What skills do you want to learn?

Banjo. Just need the banjo. But it's gotta be free. I feel as though one will come to me by the end of the year.

Make enough to not need to learn these things?

But seriously, it would be nice to have the tools/know-how to do some of the home reno stuff.

I'm apprehensive to just tear into it, because I'd want to ensure it looks professional, and I dislike having to redo work.

In no particular order:

Learn to be faster around a track. Learn proper bodywork (rather than the BFH method). Learn more about carburetors. Learn more about good welding. Continue to learn how to be a better person (husband, employee, citizen, etc).

On a serious note, and to come up with something new here:

I want to learn cooperage (barrel making). I want to learn how to isolate individual wild yeast strains.

poopshovel wrote: Banjo. Just need the banjo. But it's gotta be free. I feel as though one will come to me by the end of the year.

Free may be a tall order, but you don't have to spend $600 on one either. I got mine off Craigslist for under $200. Sounds good enough to learn on. You'll probably spend more on DVDs, books and lessons in the first 6 months than you will on the banjo.

poopshovel wrote: Banjo. Just need the banjo. But it's gotta be free. I feel as though one will come to me by the end of the year.

I want to learn banjo. I even have one I could have....

Automotive related:

Welding

Panel forming

Upholstry

Non-automotive - too many to list...

z31maniac wrote: Make enough to not need to learn these things? But seriously, it would be nice to have the tools/know-how to do some of the home reno stuff. I'm apprehensive to just tear into it, because I'd want to ensure it looks professional, and I dislike having to redo work.

Remodel somebody elses house... that's how I'm learning... I've done plumbing, gas piping, duct work, more electrical work than I can count...

By the time I get to renovating my own little house, it'll be a breeze... and I've already bought all the damn tools...

Ranger50 wrote: Every skill needed to properly "finish" a project vehicle from a running, workable but needing work to a completed vehicle again after disassembling to a bare shell.

You know the best way to get those skills? Get yourself a running, workable but needing work vehicle and take it apart. The rest will follow from sheer necessity There's no better motivator than the need to do something and the will to do it.

I rarely put together a list of skills to learn. Instead, I tend to get focused on an end goal. Then I learn what I need to get there. I believe the term is "outcome based education" Come to think of it, my parents led by example when they bought an old, old house when I was 7 and tore it down to the studs to rebuild it as we lived in it. The house equivalent of a rolling restoration.

However, I'd love to get back some of the skills I've learned and lost. I used to be able to play saxophone pretty well, but my horns have stayed in their cases for a decade. I can't huck a frisbee like I could, and I doubt a decade of rust has improved my windsurfing skills.

Taking classes to finish my accounting degree but want to start learning French, German, and Spanish. There are a lot of countries I'd like to visit and being able to at least understand the local menus would be helpful.

Edit: Wife and I are taking introductory touring kayak lessons this weekend. Not really a skill but more just a fun thing to do.

Oh one other skill. Pinstripping.

93EXCivic wrote: Oh one other skill. Pinstripping.

I've never tried it, but have heard good things from GRMers about this method of cheating:
http://www.beugler.com/how2.html

Keith wrote:

Ranger50 wrote: Every skill needed to properly "finish" a project vehicle from a running, workable but needing work to a completed vehicle again after disassembling to a bare shell.

You know the best way to get those skills? Get yourself a running, workable but needing work vehicle and take it apart. The rest will follow from sheer necessity There's no better motivator than the need to do something and the will to do it.

I'm already there and trying to get the proper parts together to fix it. See here: My current project being built with no money. The only real problems with it are that A.) it is a diesel and far from cheap to repair. B.) Everything is either 4'+ in the air or down on the ground needing repair. C.) In reference to A, nothing is "lightweight". So that means the beefiest stands and jacks to raise this thing just one inch off the ground.

I've got to admit the auto rebuilding skills would be nice...but if I had them I have a feeling I'd have more un-finished project cars in my backyard than you can shake a stick at (when's the last time you heard that?)

Not sure they are skills, but lately I've started dreaming about skydiving and glider piloting. BOTH, scare the heck out of me, but I also would like to do both before I'm too old to do them safely.

How to get the guts to quit my job and start my own business. I have a fantastic idea. Just need to grow a pair and do it already.

I would like to learn to make good Tig and Aluminium Tig welds.

I would like to learn to play the Guitar and the Bagpipes.

Add my to the panel beating and pinstriping lists. I also want to fly a helicopter

integraguy wrote: Not sure they are skills, but lately I've started dreaming about skydiving and glider piloting. BOTH, scare the heck out of me, but I also would like to do both before I'm too old to do them safely.

I'm 43 going on 44... I took up rock climbing this spring. I am a brush-burned bloody mess but rappelling back down after getting to the top of something makes beer taste almost as good as when you finish a race in better position than you started.

Get out there and give it a go! You can only die once.

Wally wrote: Add my to the panel beating and pinstriping lists. I also want to fly a helicopter

The helicopter was something I dreamed about almost hard enough to join the Army in 1988 after college. Instead of signing - I added recruiters to my list of people for whom I wish there was a hell for.

One of these days I'll find a reason to take just one or two lessons to see if I should have pangs of regret.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

curtis73 wrote: getting Alyssa Milano to go down on me.

It has to be getting more and more attainable every year, no?

No... Trust me, I'm going downhill a LOT faster than she is.