Sometime in the fuzz of the past, a friend of my wife and I dropped by and brought with her an expired “vintage” Electrolux vacuum cleaner left at the curb (this is a common way to dispose of things – kick them to the curb and wait for somebody to take them away – and it works pretty good for many things except large furniture.
This particular Electrolux model was iconic, highly popular and sold for decades.
As soon as she handed it to me, I stood it on end at and immediately knew this just had to become a jet pack. There was no other outcome possible.
After dissecting the remains, they sat on a shelf in my workshop for at least three years. Why? Because I was not ready to make it happen. Finally it would not let me keep saying, “I’ll get around to it” – I had to “make it so”.
This required a lot of effort – how to strap it on my back, what lights and noises it should have. The process of determining “will this work?” left a lot of discarded ideas and unused materials. But finally it came together – at least the first release (since I did software for decades, there was always something to improve on, to create a “next release” which would be so much better than whatever was in use).
So I set myself a target date to have the jetpack done in time for a holiday party. I already had a reputation as one who makes interesting things, so I thought that wearing a roaring, blinking jetpack would be appropriate. It did quite successfully premier at said party, then was set aside because how many occasions it is appropriate to appear wearing a jet pack?
But as is the case with many of my creations, I could not help bringing the jet pack back to the workbench and refit it to be more blinky and noisy, since I had considerable additions to my skills, tools and materials.
Few of my works are static – there is always room for “improvements” or just another round of tinkering with it, triggered by the availability of new materials which are so cool there is no way I can resist the temptation to incorporate them.
Shouter to Dead Parrots 