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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2018 • 1C
One man’s fight
against entropy
IF I BUY SOMETHING, I SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIX IT
By ED HUNT
For The Daily Astorian
I
’m a dented-tank kind of guy.
I like fixing things, bringing them
back from the dead or disrepair.
I say dented-tank because, when I
bought my third motorcycle, I had a
choice: I could have bought a garage queen
— a bike that lived its life under cover, rid-
den on weekends and never seeing a drop
of rain or mud. My other
option was a bike that
had been ridden hard,
that had a lot of miles
cross country running up
from Texas by way of the
California coast. I bought
the bike that had survived
the miles of life and had stories to tell.
I bought the bike with the dented tank.
I like restoration, even though I’m not
much of a details person. I hold no illusion
that I’m any good at it.
Yet I love reviving old things that have
begun on their path of increasing entropy.
It is my way of fighting the deterioration
of the world.
I guess I do my best to fix people, too, in
my chosen career. As a nurse in the emer-
gency department, people come in sick and
I make them better, or get them to someone
else who can. It is the nature of emergency
nursing to identify the problem and find a
solution. It is the same process as repair-
ing an old motorcycle or fixing plumbing.
I call it “instant gratification nursing.”
A fixing addiction
Our house is more than 100 years old.
When we bought it 25 years ago,
entropy had settled in and made itself at
home. Renters had occupied the house for
several years, the roof leaked, windows
were broken out of their weathered dou-
ble-hung frames and the plumbing was
mostly strung-together hot water heater
hoses.
Yet the bones were good. Amy and
I — married only a year at that point —
moved in with the ambitions of a nesting
newlywed couple. We bought old handy-
man books from thrift shops since newer
books really didn’t apply to our lathe and
plaster walls. We taught ourselves as we
went — this in the days before YouTube
and the Internet.
Through years of sweat equity we
brought it back to life — saved it from rot-
ting away and being dragged to the ground
by blackberry vines.
The first year was cold and drafty and
damp, hard work made the house warm
and cozy.
Ed Hunt photos
TOP: Ed Hunt’s Vstar 650 ‘El Burro’ in front of the covered bridge in Grays River.
ABOVE LEFT: Dented tanks are a sign that something has lived a life and has a story
to tell — and needs you to bring it back from disuse and deterioration.
ABOVE RIGHT: It took hours of work on rainy nights, but the results are often worth it.
BELOW: Our latest project needs a little work: a 1972 Prowler camper in need of some
TLC before we go camping.
Taking something broken and fixing it
gives an addicting kind of satisfaction.
When the girls were younger, they
wanted electronic games that I was just
too cheap to buy new. So I bought used
ones with broken cases and loose wires,
repaired them using videos on YouTube
and instructions on Ifixit.com and Instruc-
tables. Compared to my old 1960s Handy-
man books, the Internet is a Godsend.
Instant access to people who have diag-
nosed the problem and found a solution
— people with more knowledge and skills
than I have.
Some early Apple iPods were easy to
repair, so I could buy a used one for a cou-
ple bucks and have it working like new in
a rainy afternoon.
All about profit
Unfortunately, manufacturers have
worked to keep repair information secret
and limit access to parts in recent years.
These companies make more money if you
throw away something that is broken and
buy a new one. If you simply fix it when
it’s broken, they don’t profit — unless you
pay them to fix it. Increasingly, companies
fight green standards that enable the repair,
reuse, recycling and product life extension
of electronics.
Companies like Apple and Micro-
soft will go out of their way to make sure
people can’t re-use or extend the life of
their products. Eric Lundgren, a Califor-
nia electronic waste recycler has gone to
jail for making copies of restore disks that
always get lost when you buy a computer.
The discs were based on free information
online and would only work with valid
licenses.
Yet Lundgren made it so people could
reuse old computers. So Microsoft went
after him in federal court.
Apple only made iPod batteries avail-
able after losing a class action lawsuit. I’ve
been repairing Apple products for decades,
but recently Apple customer service told
me they wouldn’t help me restore a phone
— even though I was the legal owner and
was fully in compliance with their pub-
lished policies on the matter. It wasn’t sto-
len or lost, they just wanted me to throw
away a perfectly good working phone
because they’d rather sell me a new one.
I worked on cars when I was younger,
but living in this rural area, we were
often too dependent on our vehicles to
trust my meager knowledge and skills. I
mostly leave essential transportation to the
professionals.
Moreover, newer cars heavily depend
on computers. These computers have
on-board diagnostics, but car compa-
nies try to limit access to the tools to read
the codes as well as access to the tools to
repair the cars themselves. They want you
to bring your car to the dealer so they can
make money on the repairs. But you own
the car; you should be able to bring it to an
independent shop, or fix it yourself.
‘Right to Repair’
Right to Repair laws would make it
so I can fix the things I own without beg-
ging the manufacturer for permission. Fed-
eral automotive Right to Repair legislation
has been languishing under discussion for
years.
However, Repair.org lists 17 states that
have introduced “Right to Repair” legis-
lation requiring companies to make parts
and manuals available to local shops and
product owners. The legislation would
also prevent use of software locks to block
repairs or from remotely bricking electron-
ics that use aftermarket parts.
When it comes to electronics, how-
ever, Washington state has gone a step fur-
ther with House Bill 2279. That bill would
prohibit the sale of electronic products
designed to “prevent reasonable diagnos-
tic or repair functions by an independent
repair provider.” Designing products so
they are difficult to repair or reuse “helps
accelerate the path of those devices to the
waste stream,” explained Washington state
Rep. Jeff Morris to Motherboard maga-
zine. “So we’re trying to keep the philos-
ophy our state is behind, which is recycle,
repair, reuse.”
Meanwhile, I’m taking a break from
old motorcycles and electronics. My latest
project is a 1972 camper that needs some
TLC.
Of course, there were a few others out
there, and for a little more money I could
have had something newer. Something that
didn’t come with a leaky roof, dents and
faded paint.
I guess it is a bad habit, but darn it … If
I buy something, I should be able to fix it.
I like fighting entropy.
Ed Hunt is a writer and registered nurse
who blogs on medical issues at redtriage.
com and on other subjects at theebbtide.
blogspot.com. He lives in Grays River,
Wash.