I found this article on an alloy trademarked as LiquidMetal

pretty interesting.

When I was in highschool, I was on the “dumb track”. It wasn’t an official line of education, but it’s one they would steer educational misfits like myself for lack of any better idea. It was a track for those who weren’t entirely college bound, weren’t athletes, and weren’t honors students. This usually meant I shared the same classess with most of the same guys, who, as it happened, we’re the same guys I’d end up skateboarding with in the afternoons. It didn’t bother me much to be on this track, I knew that highschool was probably slowing me down more than anything, and that if I just go through it I’d soon enough be able to kick some ass.

The dumb track included a lot of metal working classes, so the above article might mean a little more to me than someone who spent most of their highschool education reading about taming shrews and mice and men and such. We built things, like grappling hooks, hammers, cannons, some built bongs (which I mistook as fishing pole holders in my innocence). We even built a vehicle with four wheel steering/four wheel drive, and had a lawn mower engine for each wheel. A guy named Alex broke his leg in three spots when his foot slipped off the bar of the chassis, and it got mangled up as the monster rolled forward.

Any talk of metallurgy gets me nostalgic for the good old days of hammering red hot metal with my bare fists, and using my teeth to machine things on a lathe. Real manly work. Now the closest workplace related injury I come to is sore finger tips.

I should mention, just to give the whole “dumb track” idea a stab, that I know of at least two people who were in the same track as me that went on to start very successful businesses, and one who became a pro skateboarder, and is now rolling in millions as he branches off into merchandising all over the place. Someday I’ll rant at how schools need to be adept at assessing talents, and helping student focus on those talents, with supporting classes, and standard classes to keep the kid well rounded. Another time.