Retired Disabled Mold Maker
Hi. I'm KickStart. I've been following this site for a long time (receiving emails, looking at articles). I finally decided to join when I saw a post with a gif from the company I worked at for so many years.
I've always been a tinkerer. My grandfather was an inventor. My uncle was a mad-scientist type, but with internal combustion engines. The thing my father gave me was a love of riding two wheels. I was tested to be a mechanical genius at 17 years old. Somewhere in my life I was tested to have a high I.Q. The only thing lacking was an education. There was nothing I couldn't figure out, except how to go to school and get a degree. My parents didn't believe in school and wouldn't let me go any more than the law would allow, and by the time I was on my own, all my attempts at college failed. My test scores were always high, yet I still managed to fail my grades. I was especially good at math. I tested out in my Junior year of high school and received an equivalency diploma at 17. That's when I left home and tried to go to college. After I was tested, I went to one semester of junior college, hoping to make my way to a mechanical engineering degree one day. During math class, I created a new algebraic formula for some problem we were trying to solve (as new as you can get in algebra). The teacher asked me to keep it to myself. Then recommended I take up accounting as my goal. No way; you can't get your hands dirty with paper, just your heart. It doesn't matter because I didn't have the discipline to make school work and keep an engine-changing business running.
Through the years, I've held many jobs, from working in automotive machine shops (and a race shop) to being a mechanic on everything from motorcycles to heavy equipment. I've done many dumb jobs, that were just plain hard work and zero brain power. For whatever reason, I needed to taste the world before I knew where I fit.
For a few years, I didn't hold A job. I lived the romantic biker lifestyle of living off of my Harley and sleeping wherever I landed that evening. Some nights I would stay with people I knew, and other nights I found the last woman standing in the bar at closing time. Sometimes I threw out my bedroll in a pasture on the side of the road. I would typically find a bike shop and work for gas money, and scrounge through their junk barrel for parts for my bike. Sometimes the woman I found would keep my bike gassed up for a week or two so I would ride her around the countryside. I had a couple other ways of supporting myself that don't need to be shared here. I never strayed far from the west coast. That lifestyle lasted until the birth of my daughter.
In 1993, I moved to New Orleans with my infant daughter and began a new life. I didn't actually move here, but landed here, as in ran out of gas money. I took a temp job to raise more gas money to keep going East. The temp job was at a company called Intralox. I stayed with that company for more than 20 years, and would still be there today if I had my way. It was one of those places you loved going to. Once they learned I had skills and I worked my way through the ranks, they gave me a chance at a Mold Maker Apprenticeship program. That was one of the best opportunities to ever come my way, and I didn't waste it. I eventually became one of their lead MoldMakers and their top troubleshooter. I gained a solid reputation from other leaders in the industry. I was set for many years to come, as long as I continued doing what I had been doing.
I was involved in a motorcycle wreck Thanksgiving 2010 that took my left leg above the knee on the spot, but worse, it gave me multiple brain injuries. In six years, I'm still trying to figure out my abilities. I don't walk very well because my sense of balance and coordination is gone, so I spend my life in a wheelchair. I didn't lose my job right away, because I could still do my job without a leg. We spent three years trying to make my environment ergonomically workable for me before we found I couldn't actually do my job. I have no memory, I can't read or do math, I can't work anything out in my head, and I'm easily overwhelmed. When I talked to my doctor about the stress level interfering with my job, he sent me in for cognitive testing. The results weren't positive. I lost my career over it. The bottom line is I'm very slow to process information, and have a limited capacity to remember new information. Given too much information at one time, and very little sticks. I can read about one or two sentences of a paragraph before the information starts getting lost. The doctor started me on an Alzheimer's medicine, which worked well. It brought me from a 2 hour memory to a 6-8 hour memory. I'd still reset every morning. It's just like Groundhog's day. Another doctor, a neurologist, added a complimentary drug to the first one, and that made big difference again. Now I have day to day continuity. Sometimes I'm just like any other 70 year old man with normal memory loss from aging, except I'm 52.
I'm trying to get my shop into a workable condition. It's air conditioned and foam insulated. The floors have a siloxane coating and are white. I have a 10" Logan lathe and a couple of '50's Craftsman drill presses. I have a decent compressor. I need to bring everything down to wheelchair height. There's so much clutter and disorganization, I don't know how to work through it. My wife retires soon, so I'm hoping she'll be able to help me organize everything and get me into my shop eventually. I have electricity to it, but no outlets run or lights up. I have most all the supplies needed, though. I always forget to call an electrician so they can tell me how to run the outlets correctly. I'll put everything up, then they can tie it in. The same with the lights.
The reason I shared all this is because my biggest love, besides my family and riding, was tinkering with and building mechanical objects. I didn't care what was in front of me, from toasters to fishing reels to power tools to motorcycles, I had to make them better. I couldn't leave anything alone. I have a toolbox with some toolmaker tools I built, and I'm proud of them. I have a motorcycle that took the Hardcore award at the Bike Week Cycle Source Show in 2010. I have a shop full of motorcycles, mostly 60's-70's vintage British and 70's Shovelheads. Right now, Bare Knuckle Machine is manufacturing a sprocket nut with a bearing that I shared openly a few years ago. Unfortunately, they have seen fit to try and patent it, but I'll show my pics and drawings from 2007 and see what that does for their patent. I'm challenged to actually do what I used to, even on a smaller scale, but I know the smarts are still in me. One doctor compared me to an old computer with a very slow processor; I just have to work slow and don't have too many windows open at once, or I'll crash. I also need to reboot often. Fatigue is is very real symptom of brain injury. So, I don't know at what level I can participate here. I do know I love looking at what others have created, and in doing so, it exercises my brain. Because of the nature of my injuries, there's little chance of recovery, but I can always remain hopeful.
