Take heart, Randy. The day of the 'do it yourself' person is not dead yet.
My wife had succumbed to the "if it breaks, buy a new one syndrome". I
have, through many years of deprogramming, have had some success in getting
her away from that cult. She wanted to buy a new Kirby vacuum because ours
was not working as well. I told her "No way." I took the Electrolux into
the basement, took it apart, cleaned it (boy, did it need to be cleaned),
and now it works just like new (could use a new beater bar). I saved well
over a thousand dollars by fixing it myself.
I perform all maintenance on my motorcycles, in fact, I don't feel
comfortable letting anyone else near them. If I do it, I know that it is
done right. Hell, my dentist is so much of a 'fix it yourself' kind of guy,
that he does his own dental work!

Andrew

"xrongor" wrote in message
...
there was once a time where people actually fixed things. not just bought
a
new one and replaced it, but fixed things. if they didnt make exactly
what
you wanted, you made it yourself. it was assumed you knew how to look at
a
problem and solve it. look at old popular mechanics magazines for one
example. heck, they practically assumed you had a welder in the garage.
and you know what, you probably did.

ah but times have changed. thinking has become a thing of the past.
spending is the new thing.

every time i suggest anything requiring some thought or innovation, one of
you guys comes out of the woodwork and attacks me for being 'unsafe' or
just
plain crazy. it gets tiring trying to explain myself to you one track
minded idiots that have long since lost the ability to think. maybe there
should be a seperate group called
alt.home.pay.someone.to.fix.it.cause.i.cant.think. for.myself.

i give up. just toss it and buy a new one. if it doent exist, pay
someone
to do your thinking for you. i figure at the current rate of knowledge
degredation, its only a few years before everything simply becomes
disposable anyway. we arent that far off now. the plug and play house
and
the disposable education.

randy