I'm wondering what you guys do as far as hobbies of the non-sporting variety. I know Lucrum is building a custom aircraft of his own design. I would like to learn more about it. Some of you guys collect stuff. I find that interesting as well. Gun collections are interesting. Guy who do woodwork and make furniture etc are fascinating. Some play an instrument, some play several instruments. Identify yourselves. Some guys like to lay bricks. Some like to garden. I've got a friend with a huge greenhouse full of orchids and bromeliads. How do you gents spend those trading profits aside from yachts, homes and cars etc? A litte humanity wouldn't hurt us here in P&R would it? Wisecracks about my hobby are allowed but please try to respect any hobbies described by other members in this thread. Pictures are welcome and encouraged. I'll go first. I've got a wetshaving hobby. I collect straight razors, doubled-edged safety razors, injector razors, badger shave brushes, boar shave brushes, shave scuttles and bowls, aftershaves, splashes, balms, colognes, ouds, attars, shaving soaps, shaving creams (not the grocery store stuff in a can), leather strops, pasted strops, wetstones, hones, files and thousands of vintage safety razor blades. Some of my straights are over 200 years old and some of my safety razors go back to 1918 (WWI). My shave den has an antique barbers chair and lots of apothecary jars, bottles, old barbers signs and antique cabinetry to store/display the stuff. I got into it when they started adding more and more blades into modern razors, when they reached 4 blades I stopped buying them and learned the old ways. They're up to 5-blade cartridges now and it reminds me of a cheese grater. A recent acquisition is this Robert Williams custom straight I had made, hand forged with hippo ivory scales and some fancy filework on the spine: Please contribute. You guys are interesting and I'm genuinely curious about what you do on a rainy day in your home or shop etc. Thanks.
I have a small collection of gold pocket watches from about 1850 to the early 1900's. I haven't added any in years because I don't see the value in them at the prices today. When I was little my dad worked in a factory and didn't wear a wrist watch because he was always working on the machinery. But, he always had his pocket watch though. I thought pocket watches were really neat and still find them fascinating.
That is seriously cool. In the movie "The Quick and the Dead" there is a scene where 4 or 5 people are shown looking at their pocket watches and setting them to the town clock. They were some real beauties and judging from the authentic guns depicted in that movie I would imagine those watches where the real thing too.
They always had their pocket watches in the westerns. And they always were the hunter case type so they could snap open the front to see the time. Pocket watches were neat mechanisms for the era. They always had the barber with the straight razor, too. You always wondered if he was going to slit the throat of the guy in the chair with it.
You excluded me right off the bat!!! I knew conservatives were prejudice.... j/k I dont collect anything because i have lived in about 20 different places in the past 7 years....as far as im concerned, when i move, if i didnt open a box that is in storage from my last move, i just throw it in the garbage, because it is unnecessary, so i end up with zero "collectibles" going from house to house..... I used to be a scratch golfer as a kid, because i spent every waking moment in the spring/summer/fall on the course, but eventually you just run out of time, once you have to work, I also played hockey in the winter in some pretty good competitive leagues...... Recently i made the decision that I have to give up hockey, in order to live in warmth year round, because i dont want to live in Canada during the winter (when it is -40degrees celcius), and there is no such thing as competitive hockey for adults in Arizona.... My goal now is to get back to scratch golf, living in Canada for 4-5 months in the summer and Phoenix for 7-8 months in the winter....so i can golf year round..... I have to spend enough time in the states to end up Paying U.S. taxes under the U.S./Canadian Tax treaty, so the whole thing is a juggling act, but im pretty comfortable just going golfing for 18 holes every day when the market closes.... Works out good cause the markets operate on Eastern time so i can be on the course for 18 holes by 2-3 P.M, and done by 6 PM every single day depending on daylight savings time.....
Canada in the summer, Arizona in the winter. *Perfection* I ski, sail, surf, snorkel, cycle and play tennis and racquetball. I throw a pretty mean frisbee and a bunch of us used to play 27 holes a day of frisbee golf at the course down in the arroyo next to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I know what you mean about the boxes. If you haven't opened a box in 10 years you don't need what is inside. I broke my left wrist playing frisbee down at Kennedy Space Center and they removed my carpal nevicular and so I haven't been able to play golf since around 1984. They tried to graft bone from my hip in there but it didn't work.
Im surprised to hear that you Ski, given where you are from, i used to snowboard all the time, been to lake louise, sunshine, panorama, and fernie,(Ricter will know all these places) I love cruising down the mountain on a nice day, thats the definition of freedom.... I had to give up snowboarding and switch to skiing because my left knee is screwed from hockey, and snowboarding puts to much torque on my knee when I am carving...... Its funny when i go skiiing now i look at some of the jumps and stupid shit i used to do as an amateur snowboarder who knew nothing about what i was doing, and all i can do is shake my head and laugh at the fact that i simply didnt give a f*** about the inevitable result of landing on my head back then, and Im still a young guy and only 5 years older than the times when i thought that was a good idea...... I want to get into scuba diving, i tried it out in an olympic pool, a couple years ago in a class and was surprised that i could actually go deep under water, and that my ear drums didnt explode..... I always had problems with my ears and water as a kid, so i just assumed i would never be able to dive to any kind of depth, but if you plug your nose, and pop your eardrums like they tell you, you can keep going deeper and deeper with no real problems..... ?I want to go scuba diving super bad....
Get certified and go diving in and around the Caribbean... don't waste your time in murky waters. Have done deep shipwreck, cave and coral reef dives in Barbados, the Virgin Islands, Aruba and the Bahamas and it's unbelievably gorgeous. But never dive alone and always carry a Spare Air (mini ~ 2lb tank)... that might sound paranoid but trust me, it's easy to drown even if you know what you're doing. Long story.
Thx man, appreciate the advice! There has always been something about the idea of "deep sea diving" that has almost made me feel claustrophobic, almost as if you are trapped at the bottom of the sea, so i most certainly would never attempt to dive by myself.....
Things I do apart from work - Martial arts (Aiki-Jujitsu) 4 nights a week, I game (love playing Battlefield 3 - my brother got me addicted) and my four year old takes up the rest of my personal time.