The old saying goes ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. In this case they are right. Judging from history, all the greatest jumps in tech have come from need! A need for power, a need for water, and in later times a need for information and connectivity. The technology arises to meet the needs of human beings. On a smaller scale, and I’m speaking from what I know, necessity pushed me to master a new skill all on my own, separate from any help, through trial and error. I did it because I had to do it. It started during the summer time of 92, when we had that killer heatwave, and the A/C machine in my parents house failed. This was not a central Heating, Ventilation & A/C system. My parents couldn’t afford such a system. It was just a small machine that mounted in a window sill, but even though it was small and could only cool down a single room, it was the only air conditioning we had, and losing it wasn’t going to happen. I took it out to the workshed, and detached the air vents and the front panel. I wasn’t sure of what I was doing, but I knew a broken section when I saw it. So I made a note of it then went to the junkyard to find a similar air conditioning unit. I found three units, and brought them all home to use as spare parts so I could repair our cooling unit through trial & error by using mismatched parts. Maybe it was talent, maybe it was luck, but I fixed that air conditioning unit!