Oh yeah? Well, you should see my hairbrush collection...

That's totally photoshopped. I can tell by the pixels.

It's somewhat interesting to think that, at any given moment, there are a few humans that are not living on Earth.

Now that we have INTERNETS IN SPAAAACE the damn astronauts can post shit on their Flickr and Twitter accounts from up there. One of my favorite recent pics, from Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli's Flickr. Note:

• "Speed Limit 17500" sign
• Reese's cups and Craisins...IN SPAAACE
• Bags of crap everywhere. I was talking to some guys from United Space Alliance a few months ago and they said that figuring out where all the shit is stowed on ISS is a problem they didn't fully anticipate. They know there are a few experiment packages that were sent up there in those bags, but they don't know which bag, or where the bag is. And astronauts occasionally move stuff around, which makes the problem worse.
• And my favorite: bottle of Sriracha sauce stuck on the ceiling.

 

Fishing, hunting, computers, break dancing, survivalism (see the other thread), drag racing, motorcycles, cooking meals from scratch, DJing, reading, art, history, opera, learning foreign languages (currently learning Arabic and Russian), salsa and merengue dancing, gardening, swimming, seduction, creating digital art, piano, music theory, hockey, virology, military tactics, psychology, and human behavior among other things.

I've made a giant fucking list of stuff I'm interested in and in a situation where I perpetually find new interests, now what?

 

Fishing, hunting - I enjoy the quiet solitude of being on the lake or out in the field with absolutely nothing to bother me. This is the type of thing that requires just as much skill as it does sometimes as luck. A lot of people think these sports of for uneducated rednecks. Fuck that. As gay as it sounds, you've never experienced beauty until you've seen the summer sun come up. Maybe it's just me but I enjoy catching my own fresh food and appreciating the fact things that were formerly living gave their life to sustain me.

Everyones and their grandmother thinks they got these guys figured out and try to make a buck off of this. I say this with absolutely no ego whatsoever, but I've been fucking with this these since I was 9 years old on a 486 on Windows 3.1 (way less time than you Netgeezer) I've always loved solving problems and trying to figure out why things work the way they do. I love helping people as well, so this definitely comes in handy as well.

You ever seen people dance awesomely? This needs no introduction or explanation.

One of my earliest memories is of when my now 15 year old brother was very young and was drowning in an frozen over pool and being choked by a garden hose several years ago. Again, I say this with no ego whatsoever, but I dove in and tried to rescue him because I had a geniuine desire to want to save him. Despite him suffering from hypothermia he lived. Another is from me seeing a man get blasted in the chest at age 11 with a 12 gauge and not being able to do anything about it. Another is from my father being a former drug dealer and people coming to my house at 3am and threatening to kill my entire family because of stupid shit. In all of those situation I felt completlely helpless and did not want to ever feel like that again.

There is such an endorphine and testosterone rush from doing this activities that there is absolutely no comparison. Going almost 200mph in the span of a few seconds is enough to not have ANY comparison.

This has always been a thing of mine since I was a child. I took care of my brother and sister growing up so I always prided myself in being able to cook decently for them. I love food and this lets me bring out my creative side because I can throw a bunch of crap together from the cabinet and come out with a masterpiece.

This one is difficult to describe if you've never actually done it yourself. Many people will say that anyone can do it, but fuck that. When you can successfully blend, salsa, merengue, cumbia, country, hiphop, and then some bachata, that's when you're into some serious shit. It's amazing watching 300 people on the dancefloor moving through a journey you've created and designed.

These three are probably the most influential to me. It is ironic that I don't have much to say about them. It is through reading, art, emotion and history that I have come to understand the world around me and the people in it.

I don't understand a good portion of the opera that I listen to, but I feel it is about several fundamental things that are part of being a human, LOVE, PASSION, and WAR.

At the risk of offending the typical Americans with their ethnocentrism, this helps me understand other people and their point of views. It helps me to understand music and culture from other parts of the world.

This is going to make me sound like some huge flaming emotional homosexual, but I LOVE making a woman feel like a beautiful flower. I think there is nothing more sexy than this:

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It's interesting the amount of poisons you're subjected to everyday. Did you know that by eating ONE jar of store bought peanut butter you are 1 fold more likely to develop cancer in your lifetime? I don't know about you guys but I don't want to feed my son this type of shit. I love the taste of my own home grown crops. Still not convinced? How about being able to save several hundred dollars a month on groceries? I'm going to be doing my graduate thesis on sustainable farming later in the future.

It gets you a sexy body and makes the ladies want you. Guys, want to stop being a lazy piece of shit and want to get laid? You can't be a Latin American by choice, but you can be like them. Take up some swimming and let it help your health.

I actually got into this through the whole Neil Strauss and the Game and Robert Greene and the Art of Seduction later on in life unknowingly I had been doing it throughout my entire life. This helps you understand people or lets you get things you want through artful means. It has helped in fincancial aspects, jobs, romantic life, and others.

This hasn't really helped me in any way, shape or form other than letting out stress.

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Want to let out some pent up frustation but don't want to beat people up? This is the outlet for you. You can take people through a roller coaster of feeling sad, joyful, and angry and everything in between through just a 4 minute song. Plus it gets you all the ladies.

This one I do for no other reason I'm a competitive bastard and it helps my hand eye coordination, I'm a guy and I piss testosterone.

These are all things that encompass humans. I have an innate desire to help people. People tell me I'm stupid for wanting to chance the world. You know what I say? Fuck those people and their small time dreams.

These things help you understand people and the way things work to the best of your ability.[/quote]

 

I think hobbies are completely necessary to keep one's sanity in check.

Photography has always been something that has interested in me but wasn't realistic until recently, with the purchase of my new camera. I've been experimenting with long exposures and night time stuff.

Those were both taken in the middle of the night. I've been having a lot of fun so far. Neither of those were photoshopped.

Cycling is another one of my hobbies. As you all might, remember, I am training for the ms150 which is in about 5 weeks. It is an incredible stress reliever and a wonderful way to see the beautiful surroundings where you live. If you are willing to put up the money(as will all hobbies, then tend to be expensive), getting a good road bike is a long-lasting investment.

I also like camping, and hiking and all the things that go along with that. (canoeing, kayaking, tubing, drinking) Outdoors things are some of the least expensive and most rewarding hobbies you can do.

 

I'm an arts and crafts dork. Well, you might think it's dorky, UNTIL YOU SEE THIS:



*Cabbage patch*

Uh, I don't really have anything profound to say about it. I just like to be creative.

 

FOCUS:I go in and out of hobbies all the time, most of the time, like long boarding, it's a fleeting thing and likely end up with me hurting myself really badly and then never wanting to try again (puuuuuusssssy).

That said, there have been a few things that have stuck around.

Right now, I've really kicked into the whole skiing idea. I've been an avid skier all of my life, my dad started teaching me how to ski when I was about seven or eight. He used to be a ski bum and worked as a skiing instructor for a couple of years in his youth, so, I guess I have skiing in my blood. I posted in the drunk thread last week that I went and did my AST1 course (Avalanche Safety Training 1), which culminated in two days (one in class, one in field), of avalanche safety awareness. This weekend, I will be headed to Rogers Pass, where I'll be partaking in a four day course (one day class, three on mountain), the AST2*. These courses open up the possibility of getting my professional level certificates and I could really see myself living as an avalanche blaster or ski guide.

I love the rocky mountains, if I could take my vacations to only one place in my life, it would be there. Something about how majestic they are, just blows my mind. I love sitting on top of a mountain, my helmet off, goggles off; feeling the bitter cold air blow against my face, listening to the wind howl across the snow; it puts me in an incredibly zen state. Even if it's just one day, all my worries, stress and issues seem to melt away, just closing my eyes and experiencing what the mountain has to offer me; all those stresses and issue become smaller and I feel absolutely refreshed after a visit. I know in my heart, I will one day live in a mountainous area, it seems to be what I need to do but for now skiing is one way I access my zen place. Without skiing, I don't really know how I could manage.

*I will be posting pictures of the trip when I get back next week from it.

 

Those are the words from someone who can't consistently catch big fish.

I want to catch big fish and lots of em. Solitude? If I want solitude, I'll lock myself in the shitter.











I'm waiting for Dewercs to posts some pics of his denizens of the deep.

 

Also interesting that the most powerful computers on the space station are likely cell phones (or someone's laptop). Tech develops so fast down here, but it's pretty impossible to swap computers out upstairs (and you don't want to risk crashing by trying a new system).

 

Focus
Music is my main hobby: I'm a DJ so I love playing vinyl (though I'm not a vinyl snob) and collecting vintage music art and shirts. I'm a performance-type guy, so I also do stand-up comedy as well but I'm still an amateur (most of my humour is reserved to writing that pretty much nobody ever sees).

The only other thing I actually collect is adding to a small collection of vintage Coca-Cola items. The best: a wooden crate from the 1930's with the coke still in the unopened engraved glass bottles.

 

I do not hunt and fish for the solitude, I do it because of what I personally get from it. Both pursuits test my patience, endurance, sometimes my feelings of self worth and my will to never quit. Fishing takes a lot of failure for momentary success, an example of that is that sometimes I will fish for 12 hours with hundreds and hundreds of precise casts and proper retrieval of the bait for a chance at one fish that I will take a pictue of an throw back in the water.


The saltwater version of that is 2 months of prep work on my gear, followed by a 6 hour drive to a boat, followed by a 3 day boat ride at 12 knots, to fish for 4 days in order to catch 2 fish, followed by a 3 day boat ride back and a drive back to my home and that was a success. The fish in this picture was caught on the last stop of the last fishing day with about an hour left to fish, after a one hour fight they gaffed the fish, I thought I won but as they brought it around the stern the fish went nuts and came off the gaff and I had to fight another 15 minutes, I had to suffer to beat this guy.


I do not always succeed, last year in New Mexico I hunted for 7 days straight and did not see one elk, but every morning at 3am I believed that today was the day and I would make the 1 hour hike in pitch black and freezing cold but that day was not the day. Not only did I not get a shot I did not see one single elk the whole time. I have gone over it a million times in my head what I could have done different but it does not matter I failed, yeah it was good to get out in the outdoors and all that but I did not do what I went there to do. Elk 1- me 0 The good thing is this is a new year and I will try again, I will be better this year and I will try harder but the reality is I may fail.

I fish and hunt because it challenges me, it makes me a better person and sometimes a worse person. The camaraderie that comes with it is cool, as is the sights you see but I am there to accomplish something and failure is always an option but quitting is not. The times I have failed are as memorable as the times I have not.

 

Really, the only "hobby" I have time for these days is cooking. It's something that's gotta be done, and I enjoy it so I take to the kitchen on the weekends and cook dinner bath Saturday and Sunday and try to make as many meals in advance for weeknights as I can or as my wife's work schedule requires, since I don't get home til after 9:00 most nights.

I did a fair amount of flyfishing and upland birdhunting when I lived in NH, but they both went by the wayside when we moved to TX. Started to play golf when we moved here, but after breaking my wrist, that ended that. Now, it's school, cooking and yardwork.

 

I am just getting into podcasting with a guy out in Ohio. Learning how to plan, execute, and edit a podcast is interesting to me and we did our first one last week. It's a little corny, but something about using sound editting software makes me feel like I'm in a high-tech TV show like Nikita with the squiggles and graphs and ability to cut and insert, etc. All this on top of the cool feeling of getting my words out there (or about to get my words out there).

 

I brew beer, I am about increase my sophistication and move from partial mashes (Where only 30-50% of the fermentable sugars are taken from fresh grain) to all grain brews, where you guessed it, you only use fresh grain for the whole brew. I'm hoping this will take my beer from merely "awesome" to "tits out awesome" I also grow my own hops, and use the fresh hop flowers in my brews.

Why is this a good hobby? I get to play scientist over bubbling pots while experimenting with different yeast strains, grains, hop varieties and methods, and in the end I get 20 litres of brew that is significantly better than microbrews that cost over $100 per carton/case.