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Post by thecreep on Jan 28, 2009 0:34:32 GMT -8
I was just talking to a few friends about what they did before collecting art. Seems like going to shows, reading about art and collecting really takes over and engulfs other hobbies.
So what did everyone here do before the art bug hit them? Other arts like music, films and so can be considered different.
For me, it was making electronic music. Ambient and minimal techno kind of stuff.
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Post by crazyreesie on Jan 28, 2009 8:35:17 GMT -8
Cars, primarily VWs. Collecting parts, modifying, driving, showing, and writing about.
It's still my primary hobby, but that will probably change drastically over the course of this year.
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Post by greenhorn1 on Jan 28, 2009 8:48:35 GMT -8
My primary hobby is still playing pinball. I mean competitively not just in the bar or whatever.
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Post by Bytor on Jan 28, 2009 9:02:27 GMT -8
well, I have always been really into art, but I play the cello also and have since I was in 3rd grade, I really love music but since I have been pursuing my art career seriously I haven't had the time to play, art is my first love.
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Post by sleepboy on Jan 28, 2009 9:27:15 GMT -8
My primary hobby is still playing pinball. I mean competitively not just in the bar or whatever. Damn, didn't realize there were pros. Nice. Must be fun. There are tournaments I presume? Rankings?
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Post by greenhorn1 on Jan 28, 2009 10:13:55 GMT -8
The biggest tournament is PAPA but there are many others. www.papa.org and there are 2 different ranking systems. highest i've ever been was around mid 40's. I'm also in the ohio pinball league and we have 24 members (and a large waiting list) and we have tournament season competing in league members homes on their games. Some of our members have up to 40-50 games in their houses. Unfortunately I only have 2 games although I'll be adding another shortly.
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Post by thecreep on Jan 28, 2009 12:28:34 GMT -8
Cars, primarily VWs. Collecting parts, modifying, driving, showing, and writing about. It's still my primary hobby, but that will probably change drastically over the course of this year. Now way, I love VW"s, beetles mainly. I had a 67 bug for years My favorite car. My first car was almost a 56 oval window beetle, original everything in killer condition. But I was scared that I wouldn't be able to get it running so I passed on buying it. My friends went on frenzy buying up all the parts from it. Ruined it really. I wish I never passed on that car.
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Post by voleboy on Jan 29, 2009 1:46:15 GMT -8
Music. I have about 5,000 records/CDs mainly it's vinyl. 12 inch singles, techno, trance, house etc. etc.
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Post by kristahuot on Jan 29, 2009 9:29:28 GMT -8
Art has been a constant hobby for me, but I also played piano classically for 10 years, as well as ballet when I was really young and riding horses (I grew up way out in the middle of nowhere so we had horses, goats, chickens, you name it haha!) These days I don't do much outside of painting because I still hold down a day job, I try to go to the odd concert when I can. I have an awesome Gibson Les Paul that I've finished paying for and I want to play more, maybe one day I'll have the time to pick it up again...
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Post by thecreep on Jan 29, 2009 11:13:29 GMT -8
Art has been a constant hobby for me, but I also played piano classically for 10 years, as well as ballet when I was really young and riding horses (I grew up way out in the middle of nowhere so we had horses, goats, chickens, you name it haha!) These days I don't do much outside of painting because I still hold down a day job, I try to go to the odd concert when I can. I have an awesome Gibson Les Paul that I've finished paying for and I want to play more, maybe one day I'll have the time to pick it up again... Excellent guitar. Do you have pics of it? I had a 1962 Gibson SG, but during shipping once the neck was snapped at the head. It had a super touch tolex case, and the strings were removed to make sure breaking didn't happen. Sad day, it was a great guitar.
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Post by commandax on Jan 29, 2009 22:14:51 GMT -8
My "hobbies" seem to last 3-4 years or so and then exhaust themselves... I kind of get to the end of what I can do with it, and lose focus for a while, then re-focus on something else. I've always been a huge reader and music nut, but never really regarded that as a hobby... more a necessity of life. Here are the subjects of a few of my previous obsessional phases: Driving around in remote parts of the desert in my classic Land Cruiser and taking "artistic" photos of weird junk. commandax.deviantart.com/gallery/Gardening, especially a bizarre and all-consuming fixation on antique roses. Much more interesting than one might suppose, actually. Tall ships, concurrently with a fascination with the history of Antarctic exploration. Came close to sailing down to the islands off the coast of Antarctica on an 80' wooden schooner, but couldn't quite convince myself to deal with the financial repercussions. Genealogy... I spent thousands of hours tracing my completely undistinguished ancestors back to about 1650. Discovered that Benedict Arnold is my 3rd cousin 8 times removed. Learned a lot about history, too. Making jewelry... started out making beads from molten glass, and was evolving into silver clay when I lost access to my basement workshop and thus a place to fire up my kiln. Moved on to making things with silver wire and pretty rocks. Collecting vintage snapshots – amazing sepia-toned photos of special moments in other people's lives. Hilarious and poignant and beautiful. Then art... I started out collecting folk and naive art, because that's what I could afford, and also because, although I had been on the outskirts of the lowbrow scene for 15 years, I'd never really fallen in love with it. (Except for Sorren, who was already out of my league.) A couple of years ago, my financial horizons broadened, and I started noticing some young artists doing something new and different – and here I am.
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Post by lowpro on Jan 29, 2009 23:58:55 GMT -8
Genealogy... I spent thousands of hours tracing my completely undistinguished ancestors back to about 1650. Discovered that Benedict Arnold is my 3rd cousin 8 times removed. Learned a lot about history, too. Now that's awesome! Although time consuming, I'm sure it was incredibly rewarding. You have officially piqued my interest. How might one go about figuring this stuff out if essentially all elderly relatives with pertinent information have died? Did you primarily use the internet? Are there online databases out there that are searchable by last name etc? 350 years is a ridiculously long time. Obviously, there will come a point, rather quickly too I presume, where internet searching will come up dry. I'm impressed.
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Post by mokaneshu on Jan 30, 2009 0:23:01 GMT -8
well, going back like 10 years I just played sports, but that was high school so there wasn't too much I could get into that I could afford. maybe going out to parties and dancing too. I wish I continued pole vaulting into college but my school didn't have a mens track team (which I still don't understand since my school had about 35,000 students)
In college I got into music and spun records... mostly techno at first then I moved to hip hop, then to lounge music like dean martin, ect. That kind of dropped off after college. Also during college I got into video games, nothing competitive, I just spent a lot of time playing games, that seems to have died off too.
The reason I got into art was actually because when I bought my house I didn't want to decorate it with posters and thumbtacks. I wanted to "grow up" from the college decor.
Now, it seems my hobbies are collecting art, my job (even though I don't want it to be) and following one of the most struggling teams (struggling for the past 87,434 years now) in the NBA, but I've followed them for like 15 years so I'm used to it now.
luckily for me my work is a very eccentric team building company, so I spend a lot of time with people that just think of silly ideas to get people to do.
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Post by voleboy on Jan 30, 2009 2:01:10 GMT -8
Yeah, reading is a given of course, I don't collect many books, but read avidly. When I find authors or books I like, I will seek out first editions/signed/limited copies. Some books have some lovely slipcased editions that look great on the shelf.
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Post by highbrow on Jan 30, 2009 5:26:06 GMT -8
Prior to Art I had a huge OCD and sneaker collection, after sneakers it was dvd's but now art. At one point it was over 400 pairo f sneakers and I only wore about 5 different pairs, and dvds was over 3000. Now art which is smaller and alot more expensive.
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Post by sylvia0rtiz on Jan 30, 2009 8:08:33 GMT -8
goood grief.well ive been an artist since i got my first crayola box. Along the way i had many interests. Anything that allowed me to express the inexplicable energy i had... i did...breakdancing, graffitti, poetry, books, video games, sports, photography, jujitsu i even played the violin! my secret love.i played for 4 years as a kid and im pretty sure had i been able to afford one i might have pursued a career in classical music i think the violin understands me very well. :-)
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Post by commandax on Jan 30, 2009 9:59:12 GMT -8
Oh dear, yeah, I do that too. I was going to include it but felt my list of obsessions was getting a little ridiculous. I'm a big science fiction fan... have signed first editions of most books by Neal Stephenson, Connie Willis, Richard Morgan, Kage Baker and Jasper Fforde. They appreciate pretty fast, and look great in my glass-fronted console.
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Post by crazyreesie on Jan 30, 2009 10:24:03 GMT -8
Cars, primarily VWs. Collecting parts, modifying, driving, showing, and writing about. It's still my primary hobby, but that will probably change drastically over the course of this year. Now way, I love VW"s, beetles mainly. I had a 67 bug for years My favorite car. My first car was almost a 56 oval window beetle, original everything in killer condition. But I was scared that I wouldn't be able to get it running so I passed on buying it. My friends went on frenzy buying up all the parts from it. Ruined it really. I wish I never passed on that car. Awesome. I've only owned watercooleds so far, but I really want to restore a Karmann Ghia someday with a few modern touches, like reupholstered Recaro sport seats and Audi Pearl White finish. I used to show my '91 GTI at a lot of small shows in New England, and the older aircooled crowd was a lot of fun and very knowledgable.
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Post by marcusslo on Jan 30, 2009 13:05:56 GMT -8
Vip Style cars... modifying luxury cars... things like suspension, body kits, lighting, interior curtains
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Post by commandax on Jan 30, 2009 16:36:14 GMT -8
Genealogy... I spent thousands of hours tracing my completely undistinguished ancestors back to about 1650. Discovered that Benedict Arnold is my 3rd cousin 8 times removed. Learned a lot about history, too. Now that's awesome! Although time consuming, I'm sure it was incredibly rewarding. You have officially piqued my interest. How might one go about figuring this stuff out if essentially all elderly relatives with pertinent information have died? Did you primarily use the internet? Are there online databases out there that are searchable by last name etc? 350 years is a ridiculously long time. Obviously, there will come a point, rather quickly too I presume, where internet searching will come up dry. I'm impressed. It was a lot of fun, actually. I've often compared it to private detective work, as I think it involves a lot of the same skills. The first thing to do would be to interview your living relatives about everything they can remember about their parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc. Names (including nicknames and maiden names), places of origin, dates of birth and death, children, religion, military service, and especially where they lived at different times in their life. Ask if anyone has a family bible – people used to keep records of births, deaths and marriages on the flyleafs of their bibles. Find out who has the archive of family photos and documents (wills, IDs, resumes, diplomas and military papers) – there is usually someone in the family with a big moldy box of them in the garage. These are invaluable for research, as well as being incredibly interesting, because they allow you to put a face to the names. Make a visit to these relatives with a laptop and scanner and take copious notes. Every scrap of information on a photo can be useful... names, places... even the photographer's stamp can be helpful. Show the photos to anyone who might have memories about them and see what comes up. The stories can be pretty fascinating. If there were close family friends, sometimes that information can be very helpful too, as well as illuminating what kind of people they were. Buy yourself some family history software. For Macs, Reunion ( www.leisterpro.com/ ) is great. Most genealogy software is made for Windows, so there are quite a few choices if you're on that platform. Software is absolutely vital to organize all the information you'll be gathering, as shuffling through your notes and documents will quickly become frustrating. (For example, I have 1,934 relatives in my Reunion database.) When entering your data, save yourself a lot of hassle by making notations about where each piece of information came from... it helps a lot when you find conflicting data to be able to figure out which source for that fact was more reliable. A birth certificate is usually more definitive than the memory of an elderly relative, for example. Once you've nailed down some vital statistics – even if a bit vague – on your grandparents, you can access public records, which are fairly easy to get if the relative is deceased. Go to the websites of the states where they were born and died, and request their birth and death certificates. Each state is different... in some, you'll have to go to the town level to get these. Other states have a centralized vital records office. These certificates will list the names of their parents and their place of origin... they're absolutely invaluable in moving farther down the chain. There are two routes you can choose in taking your research to the next level – online, or the Mormons. Personally, I did it in the comfort of my own home, but the Mormons are family history fanatics and have public family history libraries in most major cities in the US, as well as around the world. If you choose to go the online route, I recommend starting with Ancestry.com ( www.ancestry.com/ ). It's a subscription service, but they offer a 14-day free trial so you can see if you like it. There you will find a wide array of information, including the US & UK census, military records, ship's manifests, immigration and naturalization records, and a lot more. It's worth the money. Once you've figured out where your family was living in the early part of the last century, then you can access U.S. Census records (publicly available up to 1930), and you're on your way. When searching, keep in mind that many of our forebears were illiterate, went by several different spellings of their name, or had hard-to-read handwriting... so searching under several different spellings – and with nicknames – is useful. If your relatives disappear from the census record, cast about in different directions (neighboring towns and states, immigration records, ship's manifests) until you find another family that has children with the same names and ages... it's pretty likely to be them. Also keep in mind that people weren't as cognizant of exactly how old they were back then as we are now... there's often a discrepancy of a year or two from one document to another. If your grandparents were born in another country, there are online resources to tell you how to get copies of vital records from there, as well. Just search for the country and "vital records." Tracing your ancestors really far back in history is somewhat dependent on their origins. For example, the Swedes kept immaculate records back to the mid-1650s, and they are accessible online... so you're in luck if you're Swedish. If you're Irish, the news is a bit grimmer. The Public Records Office in Dublin, which contained over 1,000 years of Irish history, was obliterated in 1922 during the Civil War (a.k.a. The Troubles). There are still records available, but they're mostly decentralized parish records, and often require travel to small towns in Ireland for access. If your ancestor was among the people who lived in the US before the Revolutionary War, there are usually very good records once you get back to about 1850... the Daughters of the American Revolution and others have documented most of them meticulously. The Quakers kept good records, as well. You may discover that someone's already done the work of documenting a branch of your family. Searching for your last name (especially if it's somewhat uncommon) and "genealogy" on Abebooks.com can turn up interesting results. If you know where your relatives are buried, especially if there's a family plot, visiting that cemetery (and accessing their records if possible) can be quite useful. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but it's a good start. Here are a few other sites that are useful: Genealogy.com: www.genealogy.com/The Mormons: www.familysearch.org/Immigrant Ships Transcribers' Guild: www.immigrantships.net/Ellis Island Records: www.ellisislandrecords.org/Genealogy abbreviations: www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rigenweb/abbrev.htmlAcronyms: www.acronymfinder.com/Multimap, worldwide maps: www.multimap.com/
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Post by sleepboy on Jan 30, 2009 23:19:42 GMT -8
Man, you guys have such interesting lives. I'm jealous.
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Post by Bytor on Jan 31, 2009 0:11:42 GMT -8
goood grief.well ive been an artist since i got my first crayola box. Along the way i had many interests. Anything that allowed me to express the inexplicable energy i had... i did...breakdancing, graffitti, poetry, books, video games, sports, photography, jujitsu i even played the violin! my secret love.i played for 4 years as a kid and im pretty sure had i been able to afford one i might have pursued a career in classical music i think the violin understands me very well. :-) WOW sylvia, we do have so much in common, I played the cello since 3rd grade, I haven't picked it up in a few years because I have been so busy and because the one I like to play ( I have two) was crushed in a car wreck and I used the insurance money to buy a new car, I am so bad, but I really needed the car at the time
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Post by voleboy on Jan 31, 2009 8:18:11 GMT -8
Oh dear, yeah, I do that too. I was going to include it but felt my list of obsessions was getting a little ridiculous. I'm a big science fiction fan... have signed first editions of most books by Neal Stephenson, Connie Willis, Richard Morgan, Kage Baker and Jasper Fforde. They appreciate pretty fast, and look great in my glass-fronted console. I am a big Sci Fi fan too, but my signed editions are more crime orientated, I like the special art that's created for some and the leather bound ones are nice. I started buying the London Review of Books series, but it's a pretty big outlay every month or so to be honest. I read my first Fforde recently, really liked it, kind of silly, but funny with it. One of my favourites is a signed Time Travellers Wife, I loved that book, and was happy to get a nice edition. crazyreesie> The Karmenn Ghia is my girlfriend's dream car.
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Post by kristahuot on Jan 31, 2009 15:23:37 GMT -8
Art has been a constant hobby for me, but I also played piano classically for 10 years, as well as ballet when I was really young and riding horses (I grew up way out in the middle of nowhere so we had horses, goats, chickens, you name it haha!) These days I don't do much outside of painting because I still hold down a day job, I try to go to the odd concert when I can. I have an awesome Gibson Les Paul that I've finished paying for and I want to play more, maybe one day I'll have the time to pick it up again... Excellent guitar. Do you have pics of it? I had a 1962 Gibson SG, but during shipping once the neck was snapped at the head. It had a super touch tolex case, and the strings were removed to make sure breaking didn't happen. Sad day, it was a great guitar. That sucks about your SG! It must have been so nice... I've heard flying with guitars is tricky, a couple of friends of mine have had their guitars broken while flying, even after loosening the strings off completely and everything. Here's a pic of mine, it's actually a girls' Les Paul. At 5 feet tall, I find the full-blown Les Paul a bit difficult to play haha! The model is called the Vixen (I don't know why they have to name girls' guitars such silly names...) They made Vixen versions of the SG as well I believe. This guitar has a solid mahogany body, but it's a bit smaller and has no maple top which makes it a lot more lightweight. The neck is really easy for me to play too.
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Post by crazyreesie on Jan 31, 2009 15:30:15 GMT -8
The model is called the Vixen (I don't know why they have to name girls' guitars such silly names...) That's a perfect name, and a gorgeous guitar. I'm jealous, I always wished I could play. I have a bright purple Fender Strat that I never learned to play and gave it to my dad for safekeeping.
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