Perhaps mein amigo? And muchas garcias.

BTW. I'd rather enjoy 'white line fever' than a
passel of profesors. Unless of course, they were
on the road. In that case ... I'd doff my Deere
hat over the speedo and put my foot down.

Reminds me of the story of a surgeon who had a plumbing problem.
The plumber did his magic in about fifteen minutes and handed him a bill for several hundred dollars. The surgeon said "Dang! I don't make that kind of money and I'm a surgeon!"
The plumber replied, "I didn't make that either when I was a surgeon."

You can't just "be a plumber," you know. Plumbing, like medicine, or the law, is controlled by a powerful guild. This guild keeps the number of new plumbers entering the profession low. The resulting scarcity allows guild members to charge outrageous prices without fear of being undercut. It's also why the first X plumbers you call will always be busy.

Just deciding, out of the F-n blue, to go "be a plumber" is a good way to get your head cracked.

"The resulting scarcity allows guild members to charge outrageous prices without fear of being undercut. It's also why the first X plumbers you call will always be busy."

you can always be a "handyman" and do all the plumbing and electrical and etc. jobs the guild members don't have time for, and which don't require a license. Which is most of them.

This is a sign of a tectonic shift, Folks. The very medium which allows us to post these opinions, allows tens of millions access to quality Distance Learning, at fantastic savings compared to bricks-and-mortar institutions!

And the internet allows ad hoc teams to form for fun and PROFIT, so brick and mortar businesses are not always competetive...

People KNOW priorities, and a burst watermain is one of them! Get on, Plumbers! :)

Trucking school - brilliant and highly lucrative. My husband began driving a truck after graduating from college. He now has a company with 60+ drivers and makes a very comfortable living. He has always maintained that the college education contributed zip to his success. Meanwhile, I went to graduate school, became a college professor, and made poverty wages (while being harassed by raving liberal lunatics). Trucking - a great choice!

I too have recently delt with plumbers and crazy prices. A few wanted to charge well over $1000 to simply hook up my sewer drain to an extention I was building. After four estimates I got enough info to get a basic idea of what needed to be done. So I went to HomeDepot rented a jackhammer, broke away the foundation, bought the right pipes and glue and proceeded to hook it with the assistance of my uncle.

The neat thing is that, if they decide on their own to go to college, they can save up and go on their own dime if, and only if, there's a profit in it.

And they'll be less likely to blow off class if they're spending their own money. They might even finish sooner than they would have if you paid their way through...