Price of our hobby

Will, my boy, It's absolutely for certain you'll regret that you're not in college for the rest of your life. That's true even if you eventually do go back and get a degree. The experience will be different and you've no way to reclaim it. Since you've little or no chance of getting most of these old machines you gather up and running, it's unlikely you'll learn much from them. Unless it's your goal eventually to become a scrap dealer, I'd say you're making what's probably the biggest and most far-reaching mistake you could possibly make. Employers will look at WHEN you graduated form high school, and WHEN you graduated from college, and if it's not the standard interval, they'll wonder why. They'll wonder why, and hire someone else about whom they have no questions to wonder about. They'll wonder whether you were in prison or in rehab. They'll wonder why you were different from the norm. Of course, I've just learned that my elder son isn't planning to return to Harvard next fall, (at least he learned enough while there to let my last check to him clear) and I don't know how well my younger son is doing at GA Tech. <sigh> I know my sons, both of them, to be sometime goof-offs. Perhaps that how people will view your resume as well. If I were in your place, I'd be doing whatever it takes to get on track to make that graduation from college happen at the "usual" time, no matter what it takes. Dick