Desire Avenue

a.k.a. hobbies.


Mine:

Horseback riding (western or bareback only)

Electric guitar - i played Poe's Not A Virgin at an open mike recently, I was so proud to expose Poe's music. It's an extremely fun song to play, lol.

Fixing my car - I have an old Civic hatchback that I'm un-ghetto-fying. I had written all over the panels with permanent marker, then spray painted it all flat black, now i'm replacing all the panels and fixing the body. Good thing I'm dating a mechanic.

My hobby is exactly the same as my work-music,music,music

I just read a book about Sinatra,mainly to read about the great arranger Nelson Riddle. Riddle's wife said to him once 'all you ever think about is music and sex',to which he replied 'what else is there?'.
To which I'll concur wholeheartedly.


Except that I'd also add-Table tennis

My hobby for the past 5 years has been researching my family history.

At the moment i'm concentrating on one of my paternal great grandmothers brothers,Alfred Baker, who was killed,aged 33, on the 26th September 1915,on the second day of the Battle of Loos.
He had only been married three years and had two sons ,aged 2 and 4 months.
I'm now trying to find out what happened to his young widow,Laura, and their children.

Well, besides the things I like to do with my wife, I love to spend evening watching movies...
And I spend my time on:
-Photography: I have bought an old medum-format camera a few month ago and I'm trying to improve my photography skills!!
-I edit the videos that I do... I still haven't finished to edit the video of my wedding (august 2005) and family is harassing me to get it done...but we have so little time!!!

PS: Rob, do you usually try to contact the distant members of your family when you find them?

Elforel wrote:PS: Rob, do you usually try to contact the distant members of your family when you find them?

Absolutely,and so far those who i have contacted (who have been a sister and cousins of a grandparent) have provided very interesting info on their particular branch of the family tree as well as been genuinely interested in my research.

Another hobby of mine is researching info for Virginia Astley's website.....which will be up and running again soon.

Yes,it's fascinating to hear about your researches RobB.Good luck tracking down the old soldiers family.The First World War set the tone for the dissolution of families which has continued apace ever since.
And on the subject of war...One of my other recent hobbies has been researching local history.Twenty yards from our house is the old entrance to a huge underground quarry which has been worked since the late 18th century.I went about 200 yards into it a few weeks ago when the present occupants (a security firm who keep God knows what down there under lock and key) inadvertently left the doors open (it's now their emergency exit,their actual bit being through another half-mile of old tunnels,pitch-black,muddy and dangerous).
200 yards was plenty far enough for me even with three torches! The roof is collapsing in various places.Over the years the underground quarry has served in various capacities-as a quarry for limestone;as a mushroom farm;as a motorbike factory;as an engineering shop;as a wartime factory for the creation of various weaponry and most bizarrely as a testing site for dangerous chemicals and gases during the cold war.
And most peculiarly,during the second world war,the entire contents of the British Museum and the V and A Museum were kept down there,as well as the Wright Brothers 'Kittyhawk',the Elgin marbles and the Crown Jewels!! All this a stonesthrow from my front door!
So finding out about that has been a major hobby.And also,like RobB,messing with websites.I've just been working with a fantastic easy webbuilding programme (just for Mac...) and tinkering with my website,which will be launched on the world with all lights blazing in due course.

Fascinating stuff Dave,especially regarding the museum exhibits being hidden down there during the war.

Lets just hope your house doesn't end up down in the quarry though.

Hopefully this time there will be plenty of photos of Mr.Soundworld on your revamped site.

Luckily the quarry goes the other way,away from my house.But meanwhile we're perched 20 metres up on top of the cliff of the old open quarry...
Yep,amazing what they kept down there in the war.I've just watched a video about it,and apparently all those treasures were guarded by one warden during the day and another warden plus the village bobby during the night!

I'd love to see some pictures of this quarry dave! I love these underground quarries and caves, so i always try and go visit these things when on vacation; I believe they've stored quite a lot of stuff (and people!) here as well during the war, in the southeast of the netherlands, where there's limestone caves. I've also seen some really huge underground quarries in Missouri, where you could drive through for miles with your car and where you had underground workshops and even offices. Really fascinating!

So one of my interests is definitely these underground places and caves, but i also love rocks, since we don't have them here. Last week i've visited the Isterberg, a sandstone hill with rock formations just 3km across the border, which is like the closest sandstone rocks to the north of the Netherlands.

Other interests include music (listening and making), hiking, traveling (mainly norway) and sightseeing (towns, museums, gardens), making pictures, gardening (design), movies, computer and internet. I like a lot more than that but these are the more regular things i like to do

I hardly have time to pursue anything outside of working and studying, but occasionally my husband persuades me to accompany him when he goes to ride his horse. I'm terrified of the bloody things so there's no chance he'll ever get me to take up riding, but it's quite pleasant just hanging round the stables while he and his beloved equine friend are cantering about the land. Flask of tea and I'm quite happy, getting a bit of country air and observing the horsey folk.

Other than that, just music and films. I'm so boring.

Well at the moment I seem to have given up all personal existance and play Dragon Quest: Journey Of The Cursed King to the point where I am dreaming that I am running around collecting healing herbs for 7 hours a night

Asides from that I am addicted to going to the gym every day and have now shed 43kgs since July 2004 (and had to donate most of my entire clothing to charity as it was huuuuuge). I'm now a healthy 82kgs rather than a rather portly 125kgs.

I'm also painting a lot more these days, bizarre geometric cityscapes are my thing at the moment. Photography, especially weird motion shots are still another love of mine.

And of course cranking out album after album until I lose the ability to write and sing.