Kurt Gray's Journal: Welding Class

So I'm taking a welding class, part of a local adult-ed night class program. Now I get to have a taste of what attending a vocational high school might have been like. And who knows, the way the techie job market and civilization is general is heading, a better understanding of the more traditional occupations may come in handy. Forget Cisco certification, sign me up for crane operator certification. Crane operators make pretty decent cake, at the end of the day they can point at what they helped build and know it will last a long long time (something web site builders can hardly do), and at the risk of losing their license, a crane operator can park their own car just about anywhere. But what started this welding kick is I was watching a "Junkyard Wars" marathon one afternoon and it made it clear to me that I must know how to cut and weld arbitrary pieces of metal.

Last year I learned glass blowing and I learned it's much harder than it looks. I produced a few globby paperweights, some ornament balls, and two really sad attempts at a drinking glass. The drinking glasses a so sloppy and warped they almost look like intentional works of art.

The year before I learned scuba diving, got Open Water PADI certified. It was hard to enjoy the experience since by the time our class got to ocean it was October, and diving of a New England beach in late October when the water is 50-degrees or less, even in a dry suit, the frigidity of the water and the bulk of your diving gear is enough to make you quickly consider if perhaps watching underwater scenes on TV is in fact more relaxing and comfortable than actually diving into the frigid deep yourself, not to mention watching it on TV is a whole lot safer. But yes it was worth it just to try it. I haven't done more than snorkel since though.

I highly recommend adult education classes. I also took an import/exports business class recently just for the hell of it, you never know when this stuff will come in handy.