30 Days to a Better Man, Day 23: learn a manual skill

I heard back from the volunteer agency I wrote to on Day 20. Turns out they've shut their operation down for a few months due to "staff changes," whatever that means. They'll put me on the list and get back to me once they're up and running again. Doesn't bother me. This gives the weather time to get nicer.

Wipe that look off your faces, maggots. "Yes, I love winter, but I am not willing to take wounds for it, as I am for summer." John Holmes (slightly paraphrased).

Anyway, on to Day 23.

Manual skills are something I am severely deficient in. I was always the type of boy who drew or scribbled instead of building things (with the exception of Lego sets, of course). I'm rubbish with cars. I've helped my pop replace oil, brakes, shocks, and even entire engines, but left to my own devices the most I can do is change tires and check fluid levels. And I know zilch about carpentry, metalwork, wiring, plastering, bricklaying, tiling, or anything else construction entails. I can disassemble and clean guns and paint eaves like the dickens, and that's about it. I'm a whiz with jigsaw puzzles, but that's of little practical value.

So I set out to rectify these shortcomings. I chose to familiarize myself with basic home wiring. I've never so much as touched a length of copper wire in my life. I hovered in the background while our one-armed electrician upgraded our electrical system in California (with his assistant giving him a hand). Even in my twenties, I have a tendency to view electricity as some kind of benevolent spirit that inhabits the walls and breathes life into table lamps and computer screens.

I sat down and went through the entire course on doityourself.com. It was full of helpful hints, useful tips and even a little glossary of terms. Some of it I was already marginally familiar with—you have to know what amperes, circuits, and circuit breakers are if you fly airplanes—but some of it was almost incomprehensible. (Roughing in? Knock out a tab? Pigtail the hot wires together?) I had to pause frequently to look up things like junction boxes and fuses, just to make sure I knew how they worked.

Regardless, I like to think that I know my home electrical system a little better now (even if the voltage levels are different in Korea). I know what the colors of the wires mean, at any rate. When I'm back in the States and my wife and three kids run to me and ask me to install a light switch or a ceiling fan, I feel as though I'll be able to do it (with judicious help from that website). I might even get brave and install track lighting along the driveway at some point. I feel like a better man already.

Keep scanning for Day 24.