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34 degree C outside plus a MIG welder makes for a very hot day. I've been teaching myself to weld in the workshop here, which is amusing, seeing as all I have to do is lay down bead after bead and see just how hot I can get my piece of scrap metal.
This is all a phenomenal departure from my days spent hunched over a keyboard playing nerd as a programmer and sys admin. I decided just under a year ago that what I really needed was a proper job. IT exists in its own paranoid, isolationist, arrogant bubble, and eventually, you find yourself feeling like Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up.
Ironically, I left the nerd world just as it's become fashionable to be a geek, but frankly, I felt the need to get dirty and discover that hard work is way more than just punching keys 18 to 20 hours a day, or pulling the odd three day death march to nurse a broken system back to health. Ultimately, I never fit into the world that I spent ten years trying to shoe horn myself into.
Engineering is a bastard of an industry, but goddamn it's fun to be presented with both a physical and a mental challenge on a regular basis. Plus, I get to play with power tools and shit that sets fire to stuff on a regular basis, so if I'm gonna be the boy who refused to grow up, I'm gonna do it in a world where I can make stuff go bang.
34 degree C outside plus a MIG welder makes for a very hot day. I've been teaching myself to weld in the workshop here, which is amusing, seeing as all I have to do is lay down bead after bead and see just how hot I can get my piece of scrap metal.
This is all a phenomenal departure from my days spent hunched over a keyboard playing nerd as a programmer and sys admin. I decided just under a year ago that what I really needed was a proper job. IT exists in its own paranoid, isolationist, arrogant bubble, and eventually, you find yourself feeling like Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up.
Ironically, I left the nerd world just as it's become fashionable to be a geek, but frankly, I felt the need to get dirty and discover that hard work is way more than just punching keys 18 to 20 hours a day, or pulling the odd three day death march to nurse a broken system back to health. Ultimately, I never fit into the world that I spent ten years trying to shoe horn myself into.
Engineering is a bastard of an industry, but goddamn it's fun to be presented with both a physical and a mental challenge on a regular basis. Plus, I get to play with power tools and shit that sets fire to stuff on a regular basis, so if I'm gonna be the boy who refused to grow up, I'm gonna do it in a world where I can make stuff go bang.
This is all a phenomenal departure from my days spent hunched over a keyboard playing nerd as a programmer and sys admin. I decided just under a year ago that what I really needed was a proper job. IT exists in its own paranoid, isolationist, arrogant bubble, and eventually, you find yourself feeling like Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up.
Ironically, I left the nerd world just as it's become fashionable to be a geek, but frankly, I felt the need to get dirty and discover that hard work is way more than just punching keys 18 to 20 hours a day, or pulling the odd three day death march to nurse a broken system back to health. Ultimately, I never fit into the world that I spent ten years trying to shoe horn myself into.
Engineering is a bastard of an industry, but goddamn it's fun to be presented with both a physical and a mental challenge on a regular basis. Plus, I get to play with power tools and shit that sets fire to stuff on a regular basis, so if I'm gonna be the boy who refused to grow up, I'm gonna do it in a world where I can make stuff go bang.