Technology is great. I'm writing this on a computer—you're reading it there. Still, the technology of the present sometimes ties us a little too tightly to the negative aspects of today. Something simpler can be a welcome escape.

Nobody can accuse Dustin "The Flying Fiddler" Mosher, of Mojave, California, of being a technophobe. By day, he creates flight simulators for the Virgin Galactic space program. In his own time, Dustin relaxes with the still-usable relics of a bygone era: his turn of the century (that's 1890s, not 1990s) fiddle, a 1931 Ford Model AA truck, a World War II-vintage Boeing Stearman biplane, and a 1947 Cessna 120.

The fiddle he uses to entertain himself and friends, playing bluegrass and old time fiddle tunes, and he's been at it for a decade now. The planes and the truck are how he gets to those gatherings. The common thread through all of these items is that they were never intended as fundamentally disposable. Instead, they were essentially designed to be infinitely rebuildable and easily maintained. Properly cared for, they will still do everything they were designed for.

Because aviation is his first love, old planes came into Dustin's life before an old car. "The Cessna's the daily driver," he says. "It's a product of the post-WWII aviation boom. It's reliable, but still simple." The Stearman came into his possession a bit later. It was the primary trainer for both Army and Navy pilots during the war, where they proved they could fly something before moving on to progressively higher-performing aircraft.