Inspired by recent events. I’ve decided that I need to get off my lazy ass and actually do some of the things that I’ve blathered about doing, but never have.
1.) I want to live in the desert. Some place flat, not too far (say an hour’s drive) from a major metropolitian area, where property values are cheap, and it’s **HOT **, so I can sit outside and bask in the heat when I feel like it. I have no idea of a good place in the American Southwest that meets that description. Admittedly, I probably won’t be able to afford to move there for at least 6 years or so, but an idea of good places to live right now would be a start.
2.) I want to be a mechanical engineer. I’m frankly sick and tired of staring at something someone else has designed and knowing that even though I lack the degree and don’t understand much advanced mathematics, I could do a better job at designing the particular thing than the engineer who came up with this infernal machine. However, I really don’t want to go to a formal university for this as I’m taking a machinist class in the evenings and I enjoy it tremendously. Besides, getting certified as a machinist will make me a better engineer, and vice versa. So, I’ve been thinking that the best way for me to earn an engineering degree is some form of internet/correspondence school degree. So I’m wondering how hard a time I’ll have finding a job as an engineer with one of those. Granted, I’ve got more hours in a machine shop than an engineering student at Harvard’s required to have, but I imagine that there’s still a stigma attached to correspondence learning.
3.) I need to know what the best way to invest the minimal amount of money (not because I’m cheap, but because I’m poor) I can, and have it yield somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 within thirty years. This is of supremo importance. Current estimates are that within a few years, one will be able to buy a ticket on a rocket into space for $100K. That’s what I want to do, more than anything else, but I know that on my meager income, I won’t be able to set aside enough to be able to do it any time soon. So, I figure that by the time I’m sixty, relatively inexpensive space travel will be possible, and I wanna go, damn it! Hopefully, it’ll be cheaper than $200K, but I’m not holding my breath, and even if it is, I may need the extra dough for bribes if I can’t pass the physical.
Any suggestions?
