Howe & Howe Tech

I watched "Howe and Howe Tech" on the Discovery Channel last night and thorougly enjoyed watching the guys banging together their latest prototype- the badger with limited resources, and a tight budget. I guess I was mostly encouraged by the fact that apparently, there are Americans out there still bootstrapping great builds.
I know- ANOTHER "fabber" show? Not to take anything away from Orange County Choppers, but they've reached some level of success, Paulie Jr is looking into branching out on his own- getting into art or whatever... lately it sort of lost the excitement of THE BUILD guys laying on the floor, welding crap, swilling coffee, bleary-eyed and overworked...
I've seen the previews of How and Howe for a few weeks (shocker- I watch Discovery Channel regularly) and I got the impression that I was going to like the show. It also turns out that I saw one of their machines at the Auto Show in DC back in 2001, and I've got a copy of Popular Mechanics with one of their rovers on the cover.
I guess the thing I like about these shows the most is that these are American boys actually doing some hard work, and actually producing something. Our country's attempted transition away from manufacturing into Toeffler's third wave or information society left us all feeling a little empty inside.
Maybe there's a reminder and a warning in here somewhere that even though we might be headed toward economic recovery, there's no need to simply just go back to status quo. Somewhere, somehow we've got to build some things into our economy that generate revenue inch-by-inch, slow and steady growth built on solid products, skills, and services- and maybe a little less on hype and "virtual" products.
Don't get me wrong- I love tech, the internets, gadgets and being connected as much as the next guy or gal, I just don't like the idea of being another cog in the machine. I can't sit back and buy into the idea that all our country needs is to free up capital so that we can get back to consumerism, consumption and shuffling data.
I want to build and design the machines of the future. I want to have my hands in something real and substantial- at the end of the day- data modelling, and 3D graphics no matter how accurate or realistic just doesn't cut it for me- I want to actually knock real stuff together and have it do real stuff and I'm definitely not ready to give up my oxy-acetylene rig.