Ah, you know what? I was worried I was off topic and off base telling such a personal story but I'm glad it resonated with you.
I know EXACTLY what you mean about people looking at you and thinking: "This nerdy programmer guy actually thinks he can be the handyman for the apartment he rented from me?!" -Multiple landlords that I saved endless amounts of $ being their live-in handy man.
I've installed ceiling fans, I've installed central air and ducting, I've taken care of all the yard work, shoveling, plowing, and ice breaking. Anything that didn't require a certified professional was in my wheelhouse and where a landlord came to fully understand and trust my skills and judgement we came to a great middle ground where my work would help offset things like bills or rent when there were no more bills to cover the costs of.
>So, when I have the opportunity to get gifts for friends' kids, I usually look for things like soldering irons or good screwdrivers.
THAT IS GREAT ADVICE! I've given relatives and friends books on coding (when they showed interest in my job / career) but I never thought of that. I usually tend to try and give that advice / teach them myself, first person -- but not everyone is always ready right then to be taught. People want to operate on their own and at a pace of their own, especially if they are feeling any sort of anxiety about trying something new or having to "perform" tasks that are out of their wheel house. The thing is, with a little practice, the handy man stuff isn't all that tough!
Just watching someone like Adam Savage (Mythbusters) on his Youtube channel and how much fun he has is all the indication that I need that mostly anyone could pick up basic handy man skills. The only difference between him is that he has the most extensive and professional set of tools and machines possible, but if you pay attention to the majority of his builds, a lot of the things he does only require basic tools for the majority of the projects. He gets a lot done with basic tools and tends to only use more rare and specific / heavy duty tools because he can.
I feel that once you get the hang of handy man work and construction stuff and the like, as you said about your firewood shed. You found the dimensions of your finished project and through experience and a bit of mental planning were probably able to come up with a simple diagram if not an entire floor plan / build plan that contained dimensions, materials, and instructions for cobbling it all together.
Once you've done things like that a few times it opens up the possibilities endlessly and so long as you measure twice and cut once you can seriously continue onward and build anything you like.
>When something breaks, I like to think about how much worse it could get if I were to fail at fixing it - usually there's minimal real risk. If you make it worse, you're not likely to repeat the same mistake; you've learned something, and there will always be another broken thing to apply that knowledge to.
AH! I'm so glad I made that post now. You are so right. The big takeaway I get from this last part from you is that -- especially for us computer-types who love to figure out how things work, reverse engineer stuff, take stuff apart and tinker with them -- even if you fail after taking something apart and not being able to fix it you wind up learning lots about the thing / things in general.
I've never walked away from a failure of a hobby project without some sort of epiphany or clue about something that came to help me out in the future. Experimenting with hobby work / handy man work and getting the chance to build things yourself and even fail if you don't succeed still provides enjoyment and education. Those are the types of things I would love to pass on to as many as I can. Those are the things I wish schools were teaching. And those are the things that, these days, I wish more people understood and did on their own free time.