Hobbies/Activities other than flying.

Photography, mostly landscapes and seascapes. I have an online gallery that helps pay for other “stuff.”
Playing guitar, not really good but I do own a couple. Bikes - a Honda Rebel small motorcycle plus a “regular” cruiser style and an e-bike. Travel - my wife and I enjoy road trips, even did two coast-to-coast journeys over the last two years (03 and 04). Stocks - starting to get interested in Day Trading. Nuff for now?
 
Knee deep in home repairs / remodeling. Doing some of the same for a support / mission our church has for local folks needing some help. Going to college again starting in Jan; a junior college technical school for A&P. Yeah, it's plane related, but much different than my normal plane activity / flying, so I'll put it on the list.
 
Never enough! ;). When you stop learning is when life looses it flavor. You don’t need to be greedy, or focused on money, there is more cool things to learn than any one person can in multiple lifetimes. Never stop being curious. (It’s amazing how very different hobbies can trigger inspiration in how to improve on one you have done before and it brings you back into trying it in that one).
 
Well, I play the euphonium, and scattered other low brass instruments like trombone and baritone bugle. One ensemble I play with, the Madison Scouts All-Starts, also has another PoAer in it, @Scott MacKie.

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Other than that, I enjoy building/creating stuff, especially stuff I can create and/or enjoy with my boys. 3D printing rockets and airplanes has been the main highlight of that. I'm a member of a local makerspace that I don't get to nearly often enough, and I'd like to learn to weld, and get much better at CNC.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Well, I play the euphonium, and scattered other low brass instruments like trombone and baritone bugle. One ensemble I play with, the Madison Scouts All-Starts, also has another PoAer in it, @Scott MacKie.

View attachment 147944

Other than that, I enjoy building/creating stuff, especially stuff I can create and/or enjoy with my boys. 3D printing rockets and airplanes has been the main highlight of that. I'm a member of a local makerspace that I don't get to nearly often enough, and I'd like to learn to weld, and get much better at CNC.
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This is the first thing I thought of:
Holophonor.webp
 
Hang 4 said:
I'll start - just started playing ice hockey after a 45 year lay off. Skating is like riding a bicycle and comes right back. Stick handling, not so much.
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I’ve been playing beer league hockey for almost 30 years. You would think I’d be better at it by now. :)
 
Photography, Woodworking, Cooking, Sailing.
 
I like to read, always have a good book nearby. I follow current events closely (I worked in the TV news business for many years). Used to scuba dive but stopped when my wife, my dive buddy, decided to quit. I am on my sixth motorcycle and every year I vow to ride more and end up riding less. Lately I have been writing my memoir about being an Air Force pilot in Vietnam. I used to hunt, now I occasionally do some target shooting.
 
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flyingcheesehead said:
Well, I play the euphonium, and scattered other low brass instruments like trombone and baritone bugle. …
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My heavy metal section includes a Yamaha E flat tuba, Miraphone euph, Conn E flat alto, three trombones, and a King E flat sousaphone.

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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I drifted over the years as well. Fishing and hunting when I was young, but drifted away from that. Photography (film), downhill skiing, mountain biking, scuba, kayaking, boating, home renovations, camping, and camping evolved into RVing. I tried getting into backpacking (ie real camping) but never could find the time. Oh and I dabbled trying to teach myself to play the fiddle, actually surprised myself how well I was doing, but the wife complained every time I'd do it. I would understand if it was the noise, but I actually think it had more to me wasting time & not doing her honey-dos or whatever... The last bunch of years I haven't felt like I had the time for much of any of it.... not to do it well anyway.
 
tomex939 said:
Homebrewing. Seriously. People get deep into it with the specific gear, yeast strains, water chemistry. It’s got that technical angle pilots usually like, but you get to drink the results. Very high traction on forums.
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I forgot about that! I did that for a couple years and really enjoyed it. I still have my equipment (and actually made a thread about home brewing maybe a month or so ago). I think I will start doing that again this winter. I’ve learned alot from other thing since I last did it. (I think might make an automatic temperature controlled fermentation chamber to put the carboys in now and take more accurate periodic brix measurements to determine when to rack and bottle rather than “eyeballing it” based on the bubblers).
 
Baked Potato said:
This is the first thing I thought of:
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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Yeah, most people don't know what it is, hence the pie chart I posted earlier. It's sometimes incorrectly called a "baritone". While it's technically a member of the tuba family, it plays in the same range as a trombone but has a very different sound from either one - "Euphonious" means "to have a pleasing sound" and it very much does.

In looking for a pic of me playing, I realized how many different places I've played it. Here's one with my dad, my wife, and my mother-in-law all joining in at a TubaChristmas event at Milwaukee's Mitchell Park Domes a while back:

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And with my wife and her whole family - We play in the Waukesha Area Symphonic Band, an award-winning community band:

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I did find some videos with the band and with my tuba quartet while I was looking for pictures... And then decided I'm not gonna post 'em unless someone actually wants to see them. :blush:

Yellowbird said:
My heavy metal section includes a Yamaha E flat tuba, Miraphone euph, Conn E flat alto, three trombones, and a King E flat sousaphone.

80d61d317dcd4401957b7b4e160f39ca.jpg

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Wow, that's a nice collection! I also play a Miraphone, looks like you've got the Thurman 5050 edition? I've got a 1258. I flew to KSBN and visited Woodwind-Brasswind when they still had the retail store there and I played eighteen different horns, and that particular one just felt the best to me. I'm really glad I did that I did that - I went in thinking I wanted a Meinl-Weston but once I played it I discovered it looked a lot better than it sounded. Willson, Besson, Yamaha, played them all and just kept coming back to the Miraphone. I've had it for about 15 years now, still like it a lot.

I also see you've got an Edwards bone (made in Wisconsin, hooray). That's what my wife's primary axe is. Our collection isn't anywhere near as extensive as yours - The rest of our low brass is plastic - P-Bone (hers) and P-Bone Mini alto (mine). I'd very much like a good bass trombone, but alas, most of my investments in precious metals are in the form of 2024-T4 aluminum that's shaped like an airplane. :rofl:
 
So far I've now seen 3 trombones with Thayer valves. The two above, and one my brother used to have. He swears it's not a gimmick, but to me the regular valve was fine. Things you don't expect to see on a pilot group...
 
Albany Tom said:
So far I've now seen 3 trombones with Thayer valves. The two above, and one my brother used to have. He swears it's not a gimmick, but to me the regular valve was fine. Things you don't expect to see on a pilot group...
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It's crazy what can make a horn play better.

I really like the Thayer valve. The maximum airstream deflection is 28º so it doesn't put a bunch of back pressure on you when the valve is engaged, allowing for more and smoother airflow, which makes the low notes speak more similarly to the rest of the horn and makes it easier to jump between notes where you use it and where you don't, in my opinion. I also like it when there's not too much in the way of tight tubing.

Another thing that kinda blew my mind, but makes sense: Cryogenic freezing. I got to play a horn that had been frozen (I think they pretty much dip it in liquid nitrogen for about a week!) that was otherwise identical to the horn I'd been playing, and it played and sounded much better. The way they explained it is that when a horn is new, all of the bends in the tubing have a lot of stress on them and that prevents the horn from being able to vibrate freely. Freezing it and then warming it back up essentially packs the molecules tightly together and then releases all of that tension, allowing the instrument to vibrate more freely. Kinda sounds like snake oil, but I played the two horns right after each other and there was a significant difference. I suppose if you could warm the horn up enough to let things migrate that might have the same effect, but you'd have to be careful not to get to the point where the shape changed.

All that said, I'm not sure what sort of witchcraft Miraphone does, but there are a lot of turns in the tubing on a compensating euphonium, many of them fairly tight, and it doesn't seem to get "stuffy" like I'd normally expect. Maybe they freeze 'em at the factory or something. :dunno:
 
Flying, boating (sail), golf…..all the most expensive hobbies. :-)
 
I've played guitar for 40 years. Started playing fingerstyle in college because chicks dig musicians. Took some lessons from a local jazz guy, but never figured that out. Took some classical lessons from a guy who didn't have any money but owed me some. That was a fun time of rapid growth. Having strummed in church for the past 25 years, I recently started taking bluegrass lessons from a flatpicking legend. Playing every day now, and notably improving. As my new teacher says, "If you water the grass every day, you won't see it grow, but you'll see that it's grown." Always looking for a jam so if you're ever in Indianapolis, look me up.

And the rest of the usual suspects for upper middle class American men.
 
hmm, I imagine that treating a girlfriend as a hobby, then sure, that's a guaranteed way for it to be extremely expensive.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
If you want to know how much it costs to own an airplane... all you got. If you want to know what it's like to own a sailboat, stand in a cold shower and tear up hundred-dollar bills.
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Even small boat stuff is expensive. This cleat block is the hot ticket on a Flying Scot to run the pole topping lift, cunningham, and vang back to mid cockpit.

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It’s $540. Just can’t pull the trigger on this upgrade.
 
Skiing, Travel (especially to Europe) and My Girlfriend. Not necessarily in order of either Cost or Enjoyment. :cool:. However, it is definitely possible to enjoy all simultaneously.
 
Hmmm, flying is up near number 1, that included hanggliding until recently, playing with my "fun" cars, motorcycling (on road and off), learning to play guitar and going to concerts. So much to do and so little time...
 
Irish tin whistle. None of these whistles are made out of tin though—Carbon fiber, aluminum, brass, plastic. I play at sessions (or seisiúns) and at church.

The reason there are so many is tha the whistle is a diatonic instrument, meaning it plays a diatonic scale of seven notes in an octave rather than chromatic, which is twelve notes. However, with an alternate fingering, it can play eight notes. So a whistle in the key of D can play a D scale (D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#) or with the alternate fingering to play a C, it can play the key of G. So I have several instruments so I can play the different keys, in lower octaves, or a different sounds (e.g., bright vs warm, etc.)

It's a very simple and lovely instrument, but, as with any instrument, difficult to be a master at. It is used to play Irish bar tunes, Irish trad music, and ballads. You can hear examples of them in The Lord of the Rings (Concerning Hobbits) and Titanic (My Heart Will Go On)
IMG_2882.jpeg
 
flyingcheesehead said:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Yeah, most people don't know what it is, hence the pie chart I posted earlier. It's sometimes incorrectly called a "baritone". While it's technically a member of the tuba family, it plays in the same range as a trombone but has a very different sound from either one - "Euphonious" means "to have a pleasing sound" and it very much does.

In looking for a pic of me playing, I realized how many different places I've played it. Here's one with my dad, my wife, and my mother-in-law all joining in at a TubaChristmas event at Milwaukee's Mitchell Park Domes a while back:

View attachment 147991

And with my wife and her whole family - We play in the Waukesha Area Symphonic Band, an award-winning community band:

View attachment 147992

I did find some videos with the band and with my tuba quartet while I was looking for pictures... And then decided I'm not gonna post 'em unless someone actually wants to see them. :blush:


Wow, that's a nice collection! I also play a Miraphone, looks like you've got the Thurman 5050 edition? I've got a 1258. I flew to KSBN and visited Woodwind-Brasswind when they still had the retail store there and I played eighteen different horns, and that particular one just felt the best to me. I'm really glad I did that I did that - I went in thinking I wanted a Meinl-Weston but once I played it I discovered it looked a lot better than it sounded. Willson, Besson, Yamaha, played them all and just kept coming back to the Miraphone. I've had it for about 15 years now, still like it a lot.

I also see you've got an Edwards bone (made in Wisconsin, hooray). That's what my wife's primary axe is. Our collection isn't anywhere near as extensive as yours - The rest of our low brass is plastic - P-Bone (hers) and P-Bone Mini alto (mine). I'd very much like a good bass trombone, but alas, most of my investments in precious metals are in the form of 2024-T4 aluminum that's shaped like an airplane. :rofl:
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I'd love to hear them. Brass Ensembles are very cool!
 
The fact that so many pilots are also musicians (or at least, people who play musical instruments) surprises a lot of people. Just offhand I can think of a noted conductor who is a F/O with a EU airline, another conductor of a major US orchestra who owns and flies a Mooney (or used to), a rock star airline pilot, and an assistant concertmaster (violinist) with a major US orchestra who built and flies an RV. And there are many more.

My own double bass instructor at music school critiqued my playing thusly, “One of my best students was also a pilot. So I assumed that pilots must have some natural musical ability, and the self-discipline to make something of it. At least, that’s what I thought until you showed up.” And after another particularly egregious failure to meet his exacting standards, he said nothing about my playing but instead simply asked “So, how is it going with the pilot career?”
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Still-life with obtuse pretense. [Not pictured: 2 uprights, three bass guitars, acoustic guitar, trumpet, cornet, piano]

I also have some hobbies.
 
Speaking of tubas, my eldest granddaughter played the tuba in both the Concert Band and Marching Band in High School being First Chair in the first and Section Leader in the second.

She started in Middle School. Her Mom asked her why the Tuba, she said “it was the shortest line” when it was time to pick an instrument.

Me, I have trouble with a kazoo.
 
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