Off topic: If you were 18 again?

Mike Peters said:
After majoring in geology in college, I landed a summer office job in an asbestos mine. Hated it. We decided to go farming, eventually bought a farm and still farming 44 years later. Never looked back. Would do it over again.
The lesson here is "Do what you like to do, and not what other people expect you to do"
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Mike, If I'm not being too nosey, are you running livestock, or are you grain only? And how many acres? I've been off the farm since 1980 and am curious if a 200-300 acre operation can make it just on cash crops or if you to feed cattle or hogs?
 
Well, if we were 18 again we would have lost that lifetime of experience and would just be typical dumb kids again!
 
Well, if we were 18 again we would have lost that lifetime of experience and would just be typical dumb kids again!



speak for yourself! LOL
 
Another BSME (retired) here. Spent 40 years in the aerospace biz and enjoyed every day. Engineers like the technology of widgets and gagetry, not so much people. Engineers rarely go on cruises - after a tour of the engine room, what can you do ? You are on a floating island - with people. I would love to be 18 again but know what I know now. I would take education much more seriously, know that opportunities come at certain times and never again at the same benefit, and appreciate that time screames on by at the speed of stink. Good luck on your future quest.
 
Mulletwagon said:
Another BSME (retired) here. Spent 40 years in the aerospace biz and enjoyed every day. Engineers like the technology of widgets and gagetry, not so much people. Engineers rarely go on cruises - after a tour of the engine room, what can you do ? You are on a floating island - with people. I would love to be 18 again but know what I know now. I would take education much more seriously, know that opportunities come at certain times and never again at the same benefit, and appreciate that time screames on by at the speed of stink. Good luck on your future quest.
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What do wives, engineers and lawyers have in common??

Ans: They take simple things and make then complicated.
 
I majored in Accounting. Decided in senior year I never wanted to do it. 1960 US Army wanted to draft me. Married the best woman I've ever known. Joined USN to be a non-pilot flight officer. Decided to make it a career. Retired after twenty and ended u p being a wholesale sales rep for 19 years, loved it. Started raising Angus part-time. Still doing it at 85 as a beef to the butcher business and loving (almost) every minute of it. Married 62 years and counting.

I would NOT have become a farmer until after I traveled the world. I love to travel and then return home here in the Shenandoah Valley.

DO something you love to do. Enjoy your loved ones. If you don't have any. look around. There are nice people around you.
 
40 Deluxe said:
But then you blow it on drugs and are dead before you hit 30, or are shot dead in some alley.
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Updraught is in Australia. That is not likely to happen.

When I was 18, I was studying Civil Engineering at university when my parents' marriage exploded and I had to quit. I fell into my career as a Land Surveyor the following year and loved every day of it. I wouldn't change my kids nor grandchildren for the world. I have been blessed.
 
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I would have gone to a different high school and by the time I turned 18, everything from that point would have been different. I would still have a Model "A" in my life.
 
It doesn't matter what profession you would choose to go back to. The moment you opened your mouth and tried to change something, you would be labeled mentally unstable and put in a home for idiots. If you just lived like you used to and kept quiet, you would be extremely bored.
Actually, I never wanted to go back and do it over because I think I did it right the first time.

A friend of mine had a unique number for his race car once.
O2B18.
 
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I'm an industrial engineer by education. I worked a real job for 6 months after graduating. I quit that job and took a job sailing on bulk freight cargo ships. I started at the very bottom and worked my way up. I'm now a licensed marine engineer. I get to turn wrenches every day and work on really big engines and the like. I couldn't imagine ever working at a desk again.
 
I would look one more time to check for traffic on my left. Two weeks after my 18th, my cousin and I were were crossing a 4 lane highway to get milk. Half way across a Sedan De Ville broadsided me at about 80 mp; I was dead for almost a minute in the ambulance enroute to hospital. No insurance, just a kid. Proud to say I paid every dime of medical expenses.

A couple years later I was friend's with the Regional Director of the FAA out of Tulsa. He sent me an application with a SASE with his Office as the return, promising me a career as an ATC. I demurred, went to college, became a cop, spent 24 years loving my job...mostly.

I always told my Parents I'd buy a model A and take them to church. Unfortunately, the both passed before I got Ole Edgar. So it goes.
 
Good one Marko!

I'm in retail/wholesale and love what I do, but my second choice was cars. when I was a kid, like 15-16 just learning to drive, I bought a junk 327 engine to tear down just to see how it was put together. I had dreams of running off to be on a pit crew in drag racing or F1 cars, but I stayed put and took over the family biz. Nowadays I would go to a automotive tech school and then try to move up to being a high-tech racing mechanic.
 
I wouldn't change a thing! I have been mechanically minded all my life, and loved cars. I graduated from high school at 17, earned an AA in Jr, college, went to work as a mechanic at a GMC dealer, they had me doing automatic transmissions, which I really liked. Drafted into the army at 23, worked as a truck mechanic for 20 years, when my back and knees told me to do something else, I was with the City of LA, so I started taking test to advance, worked briefly as a Sr. mechanic, then 9 1/2 years as an automotive supervisor at LAPD, then to LAX as a Sr. Automotive Supervisor (fleet manager), then promoted to Airports Maintenance Superintendent, my wages went way up and the job got easier! I retired at age 58 and life has always been good for me. I even married a girl that I met in high school, and have now been married 59 years, all good years!
 
I didn't study mechanical engineering because most jobs here are in mining which means living remotely.
I did what was in demand as the next up and coming thing and made and spent a lot of money in my 20's travelling. Had $5 by the time I was 30. Money well spent I think. Then applied for a super dull job nobody wanted and ended up running a site for finding stuff on the internet before google. Everyone wanted to know how I cracked such a good job.
 
I don't think I would change much of anything actually! I've had a fun ride.

I know the company I worked for really started crapping on their salary people especially engineers and Personell people, soon after the family control withered away and they became a Corporation. Even today engineers are hired for a job and when that is over they have to re-apply for another job. That's no way to live. The Company's stand is/was 'well, engineers are a dime a dozen that's life'. I was offered a salary job early on and said NO I was happy being a hands on working guy. The salary stuff looked really boring. Plus we were making a lot more money than most of them, even accountants and engineers and they hated us for that.

The only change I wish I guess would be out of my control. I have lousy eyesight. I enlisted in the US Marine Corps soon out of HS and they failed me on the eye exam and said 'The Army will take you we don't want you' and laughed. I had to laugh too:)
 
Also a mechanical engineer but have been blessed enough to be in the automotive power train industry. I've designed injector pumps and turbochargers for all major passcar and commercial vehicle OEMs. I couldn't think of doing anything else. I am now a engineering supervisor and head drawing checker and love my job 90% of the time. Things are changing with the drive for electrification, which will eventually impact my field. I am glad to be close to retirement so that I don't have to deal with that transition.
 
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