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Your childhood hobbies and interests

Your childhood hobbies and interests

Your childhood hobbies and interests

(OP)
Pretty much what the title says.

I spent my childhood during the early 90’s where video games were not so much fun at all (crappy 16 bit graphics) and only the rich kid in town can afford.

Being a poor kid, I only have limited choices to enjoy my childhood other than riding my bike and playing with other kids, so I chose “visual art” or simply what we call drawing. During that time, I was able to sketch cartoon characters such as Japanese anime characters, a little bit of portraits and landscapes, colorful posters with slogans and I was really good at it that I thought I would be a cartoonist or a painter someday ponder. But I ended up as an engineer; maybe being able to visualize things did a bit help in drafting.

So what about the other guys in here? Were your childhood hobbies and interests ended up being what you are doing today?

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Before 7th grade I live in the Berkeley CA area and spent a good portion of my free time on the computer, learning to program and tying up the phone line dialing into BBSs. I remember one time when a guy I'd been chatting with called directly to discuss parameters for uploading a game to me ... he was stunned to find out I was only in 5th grade, as he had guessed from our chatroom discussions that we were the same age (27 or so). He didn't end up sending the game.

After 7th grade I lived in the mountains near Lake Tahoe, so before I had work to do or a car to drive my free time was filled with skiing in the winter (sat/sun every weekend) hiking, shooting, skateboarding, building forts, go karts, swimming at the neighborhood pool. Oh, and trying to get to the next base w/girls.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

When I was a kid, back in the late 50's early 60's, I had a modest coin collection (which today is not so modest) and I also messed around with old radios in high school. I refurbished several older RCA and Zenith models as well a built some Heathkit and Knightkit stuff like shortwave radios, tube-testers, VTVM's, etc as well as our first color TV from a Heathkit after I graduated from college. I still have an old (1965) Hammarlund HQ-180A shortwave radio set-up in my garage:



Note that my interest in radios and electronics in high school led me to start college with the intention of getting my degree in EE, but back then (1965/66) electronics was not really part of the curriculum to any extent. I spent a year learning about 'Delta' and 'Y' power circuits, high voltage transmission loses, phasing transformers, etc. I then got a summer job working as a mechanical draftsman but I was able to observe what the electrical guys did in the office and decided to switch to mechanical when I returned to school in the Fall, and then had to scramble to catch-up to the rest of the ME guys. Nowadays at my alma mater, the freshman year for most all engineering students has virtually the same course of study so that switching majors after the first year is no longer a big deal.

And while in college I took up photography in a big way, which helped pay for school as I worked for the university, did some freelancing and won a few photo contests. Today it's my biggest hobby (along with my continued coin collecting) and I've even sold photos to stock photo houses (not a whole lot but a few extra bucks here and there).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Models and model trains...

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)


RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Meccano. Specially the gears. I still have my screwdriver from those days.

Steve

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

As a kid: astronomy
Now that I'm grown up: astronomy

Actually, there was a big hiatus in between, but I'm getting back into it now. I recently invested in a Canon 6D camera and a new scope mounted on a Celestron VX with an auto-guider. Goin' galaxy huntin'.


To J. Baker: Did you catch a shot of the moon last weekend?

STF

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

No I missed it. But I got some good shots of the 'Blood Red Moon' from April of last year:



This was taken with my Sony A65 DSLR using a 400mm lens. The image is full frame.

I also got this shot of Mars that same night:



This was taken with the same set-up as above, but the image is only a portion of the full frame.



John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Legos graduated to mechanos for me, on top of the usual video games addiction.

My Mona Lisa was a scale grain elevator using all 8 of the mechano spring motors I had amassed. If you needed rice moved - I was your kid.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Photography was fun for me too, including darkroom...then digital came along so I divested of most of the film stuff. Just purchased a Ricoh waterproof camera to take to Hawaii next week on vacation, hope to get some underwater shots while snorkeling. But I dabbled in a lot of stuff, we grew up on a farm so we raised cows and chickens, and ran a small dairy for several years. Hunting, horseback riding, riding down the local river in innertubes (I think they would arrest you for doing so today), and yes, the everlasting quest for more bases.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

As a kid I made model airplanes. At first rubber band, then diesel engine, then later glow-plug engine. When I got to be about 16 I got interested in radio control, however at that time radios were very expensive. So I made my own from plans sold by Aeromodeller Magazine.
I had a workshop at the time stocked with most of the components I needed, my dad’s Radio and TV repair shop, there was a lot of moaning about the cost of some of the items I used, but he never kicked me out. One thing I never appreciated at the time was that this activity gave me the ability to read drawings and circuit diagrams. An asset that was very useful later in life.
Later I got interested in Scuba diving, then racing sailing dinghies, rifle shooting, and finally the nemesis of my life flying sailplanes. I was later reduced to building and fixing the things for a living.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

The first thing was model rockets in about 3rd grade. That was right in the middle of the 60's space program so there was lots of exciting things going on in the real world to inspire me. As soon as I learned that stability mainly depends on having the center of pressure behind the center of gravity I moved from kits to designing my own. After a few years of that I moved on to model airplanes, first U control and then radio control. To afford radio control on a paper route budget I built Heath Kit transmitter, receiver and servos so that was my introduction to semi-conductors. Shortly after that motorcycles became my consuming passion. I got my high school to buy me a small dyno and did experiments guided by Gorden Jennings "Two-Stroke Tuners Handbook". Later I started porting cylinders and building expansion chambers and designed & built a nitrous oxide injection system in college. My first job out of college was dyno testing 1000 cu in diesels in an engine development lab. Spent the last 35 years designing fuel injection. Seems a pretty natural progression.

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Like msquared48, I was into model trains and real trains. I still have most of the HO cars and locomotives I built. No clue what to do with them.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

I always wanted to get into model trains but never had the room and still don't. So instead I visit the real things when I get a chance, no matter where I might be. For years now I've been a card-carrying member of the 'California State Railroad Museum'. I've also gotten a chance to ride some of the fastest trains around, from the 'Bullet' trains of Japan (both the old original rounded-nosed version and the new duck-billed version), the TGV in France and the ICE in Germany. I've even ridden AMTRAK, just not as fast as those Asian and European trains.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

JohnRBaker--Do you remember the Copper Range RR?

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Actually yes. The Copper Range was still running a freight service when I was a student at 'da Tech' (I understand they ceased operations a year or so after I graduated in 1971).

Here's an photo, taken in September 1969, of some of their rolling stock in the Houghton rail-yard:



And here's a photo, taken in May 1971, of the old Copper Range train station (note the amount of snow still on the ground):



The rail-yard and most of the out-buildings have all been removed although the station remains and is being used as professional office space. The area where the rail-yard was is now homes and a water park.

There was another train station closer to downtown Houghton, originally belonging to the Mineral Range RR, and it was still being used by the Soo Line into the 60's (I can remember guys taking the train to Chicago and Milwaukee over Christmas and Spring breaks).

Here's a picture, taken in October 2010, of the old Mineral Range station. It's been taken-over and renovated by the Yalmer Mattila Construction Company and now houses the company's office:



Note that virtually all of the railroad tracks have been removed from along the lakeside in Houghton and Hancock with most of the right-of-ways converted into bike paths. They've even removed the rails from the lower level of the Portage Lift bridge and it's now being used as part of the bike path network.

BTW, I'm going to be back in Houghton the week of April 20th for some activities at the university.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Nice shots. What camera were you using?

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

The September 1969 photo was taken with a Minolta SRT-101 using a 135mm lens. The May 1971 photo was taken with the same Camera using a 58mm lens. The October 2010 photo was taken using a Sony DSC-H2 digital camera.

Note that today I primarily work with a Sony A65 DSLR when I need it to be as professional as possible. I do a lot of volunteer work for our church and church groups. For example, for the last several Easters I've taken photos at the Easter vigil Mass when new converts are Baptized, Confirmed and receive First-Communion. When I'm travelling light, I use a Sony NEX-3N but am planning to upgrade to a Sony a6000 soon. Of course, in a pinch I've been known to use my iPhone 6 (my wife uses her iPhone 6 almost exclusively even though she has her own DSLR and high-end digital point-and-shoot cameras).

BTW, I know the details about the images I posted because every photo that my wife and I have taken (and decide to keep), starting in 1960, have been scanned (slides and negatives) and have been placed in an archive, along with the more recent digital images, and for which I've got a relational database where I've recorded, when each photo was taken (month/year), camera and lens, film size and type, where the photo was taken and what the subject matter was including the names of any known and identifiable persons in the scene, along with a thumbnail image. This database is fully searchable using any combination of the data fields, as well as relevant keywords. As of today, I have 36,462 images stored in my archive and recorded in the database. The images are stored on a 2TB external eSATA drive as well as being backed-up on TWO sets of DVD-ROMS of which one set is in my gun safe here at the house and the other is locked in a filing cabinet in my office at work.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

As a kid in the 1960s/1970s, Legos were #1. Other hobbies included baseball (I was only an average Little League player, but I loved/love the game), DXing commercial radio and TV stations (I never go into 2-way radio), astronomy, coin collecting (which became part of the down payment for our first house), and several more.

My main hobbies now are astronomy (15 years as an active and advanced amateur, include 4 years as president of my local club), photography, HP calculators, hiking, reading (mostly history and astronomy), travel, and several more.


SparWeb…

I bought an Advanced VX mount about two years ago as an upgrade from an Orion SkyView Pro. It is a fantastic mount. I mostly use it with my 5" SCT for both prime focus and piggyback astrophotography (nothing too fancy at this point because I still use 35-mm cameras for astrophotography). I also bought a 6" Newtonian tube with it (only $100 more), but only used that tube a couple of times. Now, my son-in-law and I are going to turn the 6" into a Dobsonian for my granddaughter, who is now old enough (almost 7) to handle it. My main scope is a Celestron CPC-800, but an 11" is calling my name, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Fred

==========
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Too many to mention! But I'll mention a few: model rockets, mostly from kits but I did build a few myself. Tried reloading engines but failed miserably, but did have a lot of fun with homemade gunpowders of various sorts along the way. I loved flying things but couldn't afford RC and never got to the level of electronics necessary to build my own radios- I did build models, including balsa gliders and rubber band driven planes. Later it was photography, particularly darkroom work. When I did colour in earnest, processing prints was so boring that I used my Radio Shack Colour Computer to control an automatic print processor I designed and built- at a cost of $80 in surplus and scrounged parts. Had help from a physics teacher to build a PIA device to decode a memory location, which gave me a whole 8 bits of output, and I used the joystick switches as inputs and the cassette tape relay too...I did electronics as a hobby mostly related to audio stuff (I played guitar and had a band, so there were distortion pedals to make etc.) but the darkroom automation project helped me up my game a bit. In university I kept up the photography, and then came the Spitfire, and later my roommate and I started building laser power supplies...it just keeps going that way, with new things added on. Regrettably those activities all take materials, tools etc., so don't call Hoarders on me!

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Hi FEL3,

The Advanced VX is my first "go-to" mount so I'm still poking buttons to see "what does that do?".

Did you find the polarscope impossible to use with the big Alt adjustment knob in the way?

Here it is - last week's eclipse:

STF

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

SparWeb…

I haven't had any problem using the polar scope, but I'm at latitude 36°N and change. If you're quite a bit farther north, I see where that could be a problem. A shorter knob might be in order.

Fred

==========
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Lucky you, Fel3. I have it cranked up to 51.25 degrees of latitude, so yes, a shorter knob will take care of it.

STF

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

SparWeb…

One other advantage to my location in Central California is access to high elevation observing sites in the Sierra Nevada. Our club participates in the annual, summer-long, ranger-led public star party series at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park (elev = 7200' = 2200m). This year, our club gets the last weekend in June and a waxing gibbous moon, but last year we got a new moon. We also have a primitive camping site at a lake between Yosemite National Park and Kings Canyon National Park that I make it to a couple times each summer for two or three nights. It's at an elevation of 8200' = 2500 m.

I don't do a lot of astrophotography (and I still use 35mm for some of it), but you can find some of my images at http://www.cvafresno.org/galmem.cfm?id=6. The other three guys who have posted images on our club website are doing far more sophisticated imaging that I ever plan on doing.

Fred

==========
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Lego, GI-Joe, HO Trains, 1/25 scale models, and baseball in an open lot in the neighborhood. Electronics came next after I asked my neighbor why he kept blowing up speakers and he explained Ohms law; I must have been around 10 or 11 and I was hooked! Next came the TRS-80 computer and 6800, 6502 microprocessors and I was hooked on software. my interest stayed there until i got into college and was drawn back to the hardware side.

I always liked photography when i was young but couldn't afford it.

Z

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

(OP)
Big thanks to all of you who shared your stuff. Keep 'em coming!

I also had interest in photography though I'm not as good as the others who posted, but I am trying to learn by myself. I have a D7000 with 50mm and 11-16mm lenses which I play around during out of towns.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

I used to do a lot of photography back when film still ruled. I've got a Cannon F-1N 35 mm SLR, a Hasselblad medium format camera and a bunch of old cameras my Dad had. I now mostly use a 3x zoom Panasonic digital point 'n shoot that overall does a pretty good job but I've been sitting on the fence between buying one of the superzooms or a micro four thirds interchangeable lens mirrorless camera. I see no need for an SLR mirror in a digital camera, electronic viewfinders have made it an anachronism. I like the flexibility of interchangeable lenses but some of the better superzooms (with the bigger sensors coming out now) are much more cost effective. Having already bought many pieces of expensive and obsolete glass has made me leery of investing in more.

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Agreed- I bought a mirrorless and am never going back. I used to have Konica film SLRs which were fine cameras with good glass but the mirrors used to seize up and were the common mode of failure. Why make something as beautifully simple and robust as a digital camera and then put a flaky mechanical mirror mechanism in it? As far as the superzoom, it won't help you with the wide angles and that's where I always found myself going. I rarely used telephoto but frequently used my 24 mm.

I had a 6x6 as well- a Bronica, which was a poor man's Hasselblad. Guess what? The mirror went on it too...

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

That's what most people do when they get their first interchangeable-lens camera, even back in the film days, they go out and buy a telephoto lens. My first add-on lens when I bought my original SLR back in 1966 was a 135mm and then a 400mm. I finally bought a 35mm and used it a lot until it came-up missing one day and I replaced it with a 24mm. If you manage to shoot without a lot of grain, film or digital, you can always crop a normal shot and get somewhat of a telephoto effect, but there is nothing that you can do if what you wanted was outside the field-of-view. With my current Sony DSLR, I'm using a Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 (continuous aperture) as my 'normal' lens, a Sony 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 as my telephoto, a Soliger 400mm f/6.3 manual preset as my long telephoto, but the lens I find that I use a lot is my Tamron 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 super wide-angle. It can really grab a wide scene (at its widest, it's equivalent to a 15mm lens for 35mm cameras or 109° field-of-view). And it's a true wide-angle (parallel lines stay parallel).

Of course, after using my compact Sony NEX-3N (16.1mp) with the new E-Mount lens, I'm tempted to move to something like a Sony a6000, a 24mp camera, like my A65, but a lot smaller and easier to handle. Sony, as well as a few 3rd-party brands, are now offering a pretty full line of E-Mount lens including a new super wide-angle as well as that's always been the bane of these compact or so-called hybrid cameras (mirror-less but with interchangeable lens).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Growing up I had (and still do) a love for girls and baseball. So basically, my life revolved around the ever evasive extra bases. I would do anything to impress the ladies. I got into four wheelers and motorcycles. I would take them apart fix them and use them in any way to impress. Then you have a high school girlfriend that sucks all the fun out of the daredevil living. The difference now is I get the bigger toys like a boat. No more motorcycles. Boating has now became the go to hobby for me. It does require a lot of attention, since we all know boat stands for "Bring Out Another Thousand Sucker." Baseball still is a hobby, but it is mainly a spectator hobby now. I really need another hobby to keep me going through the winter time. Every year winter hits, I count the days till spring comes to bring out the fun.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Actually, a lot of the superzooms (at least the ones I would consider) do start at 24 mm equivalent. I find even that a little constraining on the low end. I've got a really nice 20 mm for my Cannon SLR and it is a wonderful lens. I agree there are more creative possibilities with wide angle lenses than telephotos. I read an article in National Geographic a couple of decades ago in which about ten of their photographers submitted their own favorite picture and told how they made it. Something like 7 out of 10 were taken with 20 mm lenses, I bought one the next week. However, I also do a fair amount of nature photography and race photography. In both cases you can't get very close to your subjects and my current 28-75 mm digital camera isn't sufficient even with cropping. You really need to go to at least 200 mm but 400 is better.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Didn't mean to hit submit on the above. That's a pileated woodpecker eating berries on my island taken with aforementioned 75 mm digital point & shoot then highly cropped. Obviously a longer zoom could give a much better image.

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

But you HAD the point-and-shoot with you at the time. The most useful camera is the one you always bring. My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic with the rotating flash cube on top. I still remember the hot ozone smell of those flashbulbs.

I went to the olympics in Vancouver with a Nikon D80 and a 200mm telephoto lens. During some events I wished I had a longer lens, but, then, waving around a long camera while in the stands seemed to get on the nerves of some people around me, so I tried to be more discreet. Hard to be discreet if I had a 400. Most events had plenty of elbow room for us shutterbugs, like biathlon:



STF

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

One of the interesting trade off in digital photography is sensor size. Larger sensors have much better image quality, low light capabilities and noise but smaller sensors greatly shrink the size of equivalent length lenses. So a superzoom that reaches to 400 mm equivalent may not be any bigger than a 90 mm lens for a 35 mm camera.

I agree that the best (camera) (knife) (gun) is the one you have with you so I want to get something significantly smaller and lighter than my 35 mm film SLR. The micro-four-thirds cameras seem to be just about the sweet spot in size vs image quality. I would not go smaller on sensor size, that is the downfall of most point and shoot cameras and all cell phones, the sensors are too small. Most people think only in megapixels because it's a simple number (and aggressively marketed) but it's probably one of the least important.

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Yes, this is the so-called 'hybrid' class of camera, mirrorless, often with not even a viewfinder other than the LCD panel but with interchangeable lens, like my Sony NEX-3N with 16mp. However, I'm looking to replace it with a Sony a6000 with 24mp but it has an eye-level viewfinder and a flash mount.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Here are my two best pictures. I was well equipped at the air show. The common factor in both photos was that I was able to support my camera to cope with the long exposure.

--
JHG

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Nice, drawoh!

BTW, the little Ricoh WG-20 (last year's model?) I took with me on vacation last week worked like a charm. I never went very deep with it, but used it several times snorkeling and taking pictures at the beach. This is my youngest and a friend we met at the beach:



A bit blurry due to the waves, but not bad considering. Video works even better.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

An electronic view finder (built in, not clip on) is also on my list of must have features. They are becoming pretty common in the micro-four-thirds cameras.

Isn't Killarney a spectacular area? It's quite close to my island. We have been going up Kirks Creek from McGregor Bay into Three Narrows Lake long before it became a provincial park. The little fishing town of Killarney used to be water access (or float plane) only. We boat there almost every year for a fish dinner on the docks.

This is just west of Killarney, McGregor Bay in the foreground, Bay of Islands to the left and the La Cloche mountains to the north.

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Speaking of photos, I'm currently visiting my alma mater for a series of activities where I'm representing our company (I do this every year). I arrived late Monday evening and this is what it looked like from my hotel yesterday morning:



What you see across the lake (it may look like a river but it's really a lake) is the university's ski hill. Down by the water is an old copper smelting site which has been shut down since after WWII, but is being cleaned-up and will eventually be opened as part of a national historical site perserving some of the history of copper mining in the area.

Note that ship is the Ranger III which is operated by the National Part Service and is how people can get to Isle Royale a National Park out in Lake Superior near the Canadian boarder.



This shot to more toward the city and shows the old hockey stadium where our school played (they're a Division I NCAA Hockey school). This was also where our commencement was held when I graduated back in 1971. It you'll note up on top of the hill you can see the shaft house for the Quincey mine, one of the deepest (over 6,000 feet) shaft mine in the US. They mined copper there until after WWII when the price dropped to where it was no longer feasible to continue to mine copper using anything but open-pit methods. That site has already been designated a national historical site and will be part of the overall historical site. Note that the mine had 23 levels but water now fills it to the 7th level, which I've been down to a few years ago as part of a mine tour that I took.

Anyway, the images below shows you what it looked like this morning when I got up. What a difference a day makes:





Hopefully that's it for the week as I head back Friday morning. Note that the Ranger is not there as it left yesterday morning for the first run of the season to Isle Royale so the ice on Lake Superior must have broken-up enough for them to make it there and back.

These shots were taken with my iPhone 6. I've also taken some photos with my Sony NEX-3N but it was easier to get the iPhone shots over to my laptop as I could simply mail them (note that the Sony a6000 that I'm thinking of getting has built-in WiFi so I'll be able to easily move those photos to my laptop).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

In the late 1960's, in my late single-digit years, in springtime, building dams in the ditches, incorporating old pieces of copper pipe with valves in them to mimic penstocks, although I didn't know that's what they were called. Interesting that in the first half-ish of the 'nineties I was a hydraulic generating station operator for seven or so years, no?

Lego; Meccano; cycling; fixing bicycles; tree forts; canoeing; building and using rafts in the creek; swimming [it's a wonder we never got sick in that E-Coli-infested dairy farm country creek; trespassing on railroad properties, getting into any unattended building or caboose we could, but never vandalizing anything, eventually, in my teens, my brother and I inveigling a ride on the local milk run freight train, with our bicicles along for the ride, so as to save ourselves eight miles of riding from the nearest town where we had stayed WAY TOO LATE in the day; model trains; playing with a Mamod model steam engine; making a funicular railway up the stairs in the house using Hot Wheels track as a guide and a shaded-pole induction motor out of an old rotary TV tuner to do the hoisting - "why can't we get it to spin the other way? It always runs one way, even if you get it spinning backwards before you switch it on..." ..and only being able to play with it for so long before the motor got too hot to hold because it was never made for that kind of duty cycle...

Different stuff in my teens - bu that wasn't childhood anymore... smile

CR

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." [Proverbs 27:17, NIV]

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

I just love it here, where if you don't like the weather, just wait a minute.

The pictures I posted yesterday shows the shots I took on Tuesday and then Wednesday. Well here are the same shots taken this evening about 7:00pm:



John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

I was always fascinated with electrical things as far back as I can remember... the earliest memory being trying to hook a 120v light bulb up to a battery on my tricycle when I was around 6-7 years old.... A few years prior to that, mother told me I survived sticking a knife into an unused 240v stove outlet. Somewhere along the line, I figured if I was going to play with electricity, I'd better learn about it...

Built numerous electrical kit devices.. Got my first ham license at 14, 2nd class FCC commercial radio telephone license a year later.. Took all the math and science I could in high school.

Felt very fortunate as I approached college age in that I knew exactly what I wanted (unlike so many) and willing to bust my rear end to get it.... to graduate with a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from a difficult, highly respected engineering university. And during an incredible (to put a man on the moon and safely return) era for an aspiring engineer... also during the draft for the Vietnam war.. 4 years Naval Reserve up to 2nd class Radioman, commissioned and served 3 years active duty as Electronics Material Officer/ Electronics Warfare Officer.

Primary civilian career as product development engineer, engineering manager at IBM (back in the days of when the company actually did hard core research, design, development and and in house production)..

Retired still playing with electrical stuff, computers, video, security systems, ham radio including building and maintaining a number of VHF/UHF repeater systems over the last 20 years..

Great time to be alive for those who enjoy and are fascinated by current technological development.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

All this talk of ham radio, photography, drawing, astronomy, electronic kits, baseball... Stories from people who were "bitten" by something in their youth, that fostered in them a fascination with the world. And it's stayed with them. I know what it's like, because it happened to me, too, also at a young age, but it's a permanent affliction. My wife is the same way: siezed by an interest in horses at a young age and it doesn't let go. We understand each other on that level.

Does anyone have any philosophical thoughts about why this happens to some people and why it doesn't for others? Where does the spark come from?

I know many people who don't have hobbies, who drifted to the jobs they have, or just because their parents wanted them to do it, or spend their free time just whiling it away. Nothing seems to have drawn them down any particular path. I have difficulty understanding this, when I always seem to have a line-up of interesting stuff I want to do. How can people see the whole world around them, and all the fun stuff that can be done with it, and not be motivated to go try some of it? Why didn't the spark strike them? It would be easy to pass judgement on people, but I remember that many people didn't understand me, either, for all my crazy science talk and inventions when I was young.

STF

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

HO trains - I didn't run the trains much because every few days I would tear up the layout a rebuild things; it drove my father crazy; Kenner Girder & Panel Sets - I had 6 of them, Erector Set, building blocks, Lincoln Logs. Built a few model airplanes, mostly balsa wood. I also had a chemistry set. I still have the telescope I got for Christmas back in 1967.

M main hobby now is oil painting, been at it for about 15 years.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

My aborted attempt at model trains was N-Scale. I've still got all the rolling stock, a couple of engines, lots of track and some other stuff like stations houses, bridges and such but they've been sitting in boxes since we left Michigan 28 years ago. We had a finished basement back there where I had just started to build a layout when I got transferred back to California where I don't have any extra space to set anything up so the stuff is just collecting dust.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

That's why God created e-bay angel

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

STF - I see that same thing in my two teenage sons right now. #2 is obviously going the engineering track already and I have no clue what #1 will be doing in 10-15 years. #1 is into sports, but that is already taking a toll on his body. I'm hoping his final high school years will give him direction, otherwise I see a long and winding road (dah dah! (C) 1970 The Beatles (or Apple Records)) for him.

Z

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

I don't know where the spark comes from but I do remember learning calculus in high school. To me it was like a veil being lifted from my eyes. Here was the math that explained the universe (relativity effects excepted). In a single unifying equation you had mass, force, velocity and acceleration. Electricity, magnetism, etc. all had corresponding analogies. Other classmates complained to the teacher "Why are we learning this, we will never use it in the real world". That's when I knew I was going to be an engineer and that their world and my world were going to be different. I was a little miffed that I hadn't figured calculus out myself, it was so obvious what all those limit theorems etc. had been leading up to.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

I'm somewhat numerically/digitally challenged, and would probably have had to stay in high school for three more years after Grade 12 in order to wrap my head around calculus; I also don't know if it ever would have been included in my curriculum anyway, since I was in the General track and not the Advanced...to this day my understanding of calculus is more intuitive than anything; would reading Calculus for Dummies or an equivalent be of any use?

In addition to being four-function-calculator-capable, I loved trigonometry, and "got" exponentials and roots, and therefore logarithms etc.; but what "functions" were supposed to be I had no idea...and I ran out of school years before finding out.

By the time I was in Grade 6 I already had a pretty good idea I wanted to find a life path involving water and/or steam and/or electricity; that year I was very blessed to have a teacher with a technical background, and one day in a conversation about steam locomotives I mentioned feedwater injectors and how I couldn't understand the way they worked - and lo and behold if he didn't find a way to explain it in terms that this kid in his sixth year of arithmentic was able to intuit...to this day I don't know how he was able to convey the concept of converting the internal energy content of steam into the kinetic energy required to harness Bernoulli's principle in a venturi, may he rest in peace.

CR

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." [Proverbs 27:17, NIV]

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Built model cars and planes, Legos, slot cars, and had a model train set.
Also built a frankensteim BMX bike out of cast-off parts from friends and garage sales
Also "helped" dad work on our cars, especially his 52 Chevy pickup hot rod.
Legos definetely led to my career choice.

David
Connect with me on LinkedIn. http://lnkd.in/fY7-QK
Quote: "If it ain't broke, I must not've fixed it good enough"

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

I used to build mould tools from lego and inject toothpaste into them by standing on tube.... Used to take about 5 weeks to dry before the 'tool' could be opened...

Moved upto melting lead in bean tins after - again into lego moulds, this time lined with small pieces of plaster slab(sheet rock) as insulators.

20ys later pouring stuff into moulds became a big part of my life/career...

Brian,

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

I used to ride motorcycles professionally. I haven't done a gig in a while (2 years) but still admire it so.

My family was very into motorcycles, so I gave it a go when I was about 8 years old. I was homeschooled, so I had much time available to ride. I use to ride 5 hours a day on a course that we built using backhoes we borrowed from a friend of ours who left them at our house while he wasn't using them. I became pretty good at running them, but unfortunately he took them back to work. I did all my own maintenance on the bikes, restored the transmission 7 times by the time I was 14. I've been featured in motorcycle magazines, and local news papers. Created national records, and at one time, won third place American in the world round series (a three day event) in Sequatchie TN.

I loved working on the motorcycles as much as I loved riding them.

I still have 2 bikes, 1) 2007 GasGas 280 TXT Pro, 2) 2006 Triumph Tiger 955i.

-Joe

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

BrianGar- melted lots of lead in tin cans myself as a kid, which might explain a few things...pounded a lot of lead with a hammer too, making sheets of it etc. Graduated more recently to doing sand castings, mostly aluminum and brasses/bronzes though.

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

CR,

That reminds me of when I was 8 or 10 and asked my neighbor why he kept blowing up so many speakers. He proceeded to explain Ohm's Law to me and I was hooked on electronics!

Z

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Hey zapped,

Gotta say, it makes me wonder: if your neighbour understood Ohm's Law, why did he keep blowing up speakers? ponder

During my teens, my steam mentor was a retired marine engineer, a gentleman in his 70's who'd cut his teeth aboard his family's steam-driven fishing boat on Lake Erie. He got his steam ticket via the 'learn by doing' method; I remember well his description of what it involved to simultaneously stoke the boiler, tend its water, and run the engine to orders, the latter transmitted from the 'bridge' by a smart pull on a rope leading to a bell down in the engine room by the "one bell, stop; two bells, ahead; three bells, astern" method.

He told of getting lazier as he got older, eventually extending reach rods to his chair so that everything other than stoking could be done without his even having to stand up...

I met the man in the pickling plant where I had my first non-farm summer job; he was surprised that I already knew how injectors worked, and a few times he put me through my paces operating the injector on the main boiler just for the familiarization...

Guys like me need people like him, may he rest in peace.

CR

CR

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." [Proverbs 27:17, NIV]

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Oh yea... Model rockets anyone?
I just picked up a kit from a garage sale... I think my 9 year old will enjoy building it.

David
Connect with me on LinkedIn. http://lnkd.in/fY7-QK
Quote: "If it ain't broke, I must not've fixed it good enough"

RE: Your childhood hobbies and interests

Also got some electronic project kits. A lie detector, a small light-sensing motion kit thingy, and a few others. Should be fun introducing her to electronics... BZZZZZ!

David
Connect with me on LinkedIn. http://lnkd.in/fY7-QK
Quote: "If it ain't broke, I must not've fixed it good enough"

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