OT - what do you like to do in your non-TI time?

[sparkdrummer]

Those are some pretty good looking axes Chris.

[wyerd]

I obsessively watch Sky Sports F1 broadcasts of Qualifying and Race day for Formula 1, since the hybrid era began in 2014. That is the only sport I follow. And only now that the kids are off in college. Nearly 20 years ago, I followed CART in the 98 and 99 season. Both of these are interests as a spin-off of computer games I enjoy.

 

-M@

Another F1 nut here! Have been since the late '80 when I used work for Honda at their manufacturing plant in the U.K. as an AS/400 programmer. That's when Honda was winning races and championships, not like now.....oh dear. I remember when Nigel Mansel visited the plant with his Williams car and did donuts at the end of the test track - I was hooked, the Jananese managers were none too impressed!

 

How do you get the Sky Sports coverage over here? I watch it on Channel 4 (UK) via a Smart DNS service as the NBC Sports coverage is awful!

[+jedimatt42]

Another F1 nut here! Have been since the late '80 when I used work for Honda at their manufacturing plant in the U.K. as an AS/400 programmer. That's when Honda was winning races and championships, not like now.....oh dear. I remember when Nigel Mansel visited the plant with his Williams car and did donuts at the end of the test track - I was hooked, the Jananese managers were none too impressed!

 

How do you get the Sky Sports coverage over here? I watch it on Channel 4 (UK) via a Smart DNS service as the NBC Sports coverage is awful!

 

NBC coverage is aweful. Or at least the 3 or 4 times I've tried to watch a live race during US hours.

 

I do have high hopes for Honda to turn it around for McLaren... Really enjoyed JB, but miss him this year. It'll be a treat to have him back for Monaco while Alonso has his dalliance with left turns. Alonso managed to qualify today in a points earning way... But I fear it won't quite turn into points tomorrow. I'd love to be wrong.

 

This year is turning out to be exciting!!!

 

-M@

[+arcadeshopper]

When not doing TI stuff I'm collecting/fixing/restoring arcade games and pinball machines, going around and getting other classic systems for the collections (recently colecovision, coco's and another apple iie) and trying to find time to hike/camp/explore the Oregon wilderness

 

Greg

[apersson850]

When at work I design and program electric control systems for machines. Hence an interest in real-time programming. I'm also frequently managing customer related projects, where different production lines are built to suit their needs. This is why I'm not so busy with the TI 99/4A, since I get to do similar things and get paid for it.

 

On my own time I have a house to attend to. I also do orienteering, sometimes combined with going to multi-day meets with my camping trailer. I'm currently the chairman of the club I'm competing for. Photography is another interest, so you can of course frequently find images of the orienteering sport in my web album.

[Mitkraft]

I'm a big tinkerer and tend to bounce around a bit from project to project. I'll get obsessed with something for a while then move on but have several things that I come back to. I'm always into computers of some form so I'm often building, working on, repairing various modern computers. Along with tinkering with my TI I also have plans for a Commodore setup (currently have a non-working Vic20 which I might repair and parlay into a C64). I also tinker with a handful of consoles including VCS, SMS, Odyssey-2 as well as a modern (ish?) Xbox and Wii (I have 3 360's I plan to make one working unit out of).

 

My current obsession is vintage audio gear and I have a HUGE collection of vinyl albums which is about 50% classical, 15% Jazz and the rest mostly pop, rock, r&b etc. I have a few vintage receivers and speakers that I plan on refurbishing in the near future. I also have plans to upgrade my digital playback game with a much better DAC (digital to analog converter) since I've been converting from MP3 to FLAC and have acquired some high resolution audio files recently.

 

On the back burner lately is my interest in Arcade machines. I have two arcade projects in the garage that are held up mostly by the cabinet work I need to do. I need to sand, repair, and repaint the cabinets. One machine is an original Tron arcade cabinet that I bought completely gutted and have since acquired most of the reproduction graphics and plastics for as well as original controls. I don't have any of the game boards for it though and since it wasn't an original to begin with I don't feel to bad turning it into a multi. It will have an original tron Joystick with a Groovygamegear repro handle and a modern USB push-pull spinner in place of the original to enable other spinner games including Discs of Tron. The other arcade cabinet is a generic dynamo cab that will also be a multi but have a pair joystick + 6 button controls for two player fighter games. I also have acquired a taste for pinball so I'll probably get one of those at some point.

 

Other obsession that are currently on the back burner and could come back any time:

 

Motorhomes - I's really love to buy and refurbish an RV but storage costs have prevented me so far.

Camping and Fishing

Playing Music - I was a trumpet player through college and pursued most of a music degree before switching to a BA so one of these days I'm going to get back into shape and start playing my horns again. I still have my Bb, C, and Flugel horns.

[notwhoyouthink]

Gamebooks & misc. interesting Print n Play titles from Boardgamegeek.com .

Edited December 21, 2017 by notwhoyouthink

[+9640News]

A little about myself.........

 

Prior to leaving Memphis in 2001 for Houston, TX for a new job as a research chemist, I was teaching scuba diving as a side hobby while working during the day as a chemist. After I moved closer to the shoreline, turns out I had less opportunities for profitable instruction in scuba. I got bored, and one day saw a Powered Paraglider that flew over me as I was wade fishing in Galveston Bay. About 8 months later, I had purchased equipment and was flying in 2004.

 

For those that are not aware what a Powered Paraglider is, it is a backpack 2-stroke motor typically around 25 hp spinning a 48 to 51" propeller. The airspeed is typically about 25 to 30 mph and depending upon pilot's weight, equipment, and tank size, flight times of 2 to 4 hours are possible. I've launched at the beach at sea level and have climbed up to over 12,000' several times. If you ever want to fly like a bird, there is no other form of aviation like this. You can be dragging your feet in the sand one moment, or in another minute, have climbed up higher seeing the countryside. No license is required, and if you are foolish enough, you can teach yourself. Best though to seek instruction.

 

One of the most beautiful places I have flown is Monument Valley, Utah. There have also been some other, er rather "adult" enjoyable moments when flying over some beaches where we call the strutting women as "Double Breasted Beach Thrashers". Then, there is also the occasion where I have caught couples in what they thought were secluded locations. During my flying time, I have been able to assist law enforcement in the recovery of a stolen motor bike I found in a secluded area, saving another pilot that was drowned and no longer breathing, and about 3 years ago, found an elderly lady still alive in a remote rural area that had been drinking from the gator filled bayou's flying for a search and recovery group, Texas Equusearch.

 

Since 2004, I setup a website to sell equipment (http://www.USWingNuts.com) for the sport and I also have two club websites (http://www.KYBlueGrassPPG.com and http://www.IndyAirHogs.com). I used to have the http://www.TXWingNuts.com website I created but turned it over a few months ago to an individual back in Texas since I left the area and now live in Kentucky working as process chemist.

 

I try to go to 2 or 3 Fly-In events each year as well as local flying here in Kentucky. Since I have moved up here to Kentucky, equipment sales have increased significantly and I hope to be offering paid instruction this coming year after I setup a LLC. Again, powered paragliding is a side hobby/sport/interest while my chemist job pays all the bills.

 

After having moved my house contents from Texas to Kentucky this past February, I have finally found time to setup a couple of computer systems that were given to me before I left. One was a Geneve 9640 with HFDC and the other a TI-99/4A with HFDC. I had issues with being able to format the hard drives, so I bought another HFDC known to be working. When it too had problems, I began to suspect cabling issues. Turns out that fixed the formatting issues. The second HFDC has a problem and I suspect it is with a bad trace on the edge connector. In the meantime, the third HFDC works fine so I have two full working systems.

 

I did go ahead and purchase an additional Myarc FDC and a Myarc 512K card. The FDC went with the Geneve and the 512K card went into the TI system to use Myarc's Extended Basic. With the TIPI project, I also went ahead and got a Raspberry PI, an eeprom programmer, and a UDS-10. I plan on seeing what I can do with either My-Term on the Geneve or maybe running a TI BBS if there is interest on the 4A. Not sure where that will lead yet or how much interest there is.

 

Anyways, that is a bit of history on myself.

 

Beery

[AMenard]

I'm a tech support analyst.

 

My hobbies are in no particuliar order: documentaries watching, electronics, digital drawing/painting, music and the love of women.

[+OLD CS1]

Professionally, I am a technology consultant which tends to be like glorified help-desk, but I am looking to get into more contract network administrative or disaster recovery work.

 

I spend most of my own time being a jerk.

[digdugnate]

i'll fill in a little more with what i do for a living as well.

 

I used to be a Service Delivery Manager for my company, I ran a nationwide Help Desk to support our users. I was an Analyst for about 3 years, then Manager for 3, then i got out of it as soon as possible and now am a Network Administrator for our NetOps team. I'm also studying for my CCENT exam (there's a pay raise associated with a cert)

 

In addition to running, my hobbies are vintage computing, playing on my XBox One/3DS/SNES Mini (which i've *ahem* upgraded the kernel), and movies/tv. I don't have the attention span for books (sadly)- I started the Dark Tower series but fizzled out at book 5. I'm hoping to pick it back up soon.

 

I also spend a lot of my time as chauffeur for my kids (11 and 13) and my wife for her doctor appts/etc- this takes a lot of my 'non work' time.

[AMenard]

Professionally, I am a technology consultant which tends to be like glorified help-desk, but I am looking to get into more contract network administrative or disaster recovery work.

 

I spend most of my own time being a jerk.

In other word we're doing the same job but by different title

 

My "clients" are for the most part engineer since I work for the equipment division for the national electricity provider. That's the division that build and repair the dam, powerline and powerstation. I get to work on really nice machine that I can't afford myself

[Retrospect]

When I'm not doing my TI99 hobby I currently do between 200 and 900 press-ups a day. Normal ones and reverse ones. I like to do something that gets a visible result. I can do pull-ups too but at 15 stone 9lbs they are getting difficult!

[+OLD CS1]

In other word we're doing the same job but by different title

 

So, what do you call being a jerk?

[AMenard]

So, what do you call being a jerk?

Un emmerdeur (jerk in french)

[Mitkraft]

.... During my flying time, I have been able to assist law enforcement in the recovery of a stolen motor bike I found in a secluded area, saving another pilot that was drowned and no longer breathing, and about 3 years ago, found an elderly lady still alive in a remote rural area that had been drinking from the gator filled bayou's flying for a search and recovery group, Texas Equusearch.

That is freaking awesome! Kudos to you for turning a hobby into something that can be such a huge service to people in an emergency!

Edited December 22, 2017 by Mitkraft

[+Ksarul]

Me, I just deal with computer security for ICS/SCADA systems. . .which is a lot of fun, as not too many other folks with a CISSP have that specialty yet.

[+OLD CS1]

My Offensive Security instructor had a particular focus with UPnP systems, but his own personal fascination was on SCADA systems. Got me interested as well at the time (couple years back) but the time since I have let that slip.

 

I will just say it is rather amazing, and altogether scary, how many SCADA systems can be accessed from the Internet.