Read the Instructions

When I was in 6th or 7th grade, my dad and I started working on our church tech team. Our job was- wait for it- Slide Projectors! It was pretty cool. Looking back I don’t know of any other churches that were creating custom 35mm slides of the song lyrics to project them for church services. It was during that father/son bonding ministry that I caught a bug for tech and worked my way into lights, audio and video down the road.

I always wanted to know what every button, knob or setting was for and how it made a difference. Many times I would ask someone who had been around for a long time and I’d get a… “uhhh, not sure” answer, which didn’t satisfy my curiosity.

I discovered something called “User Manuals” that proved to answer my questions and taught me how to do what I loved to do even better. These manuals clarified for me the original engineer’s design for the product and in a few cases I was able to show the veteran operators shortcuts and features that they never knew existed. They loved that:)

That practice has been very helpful in many other areas of life especially now in the RV. Going into it, I didn’t know anything about the systems or maintenance of an RV but I didn’t let that scare me off. I knew there were user manuals and they should be able to explain to me the proper way to work this rig. Well…manuals and YouTube:) so happy together.

With my user manuals, Ive been able to figure out:

1. Waste water management

2. Hydraulic system maintenance

3. Suspension troubleshooting and shock replacement

4. 12V and 120V system integration

5. Electrical system troubleshooting

6. How to drive a 57′ rig with safe passing and backing

7. Winterizaton

8. Pre and post flight checklists

So, I’ve always said, “if you can read, then you can do just about anything”. If something has a user manual, don’t let it intimidate you, you can conquer this!