What is your basic skill set, that you learned either by standard education or by reading about it from various sources?

I have the ability to improvise solutions on the fly. They might often be a jury rigged or redneck engineered solution, but it gets ya through until a professional can be brought in. Things like when I was in my teens and the carborator spring on my engine broke in the middle of nowhere. Some bailing wire shaped with some needle nose pliers got me the 10 or so miles to a parts store where I replaced the spring.