Given all the recent sidebar discussions involving RC helicopters & quads, I thought it might be interesting to see just how many other similar money-pit hobbies / obsessions we're involved with.
I'll get is started:
Lasers (duh!)
Around the holidays, these are usually combined with some DMX lighting and synchronized Christmas lighting (Light-O-Rama) for my annual "Christmas Lights & Lasers" show I do for friends & family.
Weeks of planning, work and expenses, for a night or two of entertainment.
Crazy.
One of these years, I need to get someone to take pictures...
Keyboard synthesizers.
More of an "experimenter" than a true player, but I'm having a blast integrating the analog world of Moog synthesizers with the digital world of PC-based recording.
I still have the Moog keyboard I bought in the 80's to get me started!
Analog synths seem to merge well with lasers, and it keeps the neighbors scared when I crank up the speakers at my apartment in Huntsville.
Good stuff.
R/C aircraft.
Flew fuel-powered for many years; now exclusively electrics after a break of a couple of years.
Several helicopters of various sizes in the fleet, and recently jumped into the quad money pit.
Hopefully, Uncle Sam is going to send me some money in a few weeks so I can snag a GoPro to hang under the biggest quad.
O-Gauge model railroading.
A hobby I was born into ~
Inherited my Dad's WWII-era collection, and it continued from there.
Definitely NOT a portable hobby, so these days the layout & collection is basically sitting idle since I'm away from home so much.
Household 6 says it's collecting dust; I prefer to look at is as nature's realistic "weathering" for the layout...
Guns & sport shooting.
Another one I was born into.
(Hey, I'm from the South, and from a generation that honestly learned to appreciate & respect firearms at an early age).
Skeet and trap with a shotgun, target shooting with various .22, .223, and 9mm carbines; all good stuff.
Real "obsession" is target shooting with handguns ~
I'm a big fan of calibers that start with "4", and end with "5"...
I used to spend a lot of time & $$ prepping and choreographing my annual Backyard (slightly illegal) Fireworks Extravaganza, but that got to be a bit much to pull off after I started the Huntsville shuffle.
I was actually only a couple of shows away from actually being certified as a Pyrotechnics Technician in Tennessee -
or, being arrested, depending on where the home-brew stuff landed...
Talk about a hobby that scared the neighbors!!
Okay, so I probably have too many expensive hobbies ~
and while my wife definitely agrees, she knows it keeps me out of the bars at night and away from forbidden temptations...
(Besides, at 50+, chasing skirts is too much like work, anyway)
Randy
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