Thank You MacGyver, wherever you are.

Who among us who grew up during the late 80s and early 90s does not look back with fond wonder at the adventures of MacGyver? Not only did he get to travel to far off places and have adventures, he got to live on a great houseboat (for a while anyway), and he had some really catchy theme music. I remember watching and thinking 'Wow, if only I could be half that ingenious, then I could have great adventures too'. Alas, it was not to be. With a few exceptions, my life has not lived up to the paragon of inventiveness that our favourite rogue genius set.

MacGyver carried with him, at all times, a Swiss Army Knife (something that I have adopted myself), and this was invaluable to him in his solutions to problems. Whether he was cutting through his bonds to escape a trap or carrying some unstable chemical to make a homemade bomb or disable one, his knife was his constant companion. (I hope Richard Dean Anderson gets a cut of Swiss Army Knife sales.)

Although many of his adventures were farfetched and, as the series went on, increasingly contrived, I enjoyed it from start to finish. Some of his solutions even worked in real life! Viewers (especially students) even got a chance to see how science might be used in everyday life. Some teachers even used MacGyver episodes in class to demonstrate theory and practice. But I think the real value of MacGyver was his ability to think outside the box. Don't just look at the surface of a problem. Have a look at the underlying cause or around the corner and a solution just might present itself.

I remember once in High School using my knife, and some foil wrapper from a stick of Juicy Fruit gum to fix a video camera. Another time I was able to jimmy a lock on a window in order to get into my apartment when I had locked my keys in. Just yesterday I was on my way to town and inadvertently locked my keys in the car. Not such a big deal you might say. Well the car was running at the time! With the price of gas these days having a car running for no good reason is a big deal. Thanks to the 'outside the box' thinking I learned from MacGyver I was able to open the car, turn off the engine and save the day! Well at least some gas anyway.

So thank you MacGyver for hours and hours of entertainment -- and a few minutes of personal inventiveness too.