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I learned to read well by age 10. Read the Bible and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich at 11. Read my 3rd grade reading book in one night, 385 pages.
Oil painted a clipper ship (from scratch) in a strong wind in the 6th grade. The painting was still on the wall in that classroom 12 years later.
After 6th grade I was more interested in things like cars, warships, and human powered flight. The Kremer prize for the first human powered aircraft was an early obsession of mine. Always fascinated by early machinery and power generation from natural sources.
Never lost a game of trivial pursuit in my life.
I guess it was all preparation for my current obsession, which is to prove the concept of short term energy storage and application in vehicles as well as many other types of energy conversion.
Went to Virginia Tech at 17 with an intended major in Nuclear Physics, left after 5 months. Started working in a body shop and never looked back. Made enough money 3 years later to max out my Social Security contributions at just under 14k per year, the equivalent of close to 100k now.
Most of my teachers after 6th grade just didn't like me, because they knew I was just skating through the curriculum. They did not realize that I was just not interested in any programmed schedule of learning. The pace was boring.
In the 12 th grade I made a bet with another student on who could get a better grade in Analytic Geometry. I won with a 99 average.
I missed one line of calculations in a 4 question test that took 2 pages of calculations. I had the calculation in my head but did not write that single line down. The answer was perfect.
The teacher took off 1o points for the missing line of calculations.
I told her based on the amount deducted from the grade and knowing the missing line had to be correct for the answer to be correct, if I had turned in a blank sheet of paper the grade would have been -300.
regards
Mech
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