Interview with a turkey fryer

Arwen has a couple of interviews from Thanksgiving makers – here’s the first, a turkey fryer how-to’er, she writes –

I did a series of interviews with Instructables users about their fabulous and varied Halloween projects, and noticed recently that the Thanksgiving contest is just wrapping up. I was curious to see what Instructables users cooked up when they turned their skills toward the kitchen, so I interviewed a few of the creators of my favorite Thanksgiving projects. I’m salivating just reading Ryan Hays’ deep-fried turkey Instructable. While most of us may not have a turkey fryer just lying around, it looks to be a worthy investment. If you like extremepumpkins.com, then this looks to be the logical next step…How would you describe yourself?
I’m a senior in high school, I want to become an engineer after college, I like to do stuff with computers and electronics, and otherwise im pretty normal.

How and why did you get involved with Instructables?
I don’t remember exactly how I found instructables, probably through hackaday.com. I contribute to Instructables because I learned so much from this site and others like it and I wanted to give back. Besides, its really easy to write an Instructable.

What interesting projects are you working on right now?
I recently hacked an extra motorola phone charger I had. I opened it up and soldered a female usb port so i could charge an ipod or any device that charges over usb. It wont charge my phone (though my ipod charges fine) for some reason, so I’m still working that out.

What new idea (in or outside of your field) has excited you most recently?
I find some of the homebrew electric cars really interesting. I’d build one myself if I had the cash haha.

What’s one tip you’d give to other makers or users of Instructables?
I would say be as thorough as possible, and include lots of pictures! I hate when people publish incomplete instructables.

What are your favorite tools/books/websites?
I read hackaday.com, engadget.com, instructables.com. Most books are outdated within a week from when they are published (at least for technology) so I dont end up reading to many of those. I can pretty much make anything with my soldering iron and my multi-meter right now.