OT- What is your OTHER obsession?
As we have seen from the recent roll call topic we have quite a diverse group here, and the obvious thing we have in common is our obsession with UM Football, MBB, etc. But is there anything else that you are really "into?" Pro Wrestling? Nascar? Hunting/fishing? Wine connoisseur? Knitting? Collecting anything? Running/cycling/triathalon? Grateful Deadhead?
And what is the most "dedicated" thing you do in its pursuit?
To start, I am really into analog music synthesizers and guitars- have a small music studio and a collection of gear. With regard to my guitar playing, I suck, but I suck REALLY LOUD. Every year I attend the NAMM Show (National Assoc. of Music Merchants) in Anaheim- which is not open to the general public, but you get to meet a lot of famous music people, pretty cool.
Gibson Les Paul's, and Marshall stacks...and my Rock band.
I have numerous guitars and amps, but this is my favorite setup:
2008 Gibson LP Traditional in Iced Tea Burst with Suhr 'Doug Aldrich' signature pups.
Pedal board goes Wah, tuner, tubescreamer, in front of the amp, with MXR phase 90, and a ISP noise decimator in the loop.
My favorite amp is a 1978 Marshall JMP 1959 modded with an extra gain stage.
through Celestion Vintage 30 speakers, but sometimes greenbacks.
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Being able to dunk. I am 5'11 and not especially athletic. Have gone from barely being able to touch the rim to being able to dunk a volleyball or soccer ball. I need about another inch to dunk a basketball. And then there will be great rejoicing, and then I will find another obsession.
I'm 5'8", but had some mad hops in my youth. I'm 36 now and my knees have gone to shit, lucky to touch the rim these days. But for a few glorious years, I could get up enough to dunk a youth ball. So tortourously close, never quite made it to the full size.
So good luck, man. It's a rapidly closing window of opportunity. Get there while you can!
Pumping iron because running is for pansies.
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Fishing is my passion. I love guitars but I've got a ways to go to be the player I want to be. I also enjoy fountain pens.
If you've got two obsessions, you don't have any.
Music would be the other big one. There are a few bands (U2, Oasis, Stone Roses) that I follow fairly religiously and check news sites on daily, although I've never found forums that were as much fun to post on as here. I'm into a pretty decent variety of music but classic rock, the 80's-90's scene in England and then 90s-era electronica acts I am pretty interested in.
And then I follow the Red Wings pretty closely as well, although again, haven't found a great forum to post on for them. Winging it In Motown is the best, but SBNation sites in general aren't very easy/fun to comment on IMO.
I mean is anyone more impressive? j/k
Joking aside - personal finances. Looking for new ways and technology out there that help better manage them more efficiently as well as sites that help educate best practices etc.
Movies.
At one time I had seen all of the IMDb Top 250 (I've slipped a little since then) but am pretty dedicated to watching a lot of diverse movies. Foreign, classic, silent, animated, indies, blockbusters, stardard Hollywood fair, I'll watch any of it. I've seen over 2000 movies in the past decade, and while some would say that's a huge waste of time (~4000 hours, or over 165 days), I love getting lost in them and how they make me think/feel.
I don't write reviews for movies, as that'd take too much time, but I do rate every movie I watch on IMDb and I do some weird things when looking at the stats, which I find more interesting (what's my average rating, creating a formula to determine who I think is the best directors of all-time, etc). Great movie reviewers are great to read (love Ebert, miss not being able to read his reviews for new movies); I am not one of those, so I really have no interest in doing it.
So yeah, football and movies. I also kind of suck at golf on the side, but I really enjoy it (just wish it wasn't so expensive). I've been reading a lot of classic books lately just to improve my overall literary repertoire, and I enjoy it, but can't really afford to give it too much more time for now. I do a little writing on the side, but that's more of a hobby when I think it's something that has to be a passion if you want it to be anything more. Dogs are pretty cool. Exercise is nice and I try to do that daily. Then space related things, which works well with my actual job where I get paid money, so that doesn't hurt.
I'm a bit of a connoisseur. An aficionado of mind altering substances.
Getting back into homebrewing now that our second child is sleeping through the night. Just brewed a Chainbreaker White IPA clone which is awesome.
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The sport of wrestling, specifically coaching it. There is no greater sport IMHO. The amount of athletic ability, smarts, mental and physical toughness, and work ethic is hard to match in any sport.
Its like a chess match where you need to be 3 steps ahead of your opponent. Not only do you have to initiate action and dictate the match, you have to do so while considering your opponents set ups, his offensive moves, counters to those moves, counters to his counters, and so on. All of this while undergoing the mental and physical stress of a match. Controlled hand to hand combat, its beautiful when you fully understand it.
There is no better feeling in sports than pinning someone. Knowing you intellectually and physically dominated some one, while considering the hard work and dedication it took on your part, is awesome!
Fellow wrestlers, amirite?
Binge-watching TV shows. It started with Six Feet Under followed by Dexter, Breaking Bad, Homeland, Mad Men, The Riches etc...
Hiking (backpacking), my girl, and membrane protein structural biochemistry are my non-Michigan triad.
I suppose for me, the other things that fill a significant amount of time would be gardening and cooking. I am working on building an arsenal of herbs and edible perennials that we can harvest year after year and then using them in our kitchen. We have a limited amount of space in the yard, so it isn't a money-saving thing per se, but merely a prolonged experiment that you can eat at the end.
I race sailboats. It's a blast. An average week during the summer has me racing three days a week and there's three different boats I regularly crew for. And not only do I race locally but once or twice a year I fly to Connecticut to race with folks I used to race with when I lived in Rhode Island.
The water is the place to be in the summer. Sailing is both relaxing and very competitive. Plus there are parties. Lots and lots of parties, especially around Mackinac week where you get to feel like a bigshot because of all the parties going on and the hundreds of people who turn out to watch the boats leave for the start. It's great because it doesn't take an ounce of talent to get into in some way and not a ton of money if it's not your boat. But it does take a fair amount of learning, and it's fun to have knowledge and a high comfort level with something that some people consider a cross between a Goldberg machine and a wild bronco.
It's a gamer's addiction I can't break.
I've been playing this game on and off since 2003. It's one of the oldest-running online browser games. It features a hardcore strategy gameplay on building and managing a kingdom set in a fantasy world. And it's especially number crazy, like deciding what race and personality to play and how best to take advantage of each individual's attributes.
Sadly it's numbers which used to be 40k or so near it's height is down to only about 4k. Lots of long-time vets playing with a few new players here and there. The game used to be unplayable unless you downloaded a third party software to analyze your builds and attack #'s. Now thought, they incorporated a lot of that into the game itself. Much more playable now for casual gamers, but still takes a lot of coordination to do well as a team.
Game can be found here:
http://utopia-game.com/shared/
Forums are currently down at the moment (not sure why) but likely due to a new "age" starting. By age, the game resets every 3 months to a different age. It's on Age 65 now.
This was a recent solo trip with my pooch so it is full of sappy dog shots, but it still shows where modern ski touring gear can take you. Best viewed on a large screen for sure.
Gore Range Ski Crossing 2015 from Hans Berg on Vimeo.
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Even as a child I realized I had too many hobbies:
- I coach varsity boys basketball, so I'm constantly watching, reading, thinking about hoops. Sadly I don't actually play as much as I would like to anymore.
- A form of exercise that I don't dare mention by name. I've recently tweaked it to be more powerlifting focused, and I want to get a few of my oly lift numbers up.
- Anything outdoors. Now that I'm back in the midwest the skiing, climbing, hiking, and camping aren't quite as great. I'd also like to start gardening when I can get some more land.
- I'd like to get back into homebrewing (love beer), golfing, and fishing. I've also been intrigued with woodworking and building lately.
I like to cook especially grilling. I want to try smoking because I love BBQ, but just haven''t pulled the trigger on a smoker yet.
I love beer. I want to taste and drink all the beer. I love going to beer tasting fests like we have here in Naperville each summer. I don't buy a case of anything. I buy a mix of stuff every time I go to Binny's.
I love cars. Love to read about them and drive them. I'm always planning my next car purchase.
I'm an audiophile/home theater geek, but I am not going back to vinyl. I always have and always will hate taking care of records. I wish SACD/DVD-Audio didn't kill each other, because both formats sound great, but not many people want to sit and listen to multi-channel music in their homes or cars. Everybody is running around with iPods and iPhones playing through crappy headphones which prettty much kills the market for high quality, high resolution music.
Started with drinking the leftover Booker's and Knob Creek I bought for my father-in-law when he visited.
Bought a store-select Four Roses Singe Barrel...got hooked.
Now have like 30 bottles, but most are unopened while I slowly drink my way through 7-8 open bottles.
Never found Pappyz near MSRP, but have several BTAC.