the difference with 2 nuts per each wood screw. Could not use the steel cable keeper or its eye bolt location so cut that with large diagonal cutters and remounted the eye bolt screw up above. Didn't have hardware or tools to clamp the cable professionally so just cluge tied it around the eye bolt.

View attachment 351366
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Congrats on using an innovative approach to the problem. Many learned skills are transferrable to other situations in life. Your background served you well in tackling this problem.
 
What am I good at ? Point out a distant place ( like in Montana while I am in Buffalo New York ) and I can drive there using paper maps as my guide. I did that sort of thing for about 5 years as a Expedite Freight owner operator in the mid 90's before GPS systems. I had a big alphabetical folder with State and city and county maps. plus the Trucker's Atlas by Rand McNally for the lower 48 states.

I quickly learned not to ask people in small towns the question "Where is the big plant that makes farm tractors " ? Most of them were clueless about the place where they lived. In a pinch, I would go to the local Police station and ask for the directions for the final few miles to my destination. Even then, some times the Police were no help in terms of directions, so I would go to a phone booth ( if I could find on that still worked ) and call the plant's office for directions to their gate.

I have a built in sense of "North " which helps me to find places I have never been to before. Jimb.
 
VaughanJB said:
Hearing.

In fact, I just had my hearing tested, just two weeks ago. I have very young ears, apparently.

I think it comes from my music listening, where I concentrate on fine detail.

It means I can hear taps dripping upstairs, or the slightest sounds. The refrigerator drives me mad, and as for the washing machine..........
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I am the same way. I can hear a drop fall on the carpet. I am also a lover of music.
 
I have pretty good pitch and early on could tell what musical note I was hearing.
Unfortunatly, my vocal chords didn't corporate so singing was out, but instruments took over.
Probably why my first musical instrument was the Tombone.
Without a set of valves to make the notes, you train yourself to 'Hear/Feel' the notes.
 

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