I have been told that I have the soul of an engineer.

This was not intended as a compliment. But I couldn’t take it as an insult, either; ’tis a mere statement of fact. I do have the soul of an engineer.

As a kid, I would take radios and other small appliances apart, to see if I could figure out how they worked. Most electronic stuff, of course, I couldn’t, as rows of resisters and capacitors don’t tell you that much about their function. The more mechanical items, I at least got the gist of by examining the innards. And naturally being able to put them back together was very important, as certain family members would not be pleased by my rendering valuable items inoperable, even in the noble pursuit of knowledge.
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