One fun thing I’ve learned at CC over the years is that we’re not just internet usernames, we’re all real people.
I’ve learned a bit about a lot of you, and some of you I’ve had the privilege to meet in person. I attended the 2017 gathering in Detroit, and the 2015 meet up in Auburn. I know we’re all “car people” of one sort or another, but folks usually have multiple interests so my question today is what’s your other thing?
I know that our leader Paul is interested in house design and building, his excellent article here on his most recent build was one of the standouts in 2016. I know that JP Cavanaugh is interested in both early Jazz music and SPAM from his weekly blog here.
Yes, my other thing is playing the guitar. That’s me in the late 80’s with my first guitar, but the story goes a bit further back than that. Both my siblings took piano lessons, their teacher was a harsh old Russian lady who would smack their knuckles with a ruler if they messed up. I successfully lobbied against participation in this program, and that was the end of my musical career until High School.
There I made a good friend named Scott, and he played guitar very well. He still is one of these guys that music just flows out of, and inspired, I asked my parents for a guitar and lessons. They spent $235 on a Fender F-35 acoustic, and the compromise was that I got sent to classical lessons for a year. I didn’t totally enjoy that, but the finger picking technique came in very handy later on. By my final year of high school I quit lessons, but in the 35 years since I’ve played nearly every day and as Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler says, I’ve got a friend for life.
The curse of the guitar player is that as Einstein shows here the correct number of guitars to have is always X+1. Couple that with my emotional attachment to inanimate objects and you get, well, a lot of guitars. Some have left over the years, but most have stayed. Let’s see what we’ve got in the house at the moment:
Acoustic guitars left to right:
- 1982 Fender F-35 (Korea) – My first guitar, it has great sound for a laminate top
- 2012 Taylor 416ce ltd (USA) – Mrs DougD bought this for me after she got tired of hearing me complain that I needed a quality solid top guitar with integrated pickup system. When we started shopping a sales guy said “First thing you need to figure out is whether you’re a Martin guy or a Taylor guy.” I’m a Taylor guy.
- 1990-ish Harmony H106 (Korea) – Completely terrible campfire guitar that I got for free
- 2008 Godin Ami (Canada) – Small parlor guitar for my daughter to bring to summer camp
Electric guitars:
- 1997 Epiphone Dot (Korea) – I used to think that hollow body electrics were for old guys, apparently I became old around age 35 and needed one. My friend Scott was working in a music store and this came in on a trade. It’s a real workhorse, heavy as all get out and the notes sustain forever.
- 2006 Fender Telecaster (Mexico) – I bought this last year to possibly replace the Dot, but haven’t totally bonded with it. The single coil pickups give me a lot of trouble with 60hz hum, and if I hold it just right I can pick up a radio station.
Bass guitars:
- 2002 Yamaha RBX-170 (Taiwan) – I traded a Washburn 12-string for the Dot which was worth less so they threw in the bass to even the deal. Like most guitar players I can sort of play bass, it’s actually gotten a lot of use over the years. Being a Yamaha it is rather well made for an entry level instrument.
- 2016 Squier Affinity Precision Bass (Indonesia) – Squier is Fender’s offshore made line, Indonesian Affinity is 2nd rung from the bottom on the quality ladder. I’m not even sure that the neck is maple, maybe birch?
Yamaha neck in front with interesting grain, Squier neck behind with boring speckled grain. At any rate, the Squier is my son’s expendable instrument for heavy duty use (as explained below).
Although Mrs DougD doesn’t play, both my children do. Here’s my daughter learning to change strings on the terrible Harmony. And yes, we loosened the strings before cutting them.
My son is primarily a trumpet player, he is in every conceivable band at high school. However, as a camp counselor last summer he also played bass in the camp band. Last year he used the Yamaha, which did not take kindly to the duty cycle, and to the temperature and humidity swings experienced at camp. At the end of the summer it came home with a twisted neck and busted tuners. This year he will go armed with the Squier, and a good molded hardshell case for better protection.
In addition to amusing myself daily with guitars, I have a few non-paying gigs:
I am a rhythm guitarist in Praise Band at Church. Here I am at practice playing a pink Charval heavy metal guitar I cleaned up and sold for a co-worker last year. I get to work with some incredibly talented kids which is very fun for a moderately talented middle aged guy.
Every Christmas Eve the D family gets together at my parents’ house. My brother and I play, and we all sing Christmas Carols before opening some presents.
I’ll say now that I’m not the best player ever. Really I don’t need to be, my playing philosophy comes from Steven Van Zandt (of E-Street band fame) who said “My role is to play the clean rhythm guitar that all rock bands need. I’m not there to show people how good of a guitar player I am.”
I do try to improve, learning to play Alice’s Restaurant a few years ago was a major step forward for me (thank you again, classical guitar lessons).
It’s a fun thing, it enriches my life and hopefully the lives of others. I can do most of my own instrument repair and setup, and 8 guitars sure takes up less space and time than 8 old project cars would. Hopefully all of you have multiple fulfilling things in your life, so what’s your other thing?
This picture sums up a lot of my other interests. Biking, especially mountain biking, would have to be my main interest, even above cars (gasp!).
As you may have guessed, the kayak is home-built, which captures two other interests. Kayaking and canoeing being one, and various projects that at least partially involve woodworking being the other. Example of what I mean by partial woodworking are the kayak which has a light wood frame and a fiberglass skin, and making an upholstered couch from scratch.
And in the background is out Aliner camping trailer. My wife and I like to get out when we can, preferably to a destination with biking and paddling.
Doug, you ask a fabulous yet tough question as I have no real profound talents in life and I’ve realized my hobbies are few.
That said, I often let myself get immersed in WWII history. I am currently reading John Toland’s biography of Adolph Hitler, have hours of WWII documentaries awaiting me on the DVR, and have many books and magazines on the subject.
Ongoing projects around the house and property have been my focus the last few years. There had been a one-time water issue in the basement prior to our moving in; I am baseboards and trim away from having remodeled the bulk of the basement (excepting the bathroom and utility room). It also necessitated replacement of a few walls, boxing in a closet for use of a smaller door, and hanging and finishing a boatload of drywall as I removed a lot of paneling.
Outside, we’ve got two wooded acres (in town, a rarity) but there are a lot of invasive plants, primarily asian bush honeysuckle. I’ve got half of it under control thanks to a chainsaw and several gallons of Tordon. It was so bad there were some areas that I couldn’t even walk when I got started.
While not as intensive for me, I have been involved with my daughter’s 4H projects, primarily financing them. She covers the spectrum, with bacon curing, sewing, and public speaking.
Like my profile says about me, I’m a pretty boring guy.
If you’re interested in German history, I highly recommend “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland” by Christopher Browning. It’s probably the most in depth (and disturbing) look into how regular German citizens became Nazis.
Thank you; I’ve already looked it up at Amazon and it’s not available in my library. However, it appears Browning has written some other WWII related books.
The amount of material available about the war is incredible. What really triggered this fascination was a book by Winston Groom (author of Forrest Gump) called 1942: The Year That Tried Men’s Souls that I read in ’04 or ’05. It’s one of the most engaging documentary type books I’ve read.
Winston Groom also wrote a couple of interesting Civil War books, if your interests lie in that time period.
His book on the siege of Vicksburg is a good read. Truth be told, it can feel like a siege in the beginning third, but I found it really picked up after that.
Thanks for the tip! I too have been a WWII and German history buff since early childhood. I think all those hours watching the History Channel with my grandfather (when it actually featured interesting historical programming and not 24 hours of Pawn Stars) had something to do with it 🙂
I read Ordinary Men a few years ago, since my local library had it. “The Wages of Destruction” by Adam Tooze is an excellent study of the prewar and wartime German economy. I also just finished “Shattered Sword” Tully and Parshall’s masterful study of the Battle of Midway. Another WWII topic that’s interesting is the Imphal-Kohima campaign “Triumph at Imphal-Kohima” by Raymond Callahan came out last years and has a lot of depth on how Slim remade the Indian Army in 1943.
I’m into running. Started late in life, about 10 years ago at age 38. Was overweight and doctor wanted me to start some medications and see a cardiologist. I said no way, and just quit eating a lot of junk I loved, quit all alcohol, and started walking on a treadmill.
I got down to 165 and have stayed there. I run 25 miles a week, sometimes a little more, and I’ve done two full marathons and about a dozen half marathons.
My cheat food/craving is ice cream and cake, any kind you can think of. Always devoured them and always will!
Good on you! Half my team at work is heavily into running so I get to hear about it every day…
It’s a good thing my colleagues exercise, though, as working in an office is a surefire way to put on weight with all the bake sales and catered events and such. My love of food (I hear ya on the cake!) was what led me to commit to exercising, not necessarily to lose weight or gain muscle but to, at the bare minimum, keep weight off. Because my eyes can be bigger than my stomach…
Another runner here! Now if only I could quit alcohol 😉 Props to you!
Hey i hear you!! i was a borderline allcoholic for years. until the stress of life, work,breakup with my wife(we are back together now)and a DUI that threatened to ruin my life(God did’nt allow it) I pray that you get tired of drinking and the shakes and the missery that it can bring to your life. it used to turn me into a monster a different person that took unnecessary chances. it was threatening to ruin my life. i woke up one day and said f%$k everybody(and i mean EVERYBODY) and decided that i have to take care of this problem. and with Gods help i did. i am now 1 year and 2 months clean. you can do it set your mind to it. i truly pray that you get off of it. and don’t let anyone tell you it’s a disease it’s a choice. if you have kids…….that gives you more power to stop.
Ooh, good question, Doug.
When people ask me what my hobbies are, the first things I mention are cars and writing. So this is a tough one because you’re asking what my “other thing” is.
I’d have to say travel is pretty high up there as I try to take an overseas trip every year and this year’s one is going to be a doozy!
Additionally, I’d been wanting to learn Spanish for years and finally started a year or so ago, enrolling in a class and then switching to a private tutor. I need to study harder as I’m still not really conversational but I’m learning. It’s really hard to learn a language when you’re not a kid but I’m fortunate in that Brisbane is full of young Latin American students nowadays so I’ve made plenty of friends with whom I can converse. I’m still a little bitter my primary and high schools only offered Japanese and German… don’t get me wrong, they’re both cool languages but I always wanted to learn Spanish, even as a kid, and I think it’s arguably the more “useful” language.
Otherwise, I can’t really think of anything. I’m finally a consistent gym-goer after years of trying different types of cardio and eventually tiring of all of them. I go to a CrossFit-type gym that combines weights, boxing and cardio and I’m finally finding exercise fun!
Nice! I’ve been thinking I should take up guitar. I have zero musical talent so it might be a bit of an uphill battle. Of my other things I enjoy programming and building 3D models. Mostly of cars of course. Here is one example made in Blender which is both amazing and free. A nice combination.
Very nice!
Agreed!
My other hobby of note is astronomy. I’ve owned three telescopes at one point in time (I only have two right now) and I buy and sell telescopes, lenses and parts on eBay. One buyer had me send his scope (a Celestron reflector) to an APO in San Francisco. Imagine my surprise when I get a postcard from Antarctica thanking me for the scope and that it arrived okay! I’ve seen all the Great Comets since 1984 including Halley and was in Salem, OR with the Rose City Astronomers for last years eclipse(pic below).
The biggest hazard of the hobby is Aperture Fever, the not unrealistic fixation on increasing the size of the objective to gather more light to better see dimmer stellar objects and discern finer detail on the brighter ones…but, the bigger the objective, the heavier and bulkier the scope. There is a inverse correlation between light gathering power and convenience, you aren’t going to grab that fifty pound 8 inch Nexstar with the weak batteries that die at 12:28 after cool down and spending an hour setting up and aligning to go into the darker parts of your neighborhood to see Jupiter’s moons, you’re going to take the ten pound 90mm Meade refractor on the alt-azimuth mount. Much like an auto show, we only bring the big stuff to star parties and club meets and size, like cubic inches, means street cred.
One guy had an 18″ scope that he had to use a trailer to haul. It rolled out on casters and most of the structure was tubing. It was so good you could faintly see colors in the Ring Nebula, while the rest of us could only see greyish white in ours. THAT is why bigger is better!
This is a great QOTD. My “other things” often find their way into my posts, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. I’d say my top two are photography, and collecting music (I still buy CDs) of all genres, ranging from all forms / eras of jazz, new wave, disco, urban contemporary, 80s and 90s alternative, trance, house… well, you get the picture. I’m as much an audiophile / discographer as I am a car fan.
J. Dennis: You mentioned still buying CD’s. I still buy cassettes. 95% of are used and the other 5% are ‘New-Old-Stock’ tapes. Can’t help it. I’m still analogue-minded at 45 yrs old. I’ve recently found the joys of ’70s funk courtesy of YouTube along with a few old hardcore country songs. It’s a mad mix of music.
→ Should you read this post and haven’t heard these tunes I’d recommend listening to them at least twice to get the full funk effect.
NEW YORK CITY BUMP from ‘Black Rock’ / (1975) [Either version; there’s 2 versions loaded up on YT. The 2nd version has more NYC ‘sound’ effects, but both versions feature subway car noises and are 6½ minutes of pure funk joy].
HUNTER STREET from ‘Spirit of Atlanta’ / (1973) This is just funkin’ awesome. High-energy funk with the ‘wah-chicka-wah’ sounds in full force. Not all funk is created =equal= but this absolutely rocks.
ULTRAFUNK – Sweet F.A. / 1975 from Contempo Records. DIG IT.
Here’s a groovy Low-Fi soul goodie from 1974 on MOD-ART Records on YouTube: AT THE HOTEL by Eunice Collins. Atmospheric tune!
and 1 hardcore country song from 1976 called DREAMS OF A DREAMER by Darrell McCall. It’s not twangy, either, it’s just harsh old-time country that reached #35 on the Billboard Country Chart in 1976. ♠Aces♠
Also, besides liking old American cars of the 1960s and ’70s (with a sprinkling of ’50s cars and ’80’s autos) I collect automobile literature from the ’60s and ’70s as well from Lincoln (1961-80) and Cadillac (1965-77) + a few FORD catalogs, especially the 1964 catalog for obvious reasons. I need to start rounding up Imperial/Chrysler auto lit. from 1964-79 one o’these days.
Carter, you just made my day with these recommendations. Thank you!
You and I are roughly the same age – I still haven’t been able to part with my cassettes. There was this book / music store called “Shake, Rattle & Read” not too far from my neighborhood that closed last year. They had this massive sale (“everything must go”), and much of it was new-old-stock, like you mentioned. I think you definitely would have liked that place. I walked out of there with a bagful of great stuff for about $10.
I still have more cassettes to buy before I’m done. Few more MILES DAVIS albums (he was very prolific so even though I have a bunch of them I still need more. Like the ‘MORE MILES’ album from his ‘Live at Carnegie Hall’ performance in May of 1961). Need a FIREFALL cassette, too.
I hope you enjoy listening to the various tunes — that NEW YORK CITY BUMP song is now embedded in my brain — and here’s a few more for your perusal that are on YouTube:
THEM TWO – Am I A Good Man? from 1967 [SOUL/VOCAL] This is some heavy soul here.
DUNN PEARSON, Jr. – Groove on Down from 1978 on ‘Shyrlden Records’. This is 8:20 seconds of funk/disco fun. PARTY HEARTY GET FUNKY GET DOWN LET’S JAM! 🙂
DOWN BEATS – Why Do You Love Another? on ‘DAWN Records’. This is so good I’m surprised it’s not been made illegal.
EAST HARLEM BUS STOP – Get Down from 1976. Part instrumental/part vocal.
Also, it seems most all of the Brick & Mortar stores are rapidly becoming a thing of the past for music and books. I like to own physical media, but I don’t have the money to afford all the music I want so I’m grateful that YouTube has it courtesy of the uploaders.
This is a great QOTD.
It should surprise no one that I gobble up pretty much anything related to Star Wars. My only blind spots are the newer animated series and the books, but I’m definitely going to read some of the latest books at some point. I also avoided the recent Battlefront game due to all the controversy surrounding it, but I may pick it up at some point if I can get a good deal on a copy. Anyway, it’s a great time to be a Star Wars fan. From about 2002-2015, I had pretty much given up on the franchise, but I’m loving the new entries into the Skywalker saga. I’ve probably watched The Last Jedi about five times already even though it came out on Blu-Ray less than a month ago! The Force Awakens also gets better every time I watch it, and I also really enjoyed Rogue One. Not sure what to think about this Han Solo movie coming out next month. I hope its good.
I’m also a big Star Trek guy, although I’m not really into the original series and I think at least half of The Next Generation is overrated. Voyager had some decent moments but was otherwise terrible, and Enterprise was a disaster. Deep Space Nine is very good and Discovery had a great first season. Sisko is my favorite captain. As for the movies, I really love 2-4 and 6 (the ones with the original cast) and First Contact is also enjoyable. The latest reboot films have only one strong entry and that’s the 2009 installment simply titled “Star Trek.” Beyond was decent but nothing special.
Other pop culture interests: Game of Thrones (also read and enjoyed the books), Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul, Saturday Night Live, iZombie, and a whole bunch of other tv shows and movies I can’t think of at the moment. I also like pretty much anything related to the Marvel Universe, but not to the point of seeing the movies on opening day or sometimes even while they’re in the theater.
Video games are another “thing” of mine. I’m invested into the Xbox ecosystem currently, but I recently acquired a Super Nintendo Classic and am very much enjoying it. And I plan on buying a Switch and a PS4 at some point. I generally vacillate between RPG’s and science fiction first person shooters, so franchises like Final Fantasy and Destiny get my attention. I plan on tackling The Witcher series soon, and I’m definitely looking forward to that.
I have a BA in American History and an MA in History and Political Science, so naturally I like to read and am a bit of a political junkie. My favorite period of American history is 1870-1900 and 1900-1914, which historians generally call “The Gilded Age” and “The Progressive Era,” respectively. Lately I’ve been forgoing history books to get through the classics, and I’m currently reading “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” My next project is to acquaint myself with the works of Mark Twain. Favorite novel? Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”
And that about does it for interests, although I want to get more into IT stuff, and I’d like to be able to build/repair a PC, laptop, or cell phone at some point in the future.
The Clone wars series isn’t bad. There isn’t really a lot of Canon about the clone wars so they had free reign to go wherever and whenever they wanted. Lots of interesting worlds, new species, and slash and smash action.
Nice to see another guitar player!!! My dad and I play…more like just collect Fenders. LOL
Great post! I recently started playing again after a 20 year lapse. In the process I switched from a Mexican Strat to a 10 year old Gibson SG, big difference. But you are right, it’s always X+1.
Tech. Most specifically, phones. Not on the flagship phone bandwagon though, except for an iPhone 5 that still works.
Daily driver is a Xiaomi Mi A1. An awesome handset for $200
I’m still using a 5S as my only phone. Works great and I like the smaller size.
5S fan, here, too. My understanding is they brought it out because so many people (men?) liked the fit of the 4 in their pockets. I know I do.
Same here on the 5S…kinda. Started to lose battery strength, then I finally dropped it. Replaced with a 7se. Exact same handset, but supposedly with the i7’s upgrades. I prefer the size; I get ribbed about it but my refrain I don’t want to carry a flat screen TV around everywhere. I also like it in my pocket, those “holsters” feel pretentious, not to mention I feel I’m carrying around a Glock.
I’m the classic Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none kind of guy. I’ve never had a consistent single focus hobby like your guitars. I like the outdoors, and walk or hike 5-7 miles daily, which takes up a chunk of time and energy. Endless maintenance projects on my rentals and our own house. Gardening; Stephanie has an amazing flower and fruit and veggie garden, and I’m the grunt. I used to bicycle a fair bit, but switched to walking since we adopted the dog.
My current focus is the conversion of the Promaster van, which has finally gotten under way. I have all the components, and the solar panel is in the back yard already keeping the batteries charged up, etc.. I just finished insulating the walls and ceiling, and I’m putting in the insulated floor today. Then the fun starts. As is always the case for me, it’s turning out to be a bit more challenging and time consuming than I assumed. But that’s how or why I take on new projects like this: I perpetually underestimate what it’s going to take. Which is why I refused to become a contractor….
Earlier I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal and thought of you and the Promaster. It talks about people traveling the country in their upfitted vans, with some being around $130k all in.
I seem to remember a conversation about that lifestyle here a while back, which is how the article caught my attention.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/boomers-embrace-luxury-van-life-1524308463
Yeah; van lifestyle is really hot right now. Which is not why I’m doing this, but it does mean there’s vast amount of info on the web about it.
I’ve had several neighbors come by and pick my brain. A camper van (typically a Sprinter hereabouts) is the in status symbol to have in your driveway in this part of the world.
Oh well. Hopefully they’re all not going to show up in the same parts of the boonies as we like to go.
I’m intrigued to learn of this as such a wide-ranging new phenomenon, as here in Florida the norm still skews toward the typical ginormous motor home or fifth wheel with slide-outs. But I just had a conversation last night with a friend whose retired parents recently flew from Rochester, NY to Portland, OR to take delivery of their new conversion van (presumably a Sprinter or ProMaster) and are now driving it back home across the country. This was my wake-up call to this being a trend rather than a quietly growing hobby.
Looking forward to the update on the Promaster!
I’m looking forward to updates on the Promaster camper project. I’m looking at building a smaller camper based off a Transit Connect, and I’m checking out several blogs about their projects. Paul, you might want to have a look at a blog called Mali Mish. They are currently documenting the conversion of their Sprinter, and it looks like they have similar plans for their van – although this family of five intends to live in it full time.
I rather enjoy bass, and many other instruments with far too many pictures to post.
My collection 10 years ago:
A properly intriguing QOTD, this one.
I’m musically enraptured but devoid of even the suggestion of talent, so, I guess, listening and wishing are hobbies.
Apart from a list of dabblings including car fixes and house repair doings and garden killings – all quite enthusiastically and incompetently engaged in – I’m a little embarassed to say the major “hobby” is politics. And from before any normal age for such.
My parents weren’t particularly so, nor anyone else I knew, so why it became so, and became so so early, is unknowable. I loved history, still do, so maybe that?
The current internet age provides the person now known as a junkee (me) with a permanent flow of information for this hobby. Ofcourse, most of that flow is divertable to the sewer, but is read anyway.
Maybe I’m instead naming my addiction, but hobbies and enjoyable bad habits are probably a bit hard to distinguish.
Great question! Aside from cars, my hobbies are mostly radio related – audio processing being the main passion along with the two Internet stations in my house (oldies & jammin oldies). The RF side of things as well, as I have a couple of small AM & FM transmitters that I use to test software processing on, including dozens of radios to test the audio quality output.
I also collect 45’s and 33’s, as well as CD’s – mostly 50’s thru the 70’s, and I especially love Motown, soul, and doo wop.
History is another passion of mine – currently reading “The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy”…being Jewish I was raised to “always remember, and never forget” and this is part of it.
This is a very diverse online crowd, and I always learn something whenever I read the site – car related, or not!
I play guitar too! And played keyboards, wrote songs, and did arrangements and production. I played in several bands when I was in high school, college, and a few years afterward. It’s amazing what a small world it seemed; I didn’t expect when I started out I’d actually meet some of the people who helped make the records I listened to. Unfortunately, we didn’t record ourselves very often, most of the recordings that we did make were lost, and most of what I still have is far from our best. My guitar collection is limited to a cheap Strat and a 1950s Gibson lap steel guitar I bought because it looked cool but don’t know how to play. I also have a few Roland and Korg keyboards.
I love swimming and surfing though I’m not good at either (and good waves are a rarity on the central east coast). I’m an avid photographer and have taken thousands of photos professionally. I’ve done several home renovations, mostly on investment properties that were about to be sold but also including where I live now. My home is a resto-mod of sorts; a 1951 brick house loaded with mid-century charm, but now with new windows, cabinets, appliances, plumbing and lighting fixtures. And while those items are obviously new and modern in design, everything was carefully chosen to be sympathetic to the design aesthetic of the house; things the architect would have likely used had they been available in the ’50s. We almost doubled the size of the kitchen, expanded the tiny bedroom-area bathroom by taking space from the bedroom closet and removing a unneeded linen closet, and added two bedrooms and a bathroom to the 3br/1.5ba that were already there. All of this was done by cleverly moving walls and reallocating existing space, without any additions or expansions, eliminating a separate dining room that was deemed unnecessary. Instead of buying cheap new appliances, I spent the same money on 5 to 10 year old high-end appliances that show up occasionally on Craiglist or eBay that were very expensive when new. I also mix in a few vintage pieces; little things like pushbutton light switches and a tubular bell doorbell that sounds like it came from a 1920s mansion.
The other thing I’ve done most of my life with the last few places I lived: rent out a room or two, something that’s easy to do in this college town close to downtown DC as well as the University of Maryland. I essentially get paid to live in my own home since the proceeds from my roommate(s) more than cover mortgage or rent. Plus, it’s a great way to meet and live with people from all walks of life which I happen to find interesting.
Omg i would kill for that steel! Super cool. Mine is a fifties Supro. Yours is wayyyy cooler. 🙂
It’s called Ultratone, and amazingly they’re not that hard to find. I just saw it in a store and was like “this looks so cool! I gotta have this!” I only paid about $500. For a ’50s Gibson! They were available in other ’50s-tastic colors too
Great question Doug! It’s really wonderful learning more about you and everyone that has commented.
As for me, my other primary passion in life besides cars is running. I’ve been distance running for the past 11 years and it’s changed my life in so many wonderful ways – allowing me not only to get in a lot better physical shape but also mentally – it’s my strongest addiction. Of course, like any strong relationship, running has left me with some major injuries over the years, but it’s all in the sport. These days I do what I can while alternating non-running days with lifting and other strength training.
As one who suffers from anxiety, running is my most effective mental release, a way to clear my mind. Often on my runs I am able to sort things out in my head and actually solve many of my problems. Or if not I’m usually thinking of cars 🙂
My wife is an off and on runner, for those reasons too.
I tore a meniscus when I was 39 and that was it for running. 🙁
What a great question/topic! You mentioned my blog which I have been writing for coming up on three years (thanks for the little mini spike in stats today 🙂 ) CC taught me how much I enjoy writing, which was something I would have laughed at ten years ago. I write weekly on whatever non-car topic catches my interest/imagination/ire at a given time.
As you note, classic jazz is one of my things, and I do occasionally write on it. I prefer the stuff that came along in the days before the long play record, or at least the stuff done by the players who came up in that era.
I also have a number of lesser things including watching old movies, reading history (religious history is endlessly fascinating to me) and just enjoying time with my wife (and adult kids when the situation presents.)
If the definition of a “hobby car” is one the is not your daily driver, I have not had one since I sold my ’65 Riviera over 30 years ago.
Boats / lakes, bicycles and increasingly fitness so I can keep up with our young adult children on the water. Our garage has a 21″ Sea Ray, a jet-ski and we are currently waiting on the stand-up paddle boards and kayaks to go on sale at Costco. We’ve rented these items several times at the lakes and look forward to getting into these activities as well.
Copper sheilding tape in the pickguard, pickup cavity and electric cavity (where the volume knob is) should help with the hum. I can fumble my way through some punk and know some gooey chords to keep blues jams interesting.
The neck pickup in the Tele is physically broken, I have a Fender Vintage Noiseless neck pickup on order. If that doesn’t do it the copper tape is step 2.
Other than cars, my hobbies are CAD/3D printing and playing guitar.
3D printing has tied in nicely to my automotive hobby, as I’ve been able to design and make numerous parts and tools for my old cars. Most recently, I designed and made a tool to drive on the dust boot for the double-cardan joint on a driveshaft.
I can’t claim that I’m particularly good on guitar, but I do enjoy playing them. The current collection is 3 Yamaha acoustic guitars and a Squier electric that looks like a mashup of Stratocaster and Telecaster parts.
I like to think of myself as a sort of Renaissance man, though that might be overstating the case a bit. People who are into astrology tell me that I am a prototype Gemini, with all the qualities good and bad that implies. Now pretty much retired, I’ve had a bunch of careers in my life – environmental engineer (largely in the field including moon-suit hazmat work), schoolteacher, surveyor, used car salesman, construction, etc. However, my first love (and the hardest to maintain) was being a professional musician playing keyboards and sax. Though never with anyone big, I’ve toured the country with showbands (Pink Floyd, however, never returned my phone calls). I’ve done a fair amount of composing, too.
Perhaps my most pervasive hobby is reading, not necessarily books or magazines (though I read those too), but almost anything that catches my attention: Internet news, blogs and forums; freebie tabloids outside a coffee shop; tourist and real estate brochures; maps; and on the road, bumper stickers, roadside signs and billboards, and license plate frames.
My other activities generally involve wheels: I just sold one of my motorcycles so I’m down to just two now, and especially in the last five years, mountain biking. Though neither of my motorcycles is really a classic (yet), both have carburetors and are air-cooled. Neither has a tach. On the other hand, two of my bicycles are quite new with carbon fiber frames and my mountain bike is full suspension, albeit with a modest 120mm of travel. My third bike is considered a classic, a 1989 Bridgestone that I’ve owned since new. We’re lucky to live in a location where I can hit world-class singletrack trails just riding from my house, so we ride regularly, typically several times a week. My road bike does tend to gather dust lately. By the way, no real “hobby car” for years. In fact our current fleet is the newest we’ve had for a long time, 2015 and 2016.
I’m an ambitious and inventive but untalented tinker of all sorts. I love photography and music, and I get involved on the technical side at least as much as generating any content. I can develop film, and often do at my home. I’ve also made a pair of electrostatic headphones, though I don’t have a working homemade pair right this second. See my link for a video.
Birdwatching. I used to play the saxophone and piano a lot, and wish I could get back to it (one-bedroom apartments with thin walls and wind instruments don’t really mix, unfortunately).
At 53, I decided to semi-retire and live simply so I could afford to. I work just enough to pay most of the bills, so there isn’t much left for hobbies. That’s okay, though, I never had much interest in any particular hobby.
I guess my hobby now is getting rid of as much stuff as I can, so nobody has the headache of cleaning up after me when I die.
Well, besides cars:
Motorcycles. Actually, they’re my primary interest, cars are the secondary. Primarily vintage British twins, definitely Triumphs, but pretty much anything on two wheels. I’ve owned anything from a 1929 Indian 101 Scout to my current 2016 Honda Gold Wing.
Bicycles. 1980’s and earlier. I restore them, and run a small bicycle shop on the property. There’s (I think) 20 in the storage barn right now ranging from a 1958 Raleigh Lenton Grand Prix to three late 1980’s Rossin’s. And I’m restoring a 1940’s Rollfast middleweight girl’s bike – just haven’t figured out yet if it’s pre- or post-WWII. Also, totally a roadie. Every 4-5 years I get the bug, build a mountain bike, ride for six months, get bored and sell it.
Historical reenactment. Over the past 35 years I’ve done everything from 14th century thru American Civil War. Have cut that back now to early American Colonial (1565-1700) and their European parallels, although I’ve still got complete wardrobes for War of the Roses and French and Indian (Seven Years) War. One bedroom in the house is the reenactor’s closet and arsenal.
Baseball. As long as you’re talking Eastern League (AA) level. Follow the Majors enough to intelligently converse on the subject, but it’s not a real interest of mine.
Shooting. If a .22 league pops up, you’ll find me there eventually.
Ah, motorcycles. That’s another thing (life is so darn interesting isn’t it?) but I’m a bit more skewed toward functionality there, so British twins are mostly out.
Although I worked with a guy for 10 years who had a Royal Enfield Interceptor project. He acquired a debilitating illness and sold the bike without telling me 🙁
I had exactly one bike, an ’87 Suzuki GS550ES that I repainted after adding Lockhart lower fairings. Was a fun bike, but I totaled it in a low-speed (<40mph) accident that put me in hospital for ten days and on crutches for 8 months. No more bikes for me (by edict of my wife), although I do get the itch every Spring…
One could say my first skill has set the stage for all I do since childhood. That skill is detail and paying close attention to it. My first hobby, as a six year old, was tropical fish. That led me to reading books on how to care for them and treat diseases. At eight my second hobby was model building. Needless to say my attention to detail and the ability to achieve results has improved all the way to today. Astronomy was also big back then to.
At twelve photography came next leading of course to a now lifetime hobby in collecting, learning, shooting and developing film. At fourteen cars came into the picture next. Another life long hobby leading to 10 cars so far. Graduate school had me ending up as a Doctor of Optometry enabling to use my detail skills and diagnosis skills.
My last hobby which uses all my skills from cars to the smallest detail was when I saw the USS Hornet at NAS Alameda in 1998. I have been on the ship for 20 years now restoring the ship with other guys to be as accurate and functional as possible. While there I was given the chance, by being named plane Captain, to restore the ships first major plane, a 1945 TBM-3E Avenger Torpedo Bomber. Many parts needed to be sourced from used to NOS and brought in my quartermaster skills from the Boy Scouts. In short I like to repair and restore whatever I can manage and learn which is too much.
Have to say I once considered learning the guitar in 1965 but never followed through. Am thinking of it now especially with a music store fours doors from my office. The many colored guitars hang along a wall with spot lights on them in the evening. I was first drawn by the lighting and colors to shoot them in film.
Interesting. I’m only a few counties away (and an Alameda County native) but have never visited the ship. If I do, I’ll try to look you up.
Hey, I’ve been on the Hornet several times back when I lived in the area, perhaps I unknowingly even crossed paths with you!
The Hornet is a great sight to see for anyone in the area, it still boggles my mind that there was an active massive Naval Air Station there in the somewhat recent past. If in New York, the USS Intrepid is an equally fascinating to visit.
Might have to do that, I’ve seen the Intrepid and spent an entire day on Midway in San Diego.
Our local aviation museum is nearing completion on their TBM-3E, can’t wait to see that one fly!
http://www.warplane.com/aircraft/collection/details.aspx?aircraftId=39
Whether people know it or not the Essex Class carrier, of which 24 were built and was the largest capital ship class, were the backbone of the U.S. Navy power during WWII. The last to be retired was the Oriskany in 1976. Today there are four left as museums in various states of originality. All were modified in the 50’s but as museums liberties have been taken with three of them.
The Intrepid was stored at PSNY before becoming a museum and was used for training shipfitters and welders. Consequently she is mostly a flight deck/hanger deck museum. The Yorktown and Lexington have had mods made to make it easier on visitors. Plus the two sit in silt against their hulls which is extremely bad.
The Hornet, designated a National Historical Landmark, cannot be modified yet some have tried. Word to the Washington Naval Shipyard ends those attempts. Consequently we have knee knockers that will take you out if you aren’t paying attention. Our goal is originality and to have as much equipment working as possible from radars, to aircraft elevators, to bomb elevators, ship’s 1MC, ship’s telephone system, ship’s 1953 Westinghouse escalator and to anchor windlass to name some.
I put this site up some years ago showing the ship and other ships I have had the chance to go on in the Suisun Reserve Fleet to hunt parts. That included a chance to wander the USS Iowa before she became a museum courtesy a friend I call Mr. Battleship being as how he was the world’s foremost expert on battleships due to many years at LBNSY.
http://www.usshornet-cv12.com/ Ship, aircraft and Suisun links
That’s great work you’re doing; it’s wonderful to see an old ship well taken care of like this. It would be amazing to see one of these museum ships actually set sail again, as Mystic Seaport did with the Morgan recently. Probably impossible, given the money and restoration work necessary, but fun to imagine. Hope I get the chance to see the Hornet someday.
Nice, I’m an Independence Class fan, having a family connection to CVL-29 Bataan. Someday I’ll do a CC article on that..
Back when I was a Cubmaster and my boys were in Cub Scouts, we spent a weekend camping on the CV10 Yorktown at Patriots Point near Charleston, SC. You bunk in the original crew compartment, then mess in the galley. They try to make it as much like a sailor would have experienced as possible.
When we went back the second year, my Dad camped with us. He sailed on the SSR-312 Burrfish during the Korean conflict, one of a handful of WWII-era Fleet Boats converted to radar picket service. The SS-343 Clamagore is tied up next to the Yorktown and is also a Fleet Boat, converted to Guppy configuration. Dad took a group of us through the boat, sharing his experiences from his service. He could still point out lines and fittings and identify their purpose even after all those years – it was really a special trip for me and my boys. He’s holding his original qualification book from around 1950 in the pic.
I just learned that the Clamagore has reached such poor hull condition that the cost to maintain is beyond what the Park will do, and a Veterans group was unable to raise the funds, either. So the submarine is scheduled to be floated out to see on a barge and sunk to make an artificial reef. Sad end to the last remaining Guppy Boat.
This is a great thread, and some very interesting responses. Hobbies? Hmmm… does work count? I retired from the Car Biz over a decade ago, and wound up starting a second career. I work in Special Ed, supporting kiddos that need help in Math, Reading, Writing, or maybe just improving their behavioral or social skills. Middle School level, so that keeps me busy.
Outside of that, I’m another “5-7 mile a day” walker, and Spring/Summer finds me out at PIR for the night drags and Cruise Ins. Between all that, a wonderful wife of 38 years, and three adult kids that live in the Nwst, the days go pretty quickly around here.
Actually, cars are my “other thing;” trains are my primary interest, real and model. I like visiting railroad museums, collecting memorabilia and just going down to the local station to watch the trains roll in. For now, I’m a dedicated armchair model railroader, but I hope to have the real thing running sometime in the future (maybe after the kids go off to college…) I found this site when I was looking for some more information on the buses GM used to build the Aerotrain. Trains are first, but cars are a close second, followed by anything else mechanical that moves around on its own (ships, airplanes, tanks, etc.-must be the little kid in me.)
Astronomy, Photography, Reading, and listening to music…of all genres.
I’m impressed that you play literally every day!
I read this this morning and had to think about it a bit…I guess I have two main interests that end up competing for my time along with everything else. Being a bit of an introvert that is also somewhat opinionated (stereotypical German I guess, right?) these fit me fairly well:
1. Reading; pretty much anything, either online or hard copy. A fair amount of fiction mixed with non-fiction business related items such as corporate histories and the like but also a LOT of news and current events and of course automotive, aeronautical and related items.
2. While not nearly as accomplished as Paul, I genuinely enjoy remodeling beater houses, thankfully I can and have been able to turn this into a hobby that largely pays for my life. I’m just about to take professional photos of my latest one and list it next week – this was a complete wreck of a house (internally speaking) that was occupied by an elderly hoarder couple that just couldn’t handle it any more. I’ve had it for just over eleven weeks now and basically gutted the inside and started over, doing virtually all of the work myself. Here are a couple of poorly lit cell phone pix to give an idea…
Another
One more
Wow; what a transformation! Very nice indeed.
I’m done with the major remodeling; getting to old. I’d rather go for a walk. 🙂
I’ll just keep renting mine as they mostly are and then sell them sometime in the 5-10 years, to someone young and ready to remodel them all again.
Looks good!
You’re an introvert???
Thanks! And yes, very much so. Lonely in a crowd etc…Maybe less so than some on these pages but in the absolute sense I think so. If you remember what GeelongVic and the two of us were conversing about in Detroit, there is no way that is happening… 🙂
I remember very little from Detroit because I was so sick. But you didn’t exactly come across as an introvert in Auburn. I seem to remember telling Stephanie after that trip that you were the life of the party!
Maybe this introversion is a recent development? 🙂
No, nothing has changed as of recent…Maybe all you CC’ers just bring out the wild and crazy in me 🙂 I am looking forward to seeing everyone again sometime though!
I wouldn’t have assumed that you were an Introvert, but I’m not totally surprised.
The thing about us is that in the right circumstances we can appear fairly extroverted for a while, but need to back off and recharge alone eventually.
I suspect I spent more time talking to people those two days in Detroit than I did the rest of the month. 🙂
Well yes, I’m a top of the chart introvert myself, it doesn’t help that I’m deaf in one ear and can’t distinguish voices in crowded rooms. I did learn in a course that it doesn’t mean we can’t interact, it just means that we expend energy to do so. Whereas we both enjoy going out with a group of friends, my wife the extrovert is energized by it and I feel tired afterwards.
This.
Jim, reading yours, Dan’s, and Doug’s comments, it reminds me of something I told someone recently. It’s how introverts (of which I strongly tend toward) can be forced extroverts. Like Doug said, it wears us out.
Two weeks ago at work I hosted a group activity that lasted 45 minutes. For 300 people. On two occasions. I would have been less tired running a half-marathon.
New York Metropolitans baseball
Besides automotive stuff, my go to hobby is video games. I know, big shock an almost 22 year old man has an interest in video games, but I’ve been playing since I was about 5 years old and haven’t stopped. I’ve got consoles that reach double digits and plan on getting some more when time and money allow it, and I’ve played more games than most people can name.
Movies is also another hobby as well as TV. I love talking about movie and TV as I just think it’s interesting. I’ll easily absorb any and all movie or show I have any interest in, and that goes for also learning about the making of. History is the one subject I like more than anything, and I’m always interested in the circumstances of how it came to be or what happened after it came out, and that goes for anything I have an interest in. As for favorite movies, it’s hard to say, but definitely the Big Lebowski is a favorite of mine as well as comedies, horror films, and science fiction, as well as animation. For TV Shows, the Sopranos is my all time favorite series, and I’ve watched other shows here and there but in spurts and have rarely sat down to marathon a show. (I get pretty spacey, not gonna lie.)
Guns are also another interest of mine. Had an interest for them for a long time, like learning about the mechanics and history behind them, have four of them myself, and shooting is a rare treat that I always enjoy. This one is probably the one besides cars that’s hard to keep up, as the firearms and ammunition get expensive in the long run and even going to the range and renting can easily run over 100 bucks. I would easily like to continue my collection at some point, but for now, going to the range once a year is contentment enough to keep it alive.
Those are the only three interests I’ve kept a progressive and healthy maturation for an extended period of time (besides cars obviously), anything else tends to be less important than others. I would like to maybe expand my horizons, but I feel learning and retaining too much in side hobbies and interests might cause my brain to go nuclear from information overlord.
I’m guessing you’ve seen it already, but if not, the “Forgotten Weapons” channel on YouTube is an excellent resource for firearms engineering and history. Some fascinating background on (sometimes ill-advised) design choices, and probably of interest to anyone curious about mechanical devices, whether one is a firearms enthusiast or not.
I have watched Forgotten Weapons intermittingly, and I think it’s one of the best firearms channels on YouTube, despite not being subscribed to them. It would honestly be like if Ate Up with Motor was in video form, and I mean that as a compliment in the best possible way.
It’s interesting to see the overlap among many of us that have enjoyed CC for so many years. I also play guitar, but piano is my primary instrument. I’ve been a church pianist off and on for many years, and enjoy sitting down and just playing whatever falls to hand or memory for relaxation. I still have the 1918 Lester upright that my grandmother bought used during the Depression for $50. Mom learned on it, then I, then my sons. It unfortunately is pretty well ‘past it’ these days, and would take $10K or more to properly restore. It’s not a collectible era piano, though, and neither son has expressed interest in it. so it’s more of a music room decoration these days. My guitar was a present to myself a few years back and is a 1948 Gibson L-7 archtop. I used to have a Peavy T-40 bass as well, but sold it after it not getting played for years.
Another interest is reading (very wide range of topics, but Christian biographies, military history – aviation & submarine in particular), as well as older sci-fi (Bradbury, etc.) catch my interest.
I used to be an active private pilot as well, but haven’t flown in over a decade – the move to the Middle West put me far away from an airport and we started a major remuddle of our farm house that took way too much time and $$$ to keep flying. I was also building a 7/8 scale replica of a WWI Nieuport 11 fighter, but only got as far as the 95% complete airframe that’s hanging in the rafters of my machine shed collecting dust.
Long-time readers also know I live on a small (15 acre) farm and restored a 1950 Ford 8N. Farming is my ‘therapy hobby’ to clear my mind after work.
The farm house itself turns 100 this year, and other than foundation work, I did all the remuddling myself. Taught myself cabinetmaking, and that’s turned into something I actually really enjoy and may do more of in retirement…
I’m also into tech, but mostly because my career has been so wrapped up in it. My latest interest has been the acquisition of vintage Macintosh computers, mainly so I can run some of the early interactive multimedia I created back in the 1990s. It was pretty bleeding-edge stuff for the day, and one of my projects even made the cover of the now-defunct MacWeek magazine.
I tried to involve my sons in as much of these activities as I could as they were growing up, and while neither one is really a ‘car guy,’ both are musicians (viola, cello), and the younger asked about us going together to the Dawn Patrol Rendezvous in Dayton, OH this Autumn as it’s the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI. We went several times back when I was actively building the Nieuport, so it was neat he still remembers the fun time we had.
Your piano sounds interesting. I have one that is similar, a Sebastian-Sommer miniature upright that is no newer than 1897, the year the company’s New York City factory burned down. Some friends gave it to us and our boys took lessons on it. It needs a tune but still seems playable.
Mrs. JPC would like to find a new home for it which will not be easy as old upright pianos seem to be worth pretty close to zero these days. I would like to keep it and see if I could recover whatever skills my own two years of lessons got me but my piano time is like your flying time.
Lester went out of business in the late ’50s-60s IIRC. It was a well-made piano, but simply too plain to be collectible. If it were 20 years older, the picture changes quite a bit. From my research, I’d actually be money ahead to put $10K in it vs. buying a new $30K piano – the materials were simply better back then – but I really can’t see doing that at this point in my life.
I always called this piano an ‘upright grand,’ although that’s not really the true name for the size (can’t remember off the top of my head). Before we started losing a lot of strings and getting sticky keys in our super-dry winters, it played really nice with a deep, resonant low end and a lively action.
Very sad story about pianos (including grands) in NY
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/arts/music/for-more-pianos-last-note-is-thud-in-the-dump.html
Here is a picture taken of mine at the beginning of getting “parked-in” from stuff being brought home from emptying my mother’s house. It is fairly ornate and could look quite presentable after a good refinishing.
Before we agreed to take it we had it looked at and prounounced playable. The tuner tuned it a step low to reduce stress on the board and strings, but it has held that tuning well. It sounds so much richer than the spinet piano my mother bought in the 50s and which I learned to play on.
My main ‘other thing’ would be cycling. This fall will mark my 20th year without a car, and using a bicycle as my main day-to-day means of transport around the city. It began when my last car was stolen, triggering a curiosity as to whether a new-found enthusiasm for cycling could make me put off buying another car for maybe 5 or 6 months. I guess it did.
Almost immediately I made the jump to bicycle touring/camping, and have done multiple trips since – to New Zealand, Australia, Cuba, southeast Asia, as well as within Canada and down the west coast of the US. There is something very freeing about travelling under your own power with minimal equipment on the back of the bike – maybe a little bit like those cowboys with their bedrolls on the backs of their horses I watched obsessively on TV when I was a kid? 🙂
I’m nowhere near the guitar player DougD is, but a few years ago I dug a 40-year old Yamaha steel string acoustic guitar out of the closet and decided to see what was possible. I’d learned a few chords in my 20’s, but hadn’t taken it much further. With the help of some online lessons from JustinGuitar.com I’m plugging away pretty regularly, and enjoying it greatly.
Besides being fascinated by cars (not to the extent of actually trying to bring old cars back to life, though!), I’m fascinated by music. I majored in organ in college–classical pipe organ. Then I went back and got a master’s in organ. What fascinates most those who watch me? That I can move all over three keyboards and manage a fourth one (the pedals) with my feet. I’ve been playing for years in churches, since I was 16 (I’m in my mid-60s now), and in the last few months was name principal organist at our church. It’s a progressive Episcopal church, full of hymns (no praise band) and choral music. We have a three-manual, 59-rank pipe organ, so lots of resources at my disposal. And I’m amazed to be having so much fun with music at this point in my life!
That, I would say, is my profession; besides being organist, I also work at our church producing all our service booklets–they have everything need for the congregation, including visitors, to participate fully, without having to juggle a bulletin, a hymnal, and a prayer book.
Hobbies: photography, cooking, and the digital cleanup of old records and tapes.
I grew up Lutheran and have never gotten over my love for the sound of a full-on pipe organ. You sound like one of the few who can really make a good organ really sing.
I grew up in Presbyterian church where the organist was also the dean of the music department at rhe local university. It just isn’t church without an organ and old hymns with lots of flats and sharps.
I got to go on a couple of pipe organ tours in the ’90s to France. These were specially arranged tours, and at each church we visited the titular organist would meet us and demonstrate the instrument, telling us a bit about its history, and then we would take our turn at the console. We got to see, hear, and play some truly world-class instruments that helped define the instrument in France in the 19th century, and still exert a pull on organists today. Some of them have been essentially unaltered since they were built, merely maintained, and give us a clear window into the sounds that significant composers for the organ knew.
Besides the cars (more specific, American cars from the 50’s till 80’s) i love travelling, and these days that is where most of my money goes. No more expensive cars here, but lots of vacation…..
Oh, and classic toys, roughly from 1940 tp 1970, specializing in modeltrains.
Thank you for asking!
Schwinn “lightweight”bicycles (and the restoration of same) and a few modern IGH city bikes.
The “lightweights” were one of three general groups of Schwinns from the ’50s through ’80s. They were very high quality and mostly used Sturmey-Archer three speed internally geared hubs. I am attaching a photo of one – my 1957 Schwinn Racer.
Modern city bikes, set up like the old Schwinns in a “roadster” style are what I prefer to ride. Brakes are much better and Shimano IGHs provide seven or eight speeds. I ride in the mornings and generally do about 14 all city miles.
The first bike that was truly mine, not a hand-me-down from my sister, was a brand new red Schwinn Racer, Sturmey Archer 3 speed, that I got for Christmas in 1964. I hated that bike! I so wanted a new Stingray, or even a normal “paperboy” bike. Kids didn’t ride 3 speeds where I lived and everyone made fun of my bike. Plus, when you abuse a bike like most 8 year old kids, the little chain that actuated the internal hub shifting on the Sturmey Archer would get ground down on the asphalt and stop shifting well. Last year I worked in a bike shop briefly and had to adjust the shifter chain on a Brompton. It hasn’t changed in 50+ years. I rode the Racer, rarely, until I was 12, when I had saved enough paper route money to buy a Schwinn Varsity. Ten speeds, and no shifter chain, I rode it everywhere for over 10 years. I’ve been a bike enthusiast since, though the Varsity was stolen in in 1980 or ‘81, at the same apartment complex where the wheel trim rings got stolen off my Vega GT (and the Kerker 4-1 exhaust off my Honda CB400-4).
dman – I can tell your a rider. I graduated from three speeds to five and ten speeds (Collegiate and Varsity) and then to French/Italian and then to Japanese. Derailleurs – hated them on all bikes. I’ve been back to IGH bikes for ten or so years and I never want another derailleur in my garage.
And here is a photo of my newer (2014) Brooklyn Driggs. It is my favored summer rider.
Beautiful bikes, especially the Brooklyn.
Great question and responses!
Like many here, I am also a musician. I’ve played drums since middle school and actually have a regular gig, if you want to call it that. I play most weeks in the worship band at my church. I also listen to a lot of music, mostly in the pop/rock genre, 60’s to present. I played in jazz bands in high school and college, so I can appreciate jazz music, but I don’t listen to it routinely. I used to go to a lot of live concerts, but now I mostly watch concert DVD’s.
Also like many here, I enjoy reading and watching documentaries on history, with WWII being a perennial favorite topic. I enjoy Naval histories the most.
Beyond that, I build plastic 1:25 scale model cars. I ski when I get the chance every few years (living in Texas is not good for skiing!). I enjoy sailing, but haven’t done it regularly in years. I am a bit of a political junkie, constantly consuming news and opinion be it written, radio or TV.
I would consider myself a fire apparatus/ambulance buff, which is actually pretty unusual for professionals in the fire and EMS field.
Since my 4 year old daughter came along, I don’t have nearly as much time for hobbies. It’s unfortunate, but she is worth it! Of course marriage, home and car maintenance and work also constantly crowd out my rightful hobby time.
Mid-century modern architecture, furniture and decor – and the colour orange. Here’s a picture which illustrates the big three.
I also enjoy independent film – unfortunately Canada is not the best country for that.
Also like hiking, urban exploration, cats as pets.
I like all those things, including orange doors. I’ve painted several of them on my rentals that color. And you should see our exterior doors; a very hot fuchsia.
I was just thinking I like all those things too – except orange anything! Too much orange in ’70’s schooling, I think.
As for film, I haven’t watched a mainstream film in years. Melbourne, Aus, has a small number of independent cinemas, with the caveat the small films are not on for long, but at least they do show.
And cats amuse me for for all the reasons they annoy most others. The old coffee mug line; on one side “A cat knows just how you feel” and on the other “It doesn’t give a shit, but it knows.”
I collect license plates, a hobby for me since I was about 8 years old.
Another hobby (if you can call it that) is that I’m trying to eventually visit every county in the United States. There’s 3,142 of them, and right now I’ve visited only 1,148. To visit a lot of counties of course takes free time, which I don’t have much of these days. Most years, I can only visit about 15-20 new counties, which means that I’ll complete my quest in about 100 years. Well, one can always dream…
On a daily basis, I’m an avid reader of history books.
Bar trivia games. I usually play on two or three weekly teams.
My “other thing”? Hard to say. My interests are varied, as I assume most other folks’ are, too. My first love was cars, followed by architecture. I’m sure I know more about cars than most people, enough that it’s hard to find people to talk with about it; but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from CC and reading the posts here, is that I don’t know squat. The level of inane knowledge possessed by some here is staggering. I find my myself bored by minute details, so architecture has lost some of it’s appeal over the years, but I still appreciate general design, in both buildings and cars, though my lack of interest in details leads me to be ignorant of just why some designs appeal to me, and some don’t. The devil is in the details, they say. It would appear that my interests are wide, but not too deep. It could be said my limited knowledge on many subjects means I know enough to be dangerous.
Wow. I don’t really have a focused “thing”, much less an “other thing”. I need to get a life…
Besides the Auto Drawing Project which I think I’ve mentioned before, my biggest time-wasters are Star Wars and collecting 1/64 die-cast farm toys and ’90s-’00s Lego. My display case is getting rather full, and that’s not even including my other colors.
Wow, that’s impressive! Time for some new display cases.
Just like anything else, you start getting them as a kid, just a few to have the same as what’s outside in the machine shed, and then the next thing you know you have literally hundreds of pieces.
My two main interests besides old cars are listening to music & reading. My musical tastes are mainly pop/rock, but I do dabble in classical, jazz & country as my mood strikes me. My favorite group are the Kinks. Another fave rave artist is Martin Newell who has had careers in poetry (he’s England’s most published poet) & gardening besides being a musician (he hates cars though). As for reading, it’s mostly history (I’m a History major & have a part time gig as a reference librarian), although I’m a big fan of P.G. Wodehouse & my favorite book is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O’Toole.
Hehe! Well, you had me at Telecaster. I actually do quite a lot. I am a professional rock/folk musician, also a guitar collector, and music engineer; I write short stories and poetry, cultural critique for Huffington Post and the Advocate, I moonlight as a book editor, and am currently producing a version of Jesus Christ Superstar to be presented this summer in San Francisco at the National Queer Arts Festival. You can find some vids at http://www.youtube.com/myabyrnemusic and my recorded stuff at http://www.myabyrne.bandcamp.com. I also play bass for The Homobiles, a queercore feminist punk band fronted by Lynn Breedlove of Tribe 8. We sing politically charged songs about cars and babes, crimes and change. https://open.spotify.com/album/6q2JUskbQiDxWnBqIR7hIU?fo=1
For pure hobby stuff, it used to be model trains. I mostly just garden and obsess over making sourdough bread.
Hey, you have a great voice, I especially liked the “I Don’t Need You Anymore” performance! Good background music as well on that and “Leave On The Next Wind”.
Thank you, Jim!! I am lucky to work with some of the best musicians anyone could ask for.
I’ve always been a cyclist – I have a couple CC articles a few years back that detail that. Brazed lugged steel please! ( I am a retrogrouch!) And cameras/photography to a lesser extent.
But my major hobby (?) for the last 15 years (yikes!), (and also for 10 years as a kid), is Scouts. Hiking, camping, and especially trying to help out the boys who need it. They’re almost always more competent than any adult gives them credit for.
One challenge is letting *them* do things and not interfering. So I needed something to distract myself while they’re trying things their own way … woodcarving. Birds, spoons, cats, goats, chains, you name it. And it turns out knives are a lot of fun to collect too – there are some really beautiful classic Scandanavian knives that are remarkably affordable.
Oh, and trains too, or at least when I see them in my travels. Luckily the Interstates often follow railroads.
“Foamers” (what rail employees call train watchers (because they foam at the mouth when they see a train) are often far more passionate than the most car obsessed CCer. Plus trains are so mechanical and form-follows-function. So am a little surprised not to see more closet Foamers among the CCers!
I’ve really enjoyed reading about your things. For me, there’s two.
The first is building scale model cars – yes, those 1/25 plastic kits we remember. I’ve been doing these for some fifty-odd years, so have – well, let’s say many, many hundreds. I’d rather build than count. It’s my artistic outlet.
No, I’m not one of these people with a shelf of trophies. I don’t show them; I build purely for the enjoyment of the creative experience. As a person with Asperger’s Syndrome I tend to avoid crowds – one year I did enter in the Melbourne Model Expo, and it took me several weeks to get over the intense experience of the crowds. I’m not a rivet-counter; I will modify body contours to make things more accurate, but I don’t go adding a lot of wires and cables. I want to create beauty.
My other ‘thing’ is writing. I’m a member of the local writing group (Golden Pens-Write Side Up) which meets fortnightly. We’ve self-published several compilations of our work through Lulu, and I’ve almost finished a novel – sort of urban-fantasy, but in a rural setting. As a writer, of course I real a lot, primarily, sci-fi, fantasy, and historical books.
Model building was also a serious hobby for me (several hundred) until I was in college. When my boys were older, I’d buy three kits and we’d build them together over my Christmas break. I was into super-detailing when I was in high school – one of those guys that added all the spark plug wires, etc.
I re-discovered my enthusiasm for modelling when the chronic fatigue hit. My wife was glad that it gave me something to do, to ‘pull me out of myself’.
Dang, I wish I could play a guitar. Tried many years ago in my youth but could not get my fingers around the neck. I have, however named my son Hendrix in honour of that legendary musician. Oddly enough, I discovered my old biography of Jimi and discovered that his father’s was James Allan Hendrix; my son’s full name is Hendrix James Allan, so that’s an amazing and happy coincidence!
I’ve been a professional photographer for nearly forty years but the digital age has rather put me out to graze in the past few years, so I’m effectively retired now and spend my time helping lady friends with their household repairs; have tools will travel!
I guess my only hobby now would be my massive collection of sealed vinyl records that litter my little house; nearly a metric ton of vinyl that I sell on a few sites on the internet. There’s plenty of spare copies in the collection so I’ve been ‘stealing’ from my own stock and adding it to my personal collection. Have developed a love of 60s and 70s jazz from working my way through an ‘Inner City’ catalogue; that and practically every over genre is in the collection; from heavy metal to disco. My mantra now is “all music is good music”.
Use to be I’d spend way too much time working on my 1981 Landrover Lightweight 1/2 ton. It required constant attention to keep it running but I now have a mercedes W124; twenty four years old and just keeps running in-spite of my neglect and abuse.
Kids all grown up and have left home. I’m on my own but with the internet and music, I don’t feel too lonely.
Attached is a poster I made for a classic car fair I attended a few years ago. It was a financial disaster and I despaired the casual way visitors pawed through the collection, creasing the otherwise mint sleeves…never again!
You should write some of these up as a CC Vinyl series
Nice idea Don. I could run an ‘identity that car’ quiz on this poster alone. Judging from my last post, I need to check my spellink more carefully!
Hope you do delboy. I’m always digging through crates and you’ve got quite a few there I’ve never seen.
Besides cars (some of you have experienced my ’65 Chrysler) my big things are trains, both real and models and photography.
The photography, both still and video tends to involve the cars & trains, but I do have quite a collection of vintage cameras, mostly made by Argus which was a mid century company in Michigan.
Sex, drugs and RocknRoll. Well, not illegal drugs anyway. These days the sex bit is just about kaput as well. Sigh. But, RocknRoll will never die. My beat up old guitars get a workout from time to time.
Some great posts here, and a good bit of commonality. I am a jack of all trades, master of none when it comes to hobbies. For recreational hobbies, I enjoy cross country skiing, mountain biking, kayaking, and collecting license plates. For more “productive” activities, I dabble in carpentry and house and car repair projects. Many years of piano lessons taught me that I have zero musical talent.
Wow, this is great stuff. Some really diverse interests here along with some common ones too.
I forgot to list my current interests in my previous near-egotistical post. In my retirement, I like to read, take walks, get on the Web, play my keyboards for my own pleasure, and listen to music – my favorite genres are prog, classic rock, psychedelia, and late-70s/80s synth stuff.
I have a few strong hobbies. The chief one is likely photography. In fact I am not so much a car enthusiast as I am a photographer who loves to snap cars. Beyond that certainly computers and radio. I have been a radio fan since high school in the 1980’s and once held the Russian Woodpecker captive at my house until he flew away (about 1989).
Late to the party here. I have these hobbies:
1. Collecting vintage film cameras. I’ve done it since I was 8.
2. Photography. Which has been a hobby only since I was about 40.
3. Blogging. And you can learn more about all three hobbies at my blog at https://blog.jimgrey.net.
I still keep meaning to drop by your blog and ask about your Cannon QL17 Rangefinder, Jim… I even have your page bookmarked. But you posted that years ago, and would likely not even see my reply if I did pop in. I still have 2 of those cameras. I took some awesome shots back in the day with mine, but have no idea how I ended up with a second one. Great little camera that was for sure.
My skillset spills over into my hobbies. I love to create images. Oftentimes, they are of cars.
I also am omnivorous toward vintage video, both fictionalized and documentary. The Rank Organization films of the 50s and 60s are recent favorites.
Although I love cars, my passion is now scuba diving. The world under the water is amazing. There are colours you’ll never see on land, and a whole ocean of interesting animals and plants to view.
My love of diving has grown over the years and it has helped me stay fit. In order to do exciting dives, one needs a decent level of physical and mental fitness. For that reason., I train in the gym four or five times a week. In addition, my wife and I walk at least 10 km a day.
Being fit is also a hobby of sorts I suppose. What I am finding at age 53 is many of my friends are slowing down and gaining weight, while I am still going strong. Being fit means I don’t have to take any pills of any sort to stay alive.
Living in British Columbia gives us the ability to do a myriad of outdoor activities. Summers are spent hiking in the local mountains, and we always try to make trip to the Rocky Mountains every season.
I don’t consider myself a “car guy”, although I’m fascinated by old cars and daily drive a 1993 Corolla wagon. Blue of course.
My main thing is music. I worked as a mechanical engineer and computer systems specialist, then left that 20 years ago to do music stuff full time. I work part-time as an audio engineer and play in a half dozen bands. Guitar is my main instrument along with bass, keyboards, harmonica, banjo, and computer generated music. The photos at the head of the article drew me right in, as I own 19 guitars and lots of stomp boxes, synthesizers, and other musical electronic devices. Pride of place would be my 1968 Telecaster. I play electronic space music, folk-rock, psychedelic jamming rock, and acoustic folk.
I collect recorded music, especially live recordings. My favorite music is Grateful Dead. I saw them many times and accumulated a huge collection of concert recordings back when you had to make a connection with another collector and trade cassettes. But my live recording collection extends to all genres in which I have an interest.
Other passions include science fiction, cooking, and old English bicycles.
Needless to say, there are a lot of fascinating people around here. Outside of my automotive interests, I also enjoy coin collecting (particularly of my home country of Canada). I am pretty huge into jazz and all that it encompasses, as well as seriously enjoying European travel (I have a real fondness/soft spot for Scotland). When I was very young I was also bitten pretty hard by the trains and railways bug; it has never diminished over time.
As Stogie says, there are indeed a lot of fascinating people on CC. My chief interest in life is cars, but right alongside it is music – listening to it and playing it. I started learning piano when I was 6, still thoroughly enjoy it a few decades later.
The best song in the world ever to play on the piano is Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water. Accoustically and finger-movement-wise it’s just brilliant.
Elvis (in his fatter years) is my favourite individual vocalist. Queen is my favourite band (just saw them and Adam Lambert here in NZ, great, great show), closely followed by Abba, with The Mamas And The Papas in the mix too.
Outside of music, other key ‘other things’ include geo-caching, architecture (especially deco and mid-century), history and European travel. But nothing holds a candle to cars!
Like you Doug, I’ve always enjoyed music, and learned a little piano at a young age. Then at about 26 years old, I decided to give acoustic guitar a try and still enjoy it, although I don’t play as often as I’d like. To answer your question as to whether you’re a Martin or Taylor guy, I’m more of a Martin guy myself, having had my grandfather’s D-28 restored after it sat in my parents attic for many years. But I have more Yamaha guitars than anything. Ironically the only motorcycle I ever owned was a Honda, but I digress….
Other hobbies include Homebrewing (I even brewed professionally at a brewpub for a brief time), amateur astronomy, swing dancing, snow skiing, photography, heck, I used to competitively roller skate…. like Paul said above, “jack of all trades, master of none”… and of course, I am quite skilled at keeping my cars clean and shiny….
Besides tinkering on cars and my classic motorcycle (1978 BMW R100S), I mountain bike a lot, plus the occasional road ride and I briefly raced short track MTB and Cyclocross, badly. Other than that I’ve been an amateur photographer since high school, and still have and occasionally use the Nikon FM I got in high school.
My college major was history and I still read a lot of history and visit historic sites. My major interest is military history with a sideline in history of technology. My favorite technology history is still “A Revolution in Time” by David Landes.
I also do a lot of hiking and some occasional Nordic skiing and kayaking.
Aviation is #1, even behind cars and trucks. It is not just that I worked for aerospace companies. In retirement I am involved in aviation youth programs, such as Experimental Aviation Associaton’s Young Eagles, librarian for the Flight Path Learning Center at LAX, Torrance Airport Association and others.
There is a Corvair-powered homebuilt aircraft that I am building. Planes and automobiles combined.
I love listening to music, but have absolutely no aptitude for writing or performing. Instead, the house is full of early 1970’s audio equipment, the peak of analog electronics, KLH speakers, AR and Pioneer turntables, Kenwood amplifier, Marantz and Pioneer receivers, Nakamichi tape deck, etc.
I’m a huge fan of ’70s audio gear too which I consider a high point in audio-related industrial design. How could the same era that produced the Mustang II and polyester leisure suits give us all those awesome-looking receivers and tape decks? I own a Marantz 2245 that my dad bought new (below; pics grabbed online but same as what I have) which sounds better than everything I tried to replace it with, and of course looks way cooler. Also, amazing FM reception. Several sets of speakers – JBL L100 (the classic speakers shown in the Maxell blown-away adverts), Bose 301 Series II (back when Bose made serious speakers, not overpriced “lifestyle” systems), and two pairs of Electrohome speakers that look more like lamps than speakers and throw the sound 360 degrees. I have two BIC cassette decks, a T-2M and T-4M. The former couldn’t look and feel any more classy, and the latter I just find hilarious because *nobody* would expend that kind of effort on a cassette deck from about 1984 onward. But these are from the late ’70s and early ’80s just before CDs took over and cassettes were crucial.
My turntable is an unspectacular Pioneer quartz direct drive, but I have an awesome Shure V15VxMR cartridge that cost more than the turntable and sounds the part. But I have a sad story to relate about the stylus: I had to pack the turntable (and many other items) into storage for a few years, and to protect the expensive needle I lowed the built-in guard, secured the tonearm, and as a last precaution I taped the tonearm in place so it couldn’t move. Then I put the turntable in a box and stored it away. When I moved into my previous home I retrieved the turntable, opened the box, and discovered that ALL THREE of the precautions I took failed – the tape lost its stickiness, the tonearm worked its way out of the clip, and the stylus guard retracted. And that let the tonearm slide back and forth against the rubber record mat and broke the needle. And replacement needles are no longer made. There’s a third party company that makes replacements of a different design that get mixed reviews on audiophile sites; I might try it. Or I could just try a new cartridge but I really liked the V15’s musicality, not to mention that little damped brush that hoovers up all the dust and makes my records seemingly last forever.
BIC T-2M cassette deck: (love the classic analog VU meters and the high-quality damping of every toggle switch, knob, and piano-key transport controls…. photos don’t do it justice)
…and BIC T-4M cassette deck:
I dig those cassette decks; I have some 500 cassettes in my analog tape stash. Or more. I’m afraid to count how many there are but they don’t take up a lot of space so it’s no bother.
I have 4 Marantz Model Twenty Six receivers scattered all about the house and my office. I got them back when they were plentiful and CHEAP on Ebay. My Dad got one in the early 70’s that still rolls right along.
Wow!! so many interesting hobbies here. I am 56 and getting over the (it’s over feeling that i’m sure some others have felt at 50) I collect danbury and franklin mint 1/24 scale cars. i’m also a techie(and treckie,first series Kirk is best!!!)I like flagship phones iphone and Samsung mostly i feel Apple put a cap on that hobby as i have the Iphone x and have found that it is not worth $1000+. i also have been inot comic books since 1975. have collected an expensive set of omnibus editions of both Marvel and DC. i have interest in game consoles own a ps3 and 360 also ps4 pro and my favorite Xbox one x(far superior to ps4) i am a casual gamer with games like the Mafia series and Hitman as favorites. i also am a huge Godzilla fan since i was a little kid and collect figures. i also like reading mostly anything about my Lord and King Jesus and i like to read and find info on what our corrupt goverment and it’s agencies are up to . I mostly stick to myself and family. Wake up our freedom is being taken away from us piece by piece. I also study psychology and read up on most things that interest me…like cars.
I have been trying to learn how to play guitar since I was 12… I am 50 now and I still don’t get it right.
Motorcycle is definitely my other thing but living in a town where winter can last 8 months makes me think a bike here may not be very practical.
Perhaps starting my life from the scratch in 3 different countries since 1999 took the time and money I should be spending in a hobby.
Photography is my other big passion (outside of cars). And primarily, I love to bring both my passions together in photographing cars. You’ve seen some of my work in my COAL articles. You can actually see how I’ve improved over time as my COAL articles progress. Here some more that I’ve shot…. because I also love showing off. If you want to follow, i’m on Instagram.com/michaelbrianstudios
My husbands E350 Bluetec
A friend’s modified E60 550.
Maserati Ghibli I got to shoot.
Away from cars, old and new, and the industry around them, I’d identify old planes, especially turboprop and early jet passenger aircraft, some old trains (British ones really, steam and diesel), and the music of Mike Oldfield, Edward Elgar and J S Bach. I’d love to be able to play the organ (or any instrument) but that’s never going to happen.
Quite a bit of time is spent as Chair of our local Classic Car Club and as a visitor guide and interpreter at Nuffield Place, home of Lord Nuffield, William Morris.
Also cooking, proper (warm) British beer, cleaning Alfa Romeos, avoiding football and not gardening.
I play guitar and own a few, including an Epiphone Joe Pass II, but my main focus, the thing that helps me focus on what’s real is theology. My current study is “The Temple, Its Ministry and Services as they were at the time of Christ” (1874) by Alfred Edersheim.
Cool, my X+1 guitar target is an Epiphone Emperor Regent, basically the same thing with a single floating pickup instead of the dual humbuckers.
It’s not easy to find one…
I’m late to the party, but I perform improv, voiceovers, and do a little acting.
Slightly late here but I’ll chip in. Great to see so many different hobbies that combine with an interest in cars!
Besides spending a ton of my time on the internet – privately as well as professionally – I greatly enjoy hiking, architecture, reading on recent history, and drawing, mostly (Euro) comic-style. No guesses to one my favourite drawing subjects!
My latest obsession might just be this post. I’m intrigued and awed by the range of interests and talents here. This has made me miss hanging here at CC on a daily basis all the more. My move late last year to a new metro area and a very demanding job have kept me away, but I’m SO glad I tuned in to catch this particular exchange.
It’s inspiring to read of all of the interests and hobbies that other busy people manage to stay active in and keep a passion for. It has truly spurred me into action, and I’m looking forward to rekindling some old interests and passions and indulging in some new ones.
I’ve long been a bit of a foodie, and love to cook. I do keep this interest alive, as well…we all have to eat, but I must admit that I’ve recently turned to the rather pedestrian as I find myself cooking mostly for just myself. I’ve also had a long term interest in design and architecture, specifically mid century stuff. I’m far better at playing the radio than I’ve ever been at playing any other instrument, but I do maintain an interest in audio equipment and have long wanted to acquire some of the items that la673 highlights in his post above. Writing has also bee a lifelong passion, but once again I’ve often had the best of intentions only to get sidetracked as “Life gets in the way”.
The reality for me lately is that I find myself single at 50, having just put a rather turbulent relationship with an on-again-off-again addict on ice. In addition to that I’ve spent the past 25 years raising (first actively and then as a distant financial participant) 3 children, which clipped my financial wings a bit, and somehow along the way I seem to have lost the fire to keep an active hand in any of the things that inspire me or intrigue me. So having only read through about 1/3 of the posts above, I intend to read through all of them. It’s certainly time to re-ignite the spark of creativity and wonder in myself and get back to focusing some of my time on the things that bring me joy. So thanks guys (and ladies). I think I needed that. And what an interesting bunch of people you all turned out to be. To think I stumbled upon all of this after following a link to a story about a 1980-something Plymouth Sapporo back in 2014.
My name here is somewhat autobiographical… I graduated in 1985 and I’m totally into music. Yes Ozzy and metal, but other stuff as well. ’70’s pop, country, etc. I play bass guitar and have a Fender Jazz and a Dean acoustic. I have a Dean Vendetta 6-string guitar and a cheap keyboard also.
I have been through the Second Coming of the muscle car and drove several cheap beater versions of these.
I currently detail cars at a dealership which handles Porsche, Audis, and Volkswagens. I have been in the auto biz in various capacities for 30+ years, including autobody, working in a wrecking yard and project cars.
I live near Mt. Baker (near Bellingham, WA) out in the woods where I enjoy barbecueing, drinking beer, and in general being a pest to my wife. Bought a place here last year that needs some help. I’ll be busy. That’s good.
My DD is a ’93 Ranger Sport. Wouldn’t mind finding a Bronco or a ’67-79 F-Series.
Reading, reading, reading. Cars, history and philosophy (and politics). Quite a boring guy in terms of arts, crafts and any kind of manual work. I can’t handle any kind of tool without braking something. I can’t appreciate most art. But I DO love country music….