Day 339: “Daddy, Why Can’t We Build an Airplane in the Garage?”

I remember asking my father how to build a car. I remember thinking that the answer was utterly boring, confusing, and that if they managed to build a Matchbox Car at that factory, they would be lucky. But that was back in 1980-something. I do remember that a few days later, we went to the public library in Danville, Indiana, and found a nice glossy book, the sort that hold down houses during tornados, and the process became a lot clearer. Today, I basically did the same thing, with YouTube instead.

We watched a couple different ones, but this one got that household endorsement because of the industrial painting sequence at the end. Such is life with a practicing painter and sculptor in the house, and a six-year old enthusiast for everything.

“Boeing Flight-Manufacturing” on YouTube:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBPY34jCmos?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]

After watching this, our eldest finally conceded that our garage really was not big enough to build a plane in. Of course, he started in on how we just needed a bigger garage.

This video, “BMW 3 Series Production BMW Munich Plant Full HD 1080i” on YouTube gives an excellent overview of the car manufacturing process from the metal stock to the end of the assembly line (and without the obnoxious music I kept finding attached to a lot of the other videos).

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhCXFsQ6kKQ?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]

Our eldest, who is six, is like most boys in that he wants to build things. I currently have a promise for a space cruiser that will take me on orbits around Jupiter. It is too bad that I am going to have to wait on the St. James Kindergartener to get through graduate school and a couple of years of OJT before I can collect. But the promise of a space cruiser is more than I’ve ever gotten anywhere else, so I’ll take it. Eldest is also rather taken with the colonization of Mars at the moment. So, if anyone can find videos of rockets that are not WMDs, we would sure love to see them.

Pax Tibi, James