Guerrilla Gardening

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. – Mark Twain

Why is it that as American consumers we are forced to settle for inferior products?!? At what point did the American corporation decide that the end product didn’t need to really work?!? Where did the pride in an honest profit from an honest product disappear?!?

Aren’t engineering programs some of the most rigorous academic endeavors in existence?!? Aren’t prototypes of products field tested prior to full scale production?!? Shouldn’t there be clauses in the warranty to correct for stupid design mistakes?!?

Obviously, the current state of our consumer reality is “buyer-beware!” There is hope, however. Many products can be improved fairly easily by the end-user. For instance, take our brand new snowblower. (Please! Ha, ha, ha!)

Problem #1: The handle on the snow blower is too small in diameter, too smooth and too cold to hang on to. Using closed cell foam sill-seal insulation (readily available at the lumber yard) and a roll of cloth friction tape (readily available at the hardware store), wrap your handle. The tape improves your grip by increasing the diameter of your handle and creating a rougher surface that reduces hand fatigue. The foam puffs up the diameter of the handle and warms it up by reflecting your own body heat rather than the bare metal stealing it away.

Problem #2: The all-plastic chute is at risk of being torn off when the frozen plastic becomes brittle and the snow racing through it starts to ice up. The chute also plugs up too easily when heavy wet snow sticks to the sides. Buy a can of silicone spray-on lubricant (available at your handy-dandy local hardware store) and generously coat the chute. The spray works well on your snow shovel, too.

Problem #3: The belt guard is too close to the wheel, so when the aggressive tread on the wheel packs full of snow the wheel is made immobile! Spraying the wheels with your newly purchased silicone spray will help, but we went a little more “mid-evil!” Using our 4” angle grinder, we smoothed off the tread and reduced the wheels’ diameter at the same time. Life is better.

We here at GSU have concluded that all “enginearly” students should be required to spend at least 15 minutes every semester actually working with “real” tools selected from their field of interest in order to gain a better understanding of the difference between theory and reality. In addition, we also believe that all CEOs in the business of manufacturing inferior tools, should be sentenced to a lifetime of forced labor utilizing their idiotic products! Humph!