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[Michael A. Terrell]

Bob Larter wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Bob Larter wrote:
grin> I blew up my mother's TV when I was about 14


Did you burn your lips? ;-)

groan

Cue the old joke about the Irish terrorist who blew up a bus.

In the US, its about a mafia Don's stupid nephew.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:03:26 +1000, Bob Larter <bobbylarter@gmail.com>
wrote:

You've never seen transistor + IC TV with a live chassis? - I'm
surprised. Bear in mind that this was back in the days when (cheap) TVs
didn't have external inputs of any kind, so the manufacturers could save
money by not isolating the DC rails from the mains with a transformer.

Nope. I never saw one. For good reason as when I was repairing
consumer electronics, we just didn't get too many bottom end TV's to
fix. I mostly did warranty work on imported tape recorders and
hi-fi's with a few odd TV's mixed in. AC-DC xsistor TV repair is one
experience I'm glad I missed.

Prior to this incident, every time I destroyed something, my father
would do his best to repair the damage. Broken windows, broken toys,
broken furniture, etc. This time was different. He demanded that I
repair the clock, while he watched.

My son is at about that stage. I'm not sure that I could be as patient
as your father. ;^)

His patience and my attention span were both short. We would do the
clock repair about 20-30 minutes at a time. It was a race between my
tendency to get easily bored, and his frustration with my ineptitude.
The real trick was that I had to do it all, with no direct help from
my father. That way, I would have some pride in the work. I've
semi-convinced some of my friends to do the same with their kids, with
mixed results.

Incidentally, I got my revenge many years later. I was working for
Heathkit, so naturally, I bought my father a Heathkit digital clock
kit to build. The roles were reversed. I sat there helping him
solder the kit together while I watched and helped. With all the
mechanical expertise he taught me, I expected this to be fairly
trivial. It wasn't and he struggled with it for several weeks. It
eventually worked and I still have the clock.

One of my friends is a programmer. His father was an auto mechanic
and did not want his son to also become an auto mechanic. Every time
his son picked up a tool, his father would take it away. The son grew
up to be a very competent programmer, but is a total disaster with
anything mechanical. Such things require practice, preferably early
in life.

Good luck with your son. Despite the attention span problem, the
experience is worthwhile. Without it, I'm sure my life would have
taken a different direction.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558