expensive hobbies...
- Thread starter LukeD
- Start date
Fly fishing- 20+ rods and reels, 5 boat bags full of flies, 3 boats (1 with a motor), tons of clothing, gear.
Waterfowl hunting- see motor boat above, 500+ decoys, clothing, guns, etc.
Waterfowl hunting- see motor boat above, 500+ decoys, clothing, guns, etc.
Pre-Accident and TBI.
Audio - Primarily Naim.
Cars - Honda EP3 - Type R swap.
Bikes - you bunch of bastards are hard on the wallet at times.
Post Accident.
Audio - Hard to enjoy with a constant headache. Get the occasional listen in, but it sucks having a luxury car in your basement you can't use. Probably time to sell the lot, but the bottom has dropped out of the used market. Kids today think 128k is awesome, so nobody is taking up the mantle.
Cars - Still have the Type R conversion and it is fun, but I'm getting too old to lie in the driveway with a wrench in my hand swearing at rusty shit. Car has been done for a bit, just got dirty putting new pads / rotor and a caliper on it. It will need a new header in the spring, as the heat shield is gone and there is some terminal rust. So thinking have either ASP or Hytech build me one, as it would be a lot easier than getting another Type-R out of Jay-pan. That will be good for about 2K before install and tune.
Bikes - Well just built a new trailbike this spring, and put an Avy cart into the big bike, so that wallet-draining past-time is alive and well.
Audio - Primarily Naim.
Cars - Honda EP3 - Type R swap.
Bikes - you bunch of bastards are hard on the wallet at times.
Post Accident.
Audio - Hard to enjoy with a constant headache. Get the occasional listen in, but it sucks having a luxury car in your basement you can't use. Probably time to sell the lot, but the bottom has dropped out of the used market. Kids today think 128k is awesome, so nobody is taking up the mantle.
Cars - Still have the Type R conversion and it is fun, but I'm getting too old to lie in the driveway with a wrench in my hand swearing at rusty shit. Car has been done for a bit, just got dirty putting new pads / rotor and a caliper on it. It will need a new header in the spring, as the heat shield is gone and there is some terminal rust. So thinking have either ASP or Hytech build me one, as it would be a lot easier than getting another Type-R out of Jay-pan. That will be good for about 2K before install and tune.
Bikes - Well just built a new trailbike this spring, and put an Avy cart into the big bike, so that wallet-draining past-time is alive and well.
wait what. details, man!
Whadya get?
- DJing (duh). Re-retired from playing out a couple of years ago (staying out all night doesn't mix well with being a good parent). Still have some money tied up in gear, but it's more about how much space it takes up. I sold off a lot of my vinyl, but I still have ~25 crates, plus decks, CDJs, mixer, small system, lighting etc.
- Photography. I stopped shooting large format when my second kid was born, so processing fees are gone. Have a few K in body, lenses and printer.
- Guitar. I've spent a lot on this one over the years, but tend to sell then buy, so never a ton at once.
- Snowboarding. This was a big expense before kids. However the cost/benefit of taking a family four up to the mountains for the weekend vs riding my bike means I ride my bike. This may change as they get older, don't complain on long drives, and can keep up.
- Bikes. Biggest recurring monthly hobby expense. I buy way too much shit just to try it, not like it and sell it on ebay. Speaking of which...anyone need some barely used tires, 800/31.8 handlebars, an Evoc backpack or Revgrips?
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Yeah, put the down payment on a 997 911 yesterday, I am planning a little road trip for when I pick it up and will get some pics out asap!
mechanical keyboards...though they aren't really all that expensive
I have two kids
My house is in the woods, and having trees removed counts as expensive, and it happens often enough that it's becoming a hobby in itself....
I have two kids
My house is in the woods, and having trees removed counts as expensive, and it happens often enough that it's becoming a hobby in itself....
Funny you brought that thing up, I worked at a shop back in the day (98-2003 ish), we had a very wealthy customer who had like 3 of those exact bikes. They ended up being the first thing I ever sold online, he wanted us to get rid of them for him and I found MTBR had classifieds...Totally forgot about about it.
i've started drinking espresso on the regular again, mostly making at home. i've been looking at some of the "high end" gear out there and holy moly. last night i saw coffee grinders that are north of $500
ooh yeah, I have a jura e6...but drinking coffee isn't really a hobby as much as an essential life function
I started doing that as well instead of buying it etc, I bought a lightly used breville machine w/ an integrated bur grinder, I think I spent about $350 ish on it...It will easily have paid itself off by the end of the year.
right now i have a presso which i've been real happy with, although i recently learned they've updated the design (to achieve higher pressure) and made a retrofit kit for the original model i have that allows it to get the higher pressures of the new design.
Are those dildos or bar ends?
Can vouch for this grinder. Can *easily* be completely disassembled, and Baratza has replacement parts should anything go wrong. I had it several years and the tiny "hopper installed" switch crapped out. $10 and a few days later, a new switch had shown up. Took about 10 minutes to fix it. I wanna say it was about $100.
i was astounded to learn the number of world cup XC teams that travel with high end machines; several teams travel with a rocket R58.
I have a Compak K3 Touch (not the advanced version) and a QuickMill QM67 (pre-EVO).
Wasn't cheap, but every day I have better coffee than I could buy pretty much anywhere in town. There's maybe 5 places that can make better coffee than me.
Though I have to say, I got my grinder as a refurb from a barista training place (so lightly used, not in a commercial setting), and my machine back when the Canadian peso was actually worth more than the USD.
why "had"? That Fiorenzato looks nice...
that's a nice setup. maybe i'll get something fancy once the kids are out of college. until then, ballin' on a budget.
I was able to sell it to my wife as a necessity when she was pregnant with our second, and my previous machine crapped out. The previous machine was a 30-year old commercial Brasilia that I'd bought used from an old gentleman that fixed machines in the back of his Italian Gift Shop. I sold her on the fact it was good quality, unlikely to break, and easy to fix. It's been 7 years now, and the only issue I've had was the empty tank sensor not working once. That's it.
As with all things, there's good deals to be had out there if you know what you want, and have a little patience. I'd say the best place to start is with a quality grinder. It makes the biggest difference in consistently making quality coffee.
true that. bear in mind, you're talking to someone who once had to resort to smashing coffee beans in a ziploc bag with a meat tenderizer because the power was out.
ah yes! the "no power" situation. for that, I have a Porlex hand grinder, an Aeropress, and a camping stove....
the Porlex grinder is nice because it fits into the Aeropress. I take it travelling, camping, and use it when the power is out. It's been a pretty awesome combo.
I use my hand grinder these days as I really can't justify an electric. PRO TIP: taking the handle off and attaching a cordless drill gives you an electric grinder anyway.
I thought you were going to say handys in the Starbucks bathroom for coffee money...
You must not drink much coffee.
Astro-photography is what I do in the off season and it can get scary expensive.
I only have a sub $2k build and I can get a decent long-duration photo of the closest brightest galaxy
I only have a sub $2k build and I can get a decent long-duration photo of the closest brightest galaxy
I too suffered from the large format photography obsession and have some decent vintage cameras and lenses. I haven't touched them for 9 years though, shame on me.
If you ever want to unload them a close friend from college works in the historical processes group at the Eastman house, and specializes in large format.
yeah, skiing/snowboarding is expensive! as is eating nice food, and my trumpets/piano (altho those don't need updating every year. few things to wear out
oh yeah, and photography. how did i forget that? must be repression
These things from my pre-capitalization days (pre devices that autocorrected!) are still true. My trumpets are worth more than the Land Cruiser (but not the Tesla!), skiing is still an expensive sport (lessons for the kids!), and fancy steaks are $$$. I haven't bought any new photo gear in a while, at least, cruising with my 5D II that's usually mated to my 135/2L.cool. good to see a fellow trumpet player on the board. uh, i run monette stuff btw (149XL for Bb, C973 for C)...
i love it, tho.
The FSM works in mysterious ways, as I recently bumped into this bit of 'net randomness and didn't know where to put it:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
This is the World's Largest Optical Lens: It's 5 Feet Wide and Took 5 Years to Make
When you're building the world's largest digital camera, to power one of the world's most impressive telescopes, you're going to need to manufacture one
petapixel.com
This is the World’s Largest Optical Lens: It’s 5 Feet Wide and Took 5 Years to Make
SEP 27, 2019
DL CADE
52 COMMENTS
When you’re building the world’s largest digital camera, to power one of the world’s most impressive telescopes, you’re going to need to manufacture one of the world’s most incredible lenses. That’s how this massive, 5.1-foot wide optic—the largest high-performance optical lens ever made—came to be.
Th 3.2-gigapixel camera being built for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) was thought up over a decade ago. But after getting the green light in 2011, and securing funding in 2015, it was off to the races as engineers and scientists began to turn this idea into a functioning reality.
The camera features the largest CCD image sensor mosaic in the world, combining 189 individual sensors into a single 3.2-gigapixel imaging area that—once it’s operational and perched atop Cherro Pachon mountain in Chile—will snap a 15-second exposure of the night sky every 20 seconds or so. This will enable the telescope to capture the entire visible southern sky every few nights!
But a sensor is nothing without some optics, and in the case of the LSST, that includes three massive mirrors, and two lens elements: the 5.1-foot wide L1 lens element we’re talking about today, and a “smaller” companion lens element that’s “only” 3.9 feet wide. According to a press release published by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the primary lens is “believed to be the world’s largest high-performance optical lens ever fabricated.”
The two lenses were made by Colorado-based Ball Aerospace and its subcontractor, Tucson-based Arizona Optical Systems, over the course of five years, mounted together in a carbon fiber structure, and then shipped by truck from Tucson, AZ to the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, where there was a bit of a celebration, some fist bumps, and a bunch of photographs taken upon the lens’ safe arrival.
Here’s a closer look at this record-breaking optic:
Credit for the creation of this incredible lens goes to LLNL optical scientists Lynn Seppala and Brian Bauman and LLNL engineers Vincent Riot, Scott Winters and Justin Wolfe, whose work “spanning a period of nearly two decades” helped make all of the LSST camera’s optics a reality.
To learn more about this amazing lens element and the record-breaking camera that it will become a part of, head over to the LLNL website or scroll through more pictures on the SLAC Lab’s Flickr account.