I think my first real "spark" was probably when I took a cut appliance cord, plugged it in, and touched the phase and grounded conductors together... Scared me. Went and told my mother what I had done so she would have warning in case that big spark was also happening back behind the walls...

I don't even know where it began. Some of the earliest memories I have are of "taking things apart" which usually involved beating the mess out of them with a hammer until I could look at all the gizmos inside... I like to think I've gotten a little more tactful as the years have progressed.... [Linked Image]

I'm interested in how everything works. I just focus on electricity because it's the only one that was a big mystery (and still is, in a lot of ways [Linked Image]). If you take apart and engine and look at all the pieces carefully, it's usually pretty aparent how they're all supposed to work. But I could desolder every single component in a VCR and still have no clue in the world what they all did for each other.

-John