How to Analyze Your Viewing Habits

Before I continue, I want to point out that I don’t want to shame any of these people. I have my own experiences with projects that turned out to be harder, more involved, or less enjoyable than I expected. I’m not making fun, I’m commiserating, and enjoying watching them tilt at their windmills, which are different from, but surprisingly similar to, my own.

That disclaimer out of the way, I currently subscribe to the following channels:

Project Binky: Two funny English guys restoring and heavily modifying an old Mini. They’re both skilled mechanics and fabricators, but I’ve lost count of how many times they’ve had to pull out something that seemed done to redo it differently, or to install something that needed to go behind the thing they just finished. They’ve been at it for a decade, and as of this writing, they have been “almost done” for two years. They’ve spent most of the last year trying to create a custom instrument cluster from scratch. They’re being slowed down by their speedometer, which sums up something about life, but I’m not sure what.

Ronald Finger: A young guy who restored a Pontiac Fiero he found in a field. I have a soft spot for the Fiero, as some readers may have suspected. But, knowing a few things about them, I was not surprised to see that immediately upon finishing the Fiero he started restoring a better car, a Datsun 280Z. I was surprised that part of the restoration process was partially rebuilding his garage, to have a structurally sound place to work.

MAKE. DO. GROW.: this channel features a pleasant and very capable couple renovating a farmhouse in central Portugal. They’ve been at it for three years and they just got an indoor flushing toilet! (Note from Missy: Guy and Kylie here are my favorites!)

Ghost Town Living: Last but not least, we have Brent, who is attempting to rebuild, revitalize, and drum up interest in a ghost town he bought in . . . well, it’s not IN Death Valley. It is perched high in the mountains above Death Valley, at the end of a precarious gravel road that seems to get destroyed by weather multiple times a year. In his spare time, he goes on solo nature walks through the kind of terrain where one risks getting mauled by a cougar WHILE falling off a cliff. Or, if he’s feeling daring, he explores the mines. These are silver mines hundreds of feet below the surface that have been abandoned for

nearly a century. He says he’s looking for treasure, but most often finds broken wooden crates that once held dynamite. Occasionally, he finds dynamite! Or blasting caps, which he always points out, ARE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, even if you find them in the middle of a field, not while you’re hundreds of feet below the surface, in an ABANDONED MINE!

The real treasure he’s looking for is old Levi’s jeans. He’s only found a couple of pairs, and there wasn’t much left of them, but the fact that he’s found any begs the question, “What happened that caused a miner to abandon his pants, and do you really want to pick them up, even a hundred years later?”