POST // 001 - Tinkering

Power-On Self-Test

By third grade, I had developed a hobby my parents didn't particularly appreciate: secretly taking things to the basement, dismantling them, and trying to get them back together before anyone noticed.

I wasn't trying to break anything. I just desperately wanted to know what was inside.

I grew up on a peninsula surrounded by lakes in northern Minnesota. It was pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, with a handful of resorts scattered around the lakes, and we were almost always on the water.

We fished, went canoeing, and spent a lot of summer days out on the boat. Sometimes we'd pack a lunch and drinks, find a sandbar somewhere in the lake, drop anchor, and spend the entire day swimming.

Every summer there were new kids staying at the resorts. We'd meet them and disappear for the day to find something to do. My parents pretty much let us wander off and come back later.

When I wasn't on the lake, I was usually outside somewhere. I'd shoot my pellet rifle or run around with my black lab, Sam, who was often right there with me.

There was a little pond in front of our house where a painted turtle lived for years. He was missing his claws and part of one of his back feet, so naturally he became "No Claw." I'd find him and feed him grass and whatever else I thought a turtle might want to eat.

At night, there was almost no light pollution. The stars were incredibly bright, and sometimes we'd get the northern lights. Some nights they were so intense that standing outside watching them almost felt like a dream.

And a lot of nights I'd fall asleep listening to the soft yodel of loons out on the lake. That was the world I grew up in.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I became fascinated with how things worked.

A clock radio, a flashlight, an old watch. It didn't really matter. I wanted to know what made it work the way it did.

I remember looking at things and thinking about how they must come apart. Where are the screws? Where are the joints? How is this thing actually held together?

I think it probably started out small. A toy that wouldn't work anymore became ground zero. The consequences were low because it didn't work anyway. I was left with a pile of parts, and it was interesting to see all of these different components that went into things.

The first time I ever figured out what was wrong with something was some broken toy that had a motor in it. When I took it apart, I found that a wire was disconnected from the motor.

I don't remember if I actually fixed it or not. I probably brought it to my dad, who fixed the wire, but afterward it worked.

It was cool to be able to figure out what had happened to it.

From there I probably seriously irritated my parents because I was really good at taking things apart, but not always so great at getting them back together. Some stuff looked a little janky afterward. Some stuff just didn't work at all.

This isn't to say that I took everything in the house apart because I would have been in serious trouble. But some stuff I was able to take apart, examine, and put back together without anyone being the wiser.

Sometimes I learned something. Sometimes I was just happy I got it put back together and it still worked.

I knew my parents didn't like my side hobby, but here I was, a third grader sneaking stuff to the basement to secretly dismantle and reassemble, all while trying not to get caught.

The summer between fourth and fifth grade, we moved.

We left the peninsula and moved to a house deep in the woods, surrounded by forest. I was still the same kid and my habit of taking things apart came with me, but the move opened up a new world of people, places, and things to learn.

A few years later, one year for Christmas, my parents bought me a Science Fair Crystal Radio Kit, Cat. No. 28-177. I believe they got it from Radio Shack.

At first I wasn't really all that excited about it, and I'm sure my parents thought, Oh boy, we really messed up here.

But the more I started looking at it, the more interesting it became.

You would attach the wires to the components, hook up this ridiculously long wire antenna, and before you knew it, you were hearing AM radio.

Here was a radio basically splayed open so I could see all the components, what they were, and how they worked together.

Here was a radio I could mess with without having to worry about putting it back together.

I started asking myself questions about radios and electronics.

What else was out there that I didn't know about?

How did all of this actually work?

And who else knew about it?