[leviathant]

Ah, I thought I addressed that when I mentioned that I don't wash my own car. I don't do my own oil changes either.

The last decade of my life has been incredibly busy. It's nice to take a half hour and mow the lawn, or walk to Pep Boys, chat with the folks behind the counter, walk home with a radiator, and spend an hour figuring how to replace the old one without spilling coolant all over the driveway.

With all the coding I do, there's a satisfaction I get out of physical assembly and creation in things like home renovation or working on my car that doesn't, for me, ever feel the same coming from an LCD screen. Wiring up a three-way switch on both ends of a light bulb, throwing the breaker back on and having it work the first time, or buying a "broken" drum machine, opening it up and soldering the power connector back on, or tuck-pointing the stone foundation in my house.

I agree that spare time seems more and more fleeting as the years pass by. And though I'm sure there are interesting things for which you're saving your time, your not having mentioned them reminds me of a poem by Ogden Nash, "The Strange Case of Mr. Artesian's Conscientiousness" which Google shows me is quoted in full at http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=69657&#3...