Hobby?

[Jerry Simon]

Not fishing, not golfing, not stamp collecting. Who's got a bit off-the-wall ones? Just curious for some insight into our brethren.

If anyone cares, I stack silver, and do a fair amount of gun smithing.

Katen lights things on fire; that (way) counts. Kurt Mit? Not sure I want to know.

[kurt]

Painting (watercolor), Chinese History & Language, slamming around in my little boat.

I've been thinking of dragging out my gear and getting back into making hard salami's, specifically soppresata. . (I can hardly wait to hear the response to that one.)

[Brandon Whitmore]

My most recent hobby is sneaking out to the garage at night for a little peace and quiet. I do a lot of shooting, so I justify that by reloading. Not just making a piece of ammo that goes bang, but tweaking loads and brass, seeing how that affects bullet flight, etc....

All of the other stuff is pretty normal guy stuff. I guess this one probably is as well.

[ericwlewis]

enduro (6-24 hour) mt bike racing

night mt bike racing

cyclocross racing

[Marc]

I like to shut myself in my workshop for an entire weekend and make things out of wood, steel and cardboard. Plan to make wooden armrests for my '92 Sonoma soon.

Marc

[Nolan Kienitz]

Ham Radio ... CW (Morse Code) is my prime focus.

Call sign is: KI5IO (Extra Class - licensed since the early 1970s)

[kurt]

You can hammer out Morse code? I don't know anyone that does that.

[John Kogel]

I tinker with old tube radios. Have come up with a cool adaptation.

I use the transformer from a wall wart to match the headphone jack for an iPod or MP3 player to the amp section of the radio. The tranny provides a boost and isolation for safety. I solder contacts to the variable capacitor to act as a double-pole switch. No permanent change to the original hardware and it is fun.

[Rob Amaral]

I'm in 1.5 bands.. We play out once in a while.. the prep is all part of the action.. "The Fathoms" (Surf-band/Boston)... Originals, Ventures, The Shadows, etc.. It is a gall-dang ever-lovin blast I'll tell ya..

I'm doing 2nd guitar.. (Jazzmaster with flat-wounds into a 67 DeLuxe Reverb..) Band-leader (Frankie Blandino) is a blast to play with... We are makin' it sound awesome.. I play a bit of bass and acoustic-electric 12-string and 6-string as well... Much more music to play ahead of me.. (I've done original rock, funk, r&B/Soul/Blues, Hard rock, metal, surf, country rock... )

You can pick-up snippets of The Fathoms on Amazon or You-tube.. I did not record with him.. .

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[Rob Amaral]

PS-I also know Morse Code.. 'a long story'... Uncle Joe was a ham (silent key).. K1AWP and brother Mike is a code-fanatic (N1MX).. I couldn't get into it back then.. I was busy in the basement trying to figure out how Hendrix was getting those sounds...!

[Mark P]

I have a weekly radio show "Drifter's Escape" on 88.1 KDHX, St. Louis. It is a music show. I can post a link if anyone is interested. I'm learning acoustic guitar, and dabble in an ocassional creative project: wood working, painting, etc...

[Charles46]

Not really off the wall. Just being on two wheels keeps my flowing. Between the motocross bike, the cruiser, the mountain bike, or the street bike, I just pick one and keep on rolling.

[ghentjr]

I also know/knew morse code. 55 years ago the usaf taught me to type 120 wpm on a manual and send code.

I make wine, mostly from grapes. From California in the fall and from Chile in the spring. I golf in-between.

[Rob Amaral]

I can 'do' Morse faster than I can 'copy' it... I never developed it... Only comes into play in old black and white movies.. I can decipher the messages... The only time I hear it now is if I have the AM radio on and I go near those airport beacons around here.. (PVD ,etc..) Pretty startling to get near one and hear Morse blasting out of your AM radio..

[kurt]

I tinker with old tube radios. Have come up with a cool adaptation.

I use the transformer from a wall wart to match the headphone jack for an iPod or MP3 player to the amp section of the radio. The tranny provides a boost and isolation for safety. I solder contacts to the variable capacitor to act as a double-pole switch. No permanent change to the original hardware and it is fun.

Can you translate that for me?

[Marc]

I can try.

He uses the power transformer from an old style plug-in power charger to increase the audio signals from an MP3 or Ipod to power the input of the audio amp circuits of an antique tube style radio.

The variable capacitor part...It's the band tuner on the antique radio. I'm not sure what he does with that.

Marc

[Scottpat]

Metal detecting...... Since I live in an area that had many battles and troops going across the land during the war of northern aggression it is not too difficult find bullets, buttons and other object from that era and others. Also meteorites come up every know and then for some lucky hunters.......

New construction sites and old farms, homesteads, creekbeds and railroad

right-a-ways are the best. Just be sure to get permission from the owner of the land, first......

Oh, I guess my wife and I have a joint hobby. Our 16 year old, 6'4" son who plays on an AAU travel basketball team, we are always on the road.

[Tom Raymond]

He built an adapter to 'plug' his eh-pod into his Philco.

I have kids, 11 and 2, so my current hobbies are consoling my wife when she hears my son end a call to his girlfriend with 'love you' and cleaning up after my daughter-who knew you could pick up the same toys 6 times a day? In case anyone ever wondered, do not put tiny plastic barrettes in your beard, they don't come out clean.

I tinkered with building small wooden boats. My boy is old enough to really want to help, so we just might get one finished this summer.

[MMustola]

Shooting sports and camping.

I belong to a private sportsmen club that even has an indoor pistol range that is open 24 seven. Often times I stop into the club between my morning and afternoon inspections to shoot a quick 50 to 100 rounds.

Also, I have a fifth wheel and a small truck camper. I spent maybe 40 nights a year in the campers. A dozen of those nights are deer and duck hunting, the rest are with my wife. Last winter we hauled the fifth wheel all the way from Michigan to key West and spent two glorious weeks there.

[Greg Booth]

........I spend most of my time, and all of my income, messing around on boats......Greg.

[davidlord]

Nothing off the wall. Fishing, beaching, golf. Do some shooting at the range with the family.

[Inspectorjoe]

I used to photograph old buildings that were collapsing or slated for demolition. Sadly, most were barns. It's been quite a few years since I've done it, because as I've gotten older, trespassing in dangerous buildings seemed like less and less of a good idea.

Some day I'll have to locate and organize what I shot. Some of it's pretty cool and unique, such as a steel-framed bank barn. The most amazing thing I shot was a huge timber-framed barn that had all of it's interior framing removed. In an incredible feat of engineering, the framing was replaced with steel cables. In the center of the barn, a huge block of concrete was imbedded in the ground. Cables were anchored to the concrete and extended to the remaining timbers at the outer walls. Somehow, the tension on the walls supported the roof framing. I never did figure out why that was done.

A side offshoot hobby, was me often saving something from those buildings.

Another interconnected hobby I've had from 1985 to today is community radio and recording local bands. Back in the 80's, I'd go out to venues and record bands (mic'ing each instrument, mixing it, etc.), then play them back on my radio show. Since I recorded the audio on VHS tape, I shot video at the same time. I got tired of the grind of a weekly show around 1991, and decided to give up the regular show and just sub for a few people.

I started doing some recordings again a few years ago, but on a much simpler basis. For audio recordings, I use a pocket recorder that by day, I use for taking inspection notes. I still shoot video, but the sound is only from the camcorder mic.

I'm doing a radio show tomorrow, from 3-6 PM eastern time. From 4-6, I'm playing a Large Flowerheads show I recorded last September. Between 3 and 4, I'll have 3 of the 4 band members in the studio for a conversation. The station streams live, if anyone would like to listen. http://www.wlvr.org/

To know what to expect, here is a short video I shot at that show.

[Mike Lamb]

I used to photograph old buildings that were collapsing or slated for demolition.

Find them and post some.

[Inspectorjoe]

You obviously haven't seen my basement, Mike. I'll definitely do that when I get a chance to find and scan them. In the meantime, the big winter projects I set for myself were to make a new website, and tweaking and transferring my boilerplate into Inspect Express so I can start using it (I bought it 27 months ago). I'm about 2% done.

[Inspectorjoe]

While the pictures are buried, I did know where this cool piece of 19th century hardware was. It's an iron hinge pin from a barn door, designed to be hammered into the door frame. It has barbs to keep it from being pulled out.

I got busted with the hinge in my pocket. It came from a very cool farm that seemed to have nearly all of its original buildings, and they were in mostly original condition. The demolition equipment was already onsite. I had been there about a half-hour when a security truck from the cement plant across the road pulled in. The guy told me it was private property and I needed to leave. I explained that I just wanted to document the place before they knocked it down. He looked at the 35mm Nikon hanging from my neck, hesitated, and said "just be careful - and don't go into any buildings" It wasn't the first time an expensive-looking camera got me a pass.

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