I don’t know if there’s ever been proof that males have some genetic thing that makes them (well, most of them) inherently interested in engineering, but sometimes it seems that way.

Everyone has their own particular interests, of course. Most people know that I’m not particularly impressed with cars. Although I will confess to liking a manual transmission more than an auto, and I did take a look at a few minutes of the Grand Prix, the car is essentially a functional item to me, not a play-thing. Perhaps I can’t align the idea of a play-thing with something so destructive.

(If I seem to blog more about driving than PT it’s probably because I find it more stressful and it seems like more things go wrong. No really, even with the train thing in January, more goes wrong on the roads. If PT killed 300+ people a year, it would never be allowed to keep running.)

I’ve kinda gone off aeroplanes for similar reasons. And I’ve never been keen on guns, either. (It’s said some gun enthusiasts like them a lot for the engineering angle; the pull them apart, put them back together, ad infinitum, like Lego with Extreme Prejudice.)

Visiting H220 “Heavy Harry” at Williamstown a couple of weeks ago — the largest (non-articulated) steam engine ever built in Australia. I was doubly impressed when chatting to a bloke who said he’d helped drive it — on his shunter father’s lap, 60+ years ago.

Other machines definitely impress me though. Steam engines? Very cool. That new very long trial tram? Mucho groovy. Even my bicycle, though I still don’t really know how the gears work.

But computer gadgetry is what really has me fascinated; always has.

Like anything, these types of interests and values get passed on to offspring. So my kids don’t really take an interest when I’m checking the oil in the car or otherwise pottering under the hood. Rather (as I did) they seem to spend a lot of time on the computers. So I reckon when I see my boys chatting to their friends at school, they’re probably not telling them about our car; they’re probably telling them about about their latest YouTube production or the new very groovy media player device I just got.