DIY's 100 Skills, 2008 (Popular Mechanics)

Although I'm attaching the link, I still intend to list (and dissect) the 2008 edition of 100 Essential Skills Every Man Should Know.

Link: http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/how_to/4281414.html


Automotive

1. Handle a blowout
2. Drive in snow
3. Check trouble codes
4. Replace fan belt
5. Wax a car
6. Conquer an off-road obstacle
7. Use a stick welder
8. Hitch up a trailer
9. Jump start a car

Handling Emergencies

10. Perform the Heimlich
11. Reverse hypothermia
12. Perform hands-only CPR
13. Escape a sinking car

Home

14. Carve a turkey
15. Use a sewing machine
16. Put out a fire
17. Home brew beer
18. Remove bloodstains from fabric
19. Move heavy stuff
20. Grow food
21. Read an electric meter
22. Shovel the right way
23. Solder wire
24. Tape drywall
25. Split firewood
26. Replace a faucet washer
27. Mix concrete
28. Paint a straight line
29. Use a French knife
30. Prune bushes and small trees
31. Iron a shirt
32. Fix a toilet tank flapper
33. Change a single-pole switch
34. Fell a tree
35. Replace a broken windowpane
36. Set up a ladder, safely
37. Fix a faucet cartridge
38. Sweat copper tubing
39. Change a diaper
40. Grill with charcoal
41. Sew a button on a shirt
42. Fold a flag

Medical Myths

43. Treat frostbite
44. Treat a burn
45. Help a seizure victim
46. Treat a snakebite
47. Remove a tick

Military Know-How

48. Shine shoes
49. Make a drum-tight bed
50. Drop and give the perfect pushup

Outdoors

51. Run rapids in a canoe
52. Hang food in the wild
53. Skipper a boat
54. Shoot straight
55. Tackle steep drops on a mountain bike
56. Escape a rip current

Primitive Skills

57. Build a fire in the wilderness
58. Build a shelter
59. Find potable water

Surviving Extremes

60. Floods
61. Tornados
62. Cold
63. Heat
64. Lightning

Teach Your Kids

65. Cast a line
66. Lend a hand
67. Change a tire
68. Throw a spiral
69. Fly a stunt kite
70. Drive a stick shift
71. Parallel park
72. Tie a bowline
73. Tie a necktie
74. Whittle
75. Ride a bike

Technology

76. Install a graphics card
77. Take the perfect portrait
78. Calibrate HDTV settings
79. Shoot a home movie
80. Ditch your hard drive

Master Key Workshop Tools

81. Drill driver
82. Grease gun
83. Coolant hydrometer
84. Socket wrench
85. Test light
86. Brick trowel
87. Framing hammer
88. Wood chisel
89. Spade bit
90. Circular saw
91. Sledge hammer
92. Hacksaw
93. Torque wrench
94. Air wrench
95. Infrared thermometer
96. Sand blaster
97. Crosscut saw
98. Hand plane
99. Multimeter
100. Feeler gauges


Truth to tell, virtually anyone with any sense will take a look at this list and immediatly chalk the majority of items beneath the heading 100 skills PEOPLE should know. Still, as much as we may prefer to believe otherwise, historically and traditionally we always have and in modern times we continue to merely expect men to just somehow know these things.

Imagine the aghast expression were a man to suggest that a woman change a dirty diaper and when she asked why he didn't do it he stated in tones absolutely reeking of expectation "But... you're a woman!"

So why is it that when it's time to jump a car, 99 out of 100 women will stand back and simply look at a man, waiting for the event to merely happen?

Okay, we all know there are women out there who do this stuff every day, women who would rather die under the Chinese Torture of 10,000 Burning, Salty Hells than to allow a man to so much as hold a door for them. Such being the case -- chill, this isn't for you.

As I've aged my observational skills, keen as they are (my wife has to occasionally remind me which food I don't like while browsing a take-out menu) have shown me that there are approximately two hundred and fifty-one septi-hepti-gazillion cool things out there which might have made my life easier had I known them. It is my intent to teach these things regardless of my child's gender.

(Editor's note: I had to walk away from this for a couple of hours and lost my train of thought; ergo, I'm stopping my inane bloviation for a while and will come back when it suits me.)