Hobbies

[babyblues]

What are some of your hobbies?

This may seem strange, but one of my hobbies is making pens on my lathe. I make the barrels of the pens out of wood on my lathe. Here are a couple of pics of one of them. This one is called an Emperor Pen and is rhodium and gold plated. The wood is maple burl. Burls are those funky tumor looking things that grow on a tree.

[Gecko1980]

Pretty cool bro, how long does it take to make one?
As far as hobbies... I guess my kids and weights, my old hobbies got me in trouble :thumbsdow

[FitnessBrat]

Those are neat. I don't really have any neat hobbies. Family, gym, reading, music, motorcycles, driving, SM...

[babyblues]

Pretty cool bro, how long does it take to make one?
As far as hobbies... I guess my kids and weights, my old hobbies got me in trouble :thumbsdow

It only takes an hour or so. Sanding and putting a finish on the wood takes the longest. This hobby gets me in trouble too. :P "Why do you need to buy more tools?" Um...because I don't have it? My fear is that if I die, my wife will sell my tools for what I told her I paid for them. :D I may be broke, but I have some pretty cool pieces of wood. :D

[Scrumhalf]

I play piano, my wife plays violin and my older son is learning both.

[babyblues]

I play piano, my wife plays violin and my older son is learning both.

Nice. My sister is sending my nephew to violin lessons. There's a Suzuki school in Atlanta. Does your wife teach him?

[Scrumhalf]

No, I live in the Pacific Northwest and while reasonably competent, neither my wife nor I is good enough to teach. We play purely for enjoyment.

[hlcn8]

It only takes an hour or so. Sanding and putting a finish on the wood takes the longest. This hobby gets me in trouble too. :P "Why do you need to buy more tools?" Um...because I don't have it? My fear is that if I die, my wife will sell my tools for what I told her I paid for them. :D I may be broke, but I have some pretty cool pieces of wood. :D

I got into wood-working (sexual inuendos aside) a while ago. when i almost lost a thumb a while ago due to a cabinet-saw kick-back i realized i had to act almost like an electrician and make sure i wasn't doing anything to fuck myself up, no matter how small or large the project. I'd love to get a lathe and some other lazer guided precision machines, but the $$$ is too high.

I love car-audio, but with only one car I pretty much finished off what I was able to financially afford a while ago (i'm no rado in the $$$ department, not that i wish i wasn't). I made sure i did it the right way the first time though, and while i've blown out more subs than the best-buy plans care to admit, i've held steady with a well-balanced system with high-quality components over the last 2 years. i now avoid best-buy, but sleep well knowing i got my money's worth out of them. I still laugh at people whose rims are more expensive then their car.

lately i've gotten into rock-climbing. its amazing how little body-building does to help me improve in that regard. talking to most serious rock-climbers and mentioning body-building is almost a taboo. most of them are skinny fucks and have a higher strength to weight ratio than i'll ever have, and they have endurance to spare w/ their skinny ass body-weights. i'll always outdo them w/ the power-moves, but when you're sport climbing w/ 70 feet below you and trying to clip into the next point of protection (bolts/trad) i wish i had their endurance. They may be focused on the destination, but i'm focused on the journey. i've actually found more striation in my arms & shoulders from rock-climbing than i might've found alone in body-building. And while body-building is a long-term reward thing, beating a climb that has haunted you for only one month is sweet. it's an ambassador for further goals and gains.
I'm happy to state the obvious though, my time in the gym isn't always just a hobby but an obsession. in the words of dr. evil: "put that in your pipe and smoke it."

[Chadd77]

lately i've gotten into rock-climbing. its amazing how little body-building does to help me improve in that regard. talking to most serious rock-climbers and mentioning body-building is almost a taboo. most of them are skinny fucks and have a higher strength to weight ratio than i'll ever have, and they have endurance to spare w/ their skinny ass body-weights. i'll always outdo them w/ the power-moves, but when you're sport climbing w/ 70 feet below you and trying to clip into the next point of protection (bolts/trad) i wish i had their endurance. They may be focused on the destination, but i'm focused on the journey. i've actually found more striation in my arms & shoulders from rock-climbing than i might've found alone in body-building. And while body-building is a long-term reward thing, beating a climb that has haunted you for only one month is sweet. it's an ambassador for further goals and gains.

I was really into climbing a couple years back. I actually built a climbing wall in my barn. It is about 20 feet vertical and then it lays back for about another 15 feet. I bet I spent close to $1000 making it. It is pretty bad ass. I have all different kinds of holds on it. Obviously I have the larger holds on the part of the wall that lays back. I bought a self belay device which allows me to climb by myself at home. I went out the Red Rocks climbing and also to Seneca Rocks before. Both beautiful and challenging climbs. There is a local area that I can climb at too but it gets boring after you climbed the same routes 20 times. I haven’t gone in about a year and a half. Most of the guys I climbed with aren’t into it anymore. I hope that I am able to get back into the sport. It is a lot of fun. It’s an awesome feeling when you get to the top of an 800+ foot climb and you can see for miles around you.

[caged]

right now ,its pretty much my 5yearold son who loves to play every sport.its awsome! i play wiffle ball on the weekends and tournaments all summer with four man teams. its pretty unbeliveable with the kind of ball the nasty pitches we throw.tryin to get into some fishing to relax alittle too.

[hlcn8]

I was really into climbing a couple years back. I actually built a climbing wall in my barn. It is about 20 feet vertical and then it lays back for about another 15 feet. I bet I spent close to $1000 making it. It is pretty bad ass. I have all different kinds of holds on it. Obviously I have the larger holds on the part of the wall that lays back. I bought a self belay device which allows me to climb by myself at home. I went out the Red Rocks climbing and also to Seneca Rocks before. Both beautiful and challenging climbs. There is a local area that I can climb at too but it gets boring after you climbed the same routes 20 times. I haven’t gone in about a year and a half. Most of the guys I climbed with aren’t into it anymore. I hope that I am able to get back into the sport. It is a lot of fun. It’s an awesome feeling when you get to the top of an 800+ foot climb and you can see for miles around you.

man I'd love to build my own wall, i'm actually thinking of doing so at my parents house as it has a huge crawl space w/ 20' high sections.

Do you have any nearby indoor climbing gyms? Definitely not the same as outdoors but at least they change up the routes on a regular basis!

[Gecko1980]

maybe a dumb question but why call it a crawl space if it has 20' sections

[Chadd77]

man I'd love to build my own wall, i'm actually thinking of doing so at my parents house as it has a huge crawl space w/ 20' high sections.

Do you have any nearby indoor climbing gyms? Definitely not the same as outdoors but at least they change up the routes on a regular basis!

Yeah, there is an indoor gym that is about 45 minutes away. They also teach outdoor classes. This is where I received all my training.

[hlcn8]

maybe a dumb question but why call it a crawl space if it has 20' sections

it's not a dumb question, it's the same one i asked when we moved in as well. some areas you do have to crawl through, but there's one big ass section under the garage?

[babyblues]

Here are a couple more pictures of some pens I made a few weeks ago.

The first one is made from black dyed box elder burl (wood) and has black titanium accents. The second one is made from inlace acrylester (hard plastic) and has 22k gold accents.