Best. Day. At. Work. Ever.

I got to spend today talking about camshafts and explaining how the thermostat works to my seatmate using an analogy with cows in it. "There's this herd of coolant-cows, right? And they eat in one field, and poop in another, and there's a fence between the two. They poop in the radiator, eat in the engine, and the thermostat is the fence between the two. You want to make sure there's an efficient balance of eating and pooping, so the fence doesn't open until they've eaten enough grass, and makes sure they don't eat too much, either."

Today's class was Auto-101. I got to spend it poring over diagrams of driveshaft congfigurations and things. Squee. The only thing I wasn't already totally sure of was the heating and air conditioning systems, because most of my mechanical experience and osmosis-knowledge is to do with motorcycles, and for the most part they're unheated-and-air-conditioned.

It's astonishing to me how little crankshaft engines have really evolved since the first steam engine. Really. Chemical reaction (ie, ignition of a fuel) creates heat creates pressure creates movement. It's such a simple, elegant process. Same process on a steam locomotive as on a Maserati as on a tractor as on a turboprop aeroplane. *happy sigh* About the only differences, really, are size, efficiency, and the method of getting-the-chemical-reaction-to-happen. From men with shovels to a fuel injector. What a wonderful thing it is.

Why do I not have a single icon with a motorised vehicle of any kind in it? This is a distressing lack.