Things I want to do this summer (and learn):

-Expand my cooking skills (to the point where my choices don't only consist of hamburgers, pizza, and caesar salad, eggs, and macoroni and cheese)
-Build a trebuchet
-try out an ebay business
-play the stock market via paper money (or real money depending on how well the above goes)
-throw random objects at people with trebuchet  :dwarf:
-maybe some other projects if i get bored of trebuchet's  :scratchchin:

A great way to get started:

One more year and Katara will have to avoid Ohio unless she wants to end up the bride of Telesphorus.

Things I want to do this summer (and learn):

-Expand my cooking skills (to the point where my choices don't only consist of hamburgers, pizza, and caesar salad, eggs, and macoroni and cheese)
-Build a trebuchet
-try out an ebay business
-play the stock market via paper money (or real money depending on how well the above goes)
-throw random objects at people with trebuchet  :dwarf:
-maybe some other projects if i get bored of trebuchet's  :scratchchin:

Could you add "brush up on spelling and punctuation" to your list?  :wink:

Only teasing!

I'd say I could do about 3/4 of the stuff on the list.

Perhaps we are answering the question, "what is a gentleman"?

He must be a scholar and a budding saint, and know how to treat a lady also.

What the heck is trebuchet?  Martial arts?

Quote from: Catholic Samurai

I'd say I could do about 3/4 of the stuff on the list.

What the heck is trebuchet?  Martial arts?

Trebuchet launching a lawnmower:



I can't make one to that scale, I don't have enough land to launch it on. Still, those things are incredible and it will be an amazing project if I get to do it this summer.

I c4n sp34k5 f1n3 ty v3ry moch3 MatterDominiininici!

That's another thing a guy needs to know how to do, use a grill and BBQ. My dad and I are the BBQers, but Katara's more of a kitchen cooker.

I always use wood for my grilling. Keep that propane away from my baby!

we have two smokers, a charcoal grill and a propane grill at home. I know how to use the propane grill, but not the other things.

I should have my dad get me ready for a 15 hour rib smoke....

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

That's what I can do so far, the parts in bold.  I could probably butcher a hog too but it wouldn't be pretty.  I can cook at a very crude level, it's tasty for me but I don't know about anyone else.  

I actually think I might have a latent talent for cooking since I used to be a foodie, I have refined taste, but as a Catholic I'm afraid to indulge my epicurean side too much.

Anyway, I think this list is a macho Nietzschean fantasy.  Apparently males should be war heroes, chefs, poets, doctors, architects, house-husbands, sea captains, mathematicians and computer programmers all at once... Kinda dumb.

Isn't Robert Heinlein the guy who wrote Starship Troopers, the sort of prophet of neo-con American might?  He was probably a nerdlinger who couldn't do anything in that list, ha ha.  The guy he's describing doesn't exist except in Ayn Rand's fantasies ( and his as well, probably for different reasons, idealization of a potential mate in her case, idealization of himself in his ).

I want to be able to do what, say, St. Francis could do, develop some basic, handy menial skills, learn a little bit about gardening, about cooking, about building.  

This list strikes me as the typical fantasy of the American male to think they're Superman, to start out trying so hard that very soon they give up and plant themselves in front of the TV for the rest of their lives.  Slow and steady wins the race.