Life Away From The Screen: Non-TV Hobbies

[Sharpie66]

My dad got his dna tested—nothing too unexpected, but he figures that his mom’s side had a bit of Scandinavian that we didn’t know about, since he’s over 50% (his dad was from Sweden).

I do want to do some genealogy on my paternal grandmother’s side. Dad told me some stories about my great-grandparents, but I know nothing about the great-great generation, other than Great-Great Grandma Carson had five adult children and ran her own beauty/barber shop on the far South Side of Chicago in the early 1900s. Apparently, her daughter never mentioned her father to my dad, so no one knows what happened to Great-Great Grandpa Carson. I am really curious to find out how G-G Grandma ended up single and owning her own business in 1900. (Another reason that line fascinated me is the photo I have of my great-grandma with her four siblings in their mature years—I look just like them all! I have Carson stamped all over my face.)

I also want to dig further back on that branch. When I was a kid, my now-deceased aunt told me that my sixth- or seventh-great uncle is Alexander Hamilton. Since that was long before he was cool, I doubt she was making it up, but I want to verify that. 

Being in the Chicago suburbs, it’s just a matter of taking a day off of work and going to the Newberry Library in the city, where they have not only Chicago records, but access to the Mormon genealogy database. They have genealogy specialist librarians on staff to assist you with the records.

Edited March 2, 2018 by Sharpie66

[harrie]

On 3/2/2018 at 11:34 AM, Sharpie66 said:

I also want to dig further back on that branch. When I was a kid, my now-deceased aunt told me that my sixth- or seventh-great uncle is Alexander Hamilton. Since that was long before he was cool, I doubt she was making it up, but I want to verify that. 

Being in the Chicago suburbs, it’s just a matter of taking a day off of work and going to the Newberry Library in the city, where they have not only Chicago records, but access to the Mormon genealogy database. They have genealogy specialist librarians on staff to assist you with the records.

You're lucky to have  good access to a valuable resource. It happens in a lot of families that there's a legend that turns out to have no basis in fact.  My father's family was supposedly related to Abraham Lincoln because Lincoln was a middle name carried down through a few generations of the men in the line. Doing research, I found that a g-great grandfather was a huge fan of A. Lincoln and named his son born in 1860 (the year Lincoln was elected to his first term) with the middle name of Lincoln. Family legend debunked! But you never know what else you will find along the way, and there's almost always something fun to discover. 

[Sharpie66]

Yeah, now that I am in my 50s, I am thinking about family history. My mom’s side is 100% Irish, and a distant cousin put together a family tree back in the 1980s, so that side is mostly covered. I think my dad’s brother mentioned that he was in contact with a cousin in Sweden, where Dad visited a few years ago and got some gravestone photos of my great-grandparents and great aunts and uncles. He doesn’t know any Swedish, so couldn’t dig into records while in Lulea. I do know that Great-grandpa A was a ferry boat captain around WWI before they started building bridges, so if I ever wanted to brave the language gap, I could start there.

Edited March 8, 2018 by Sharpie66

[Zola]

As well as getting my head round calligraphy this year, I am also trying my hand at photo scanning/processing - not just as a hobby but as an extra source of income.

I got talking to a friend at her home a few days ago about school memories. And she then opened a box full of photo negatives (including some 35mm Kodak slides). These weren't hers but those of her parents and grandparents going back some 40 or 50 years!

During the conversation she actually said to me "I would love to get these negatives digitally transferred to disk or USB, so that I could show them to my parents/grand parents in their fully restored digitised glory on their huge smart TVs!"

But then she said she didn't have the time to go through the many hundreds of negatives to find the ones she wanted; and neither did she know of companies that would do that at a reasonable cost.

And that's when a light bulb switched on in my head, and quick as a flash I said something like "Leave it with me, I might be able to help!"

Working in IT I already had most of the equipment to do the processing, including a fairly high-end Epson dedicated scanner. But I had to do some research on things like DPI, compression ratios, ICE, cleaning & handling, photo editing software and a bunch of other things I knew nothing about. 

Anyway, she gave me 50 to get the ball rolling, and I was surprised how long it actually took from start to finish just to do 50! But the end result seems to have been very positive because she now wants me to do the other 600! And she has told her friends, and some of those have made enquiries my way.

So a nice little sideline, but it really does require a lot of time and patience to do right!

Edited July 23, 2018 by Zola

[DeLurker]

@Zola - if you do decide to venture into that more, I would consider looking for an assistant on the autistic spectrum for help.  I can't fully explain why this kind of job may line up nicely with some characteristics of some on the autistic spectrum, but some have the talents that lend themselves very well to technical, yet repetitive applications.  A task that may be a grind for someone of your caliber, may be a very rewarding and engaging job for them.  There are various organizations that work with people on the spectrum and they would be grateful for anyone who could provide an opportunity.

My son is on the spectrum and has been studying Live Entertainment Technology and video editing.  He's high functioning, but any social skills he has probably come from movie or tv scripts so he is truly at a loss when someone IRL goes off-script.  He's an odd duck no doubt, but is also the most genuinely sincere and gentle person I've ever met.

[oliv88]

I have this collection of die-cast models of Cars and motorcycles. Not a huge one though but includes premium brands mostly. 

[HunterHunted]

I started writing about this in the Fantastic Beasts thread, but it didn't seem too germane.

I was inspired after reading American Gods, to write a short story along these lines  (not about Harry Potter or exactly American Gods). The premise of my story was that the ancient gods do exist. They are born, grow old, die, and are reborn in a new culture. Every time they are reborn, they are subject to the cultural limitations of that culture's version of that god. So yeah, it's a little bit Avatar: The Last Airbender too. So in my story, an earth and fertility goddess is in the process of being reborn, the person who is the last believer of an ancient earth and fertility  religion dies. The resultant metaphysical and psychic disruption sends the reborn goddess to the last believer's culture. The believer's faith was strong enough to shift where the goddess was supposed to be reborn. It, however, wasn't enough to limit the power of the goddess. So she's in a culture that doesn't believe in her with no cultural limitations to her power. She begins to travel the world in search of "people" like her. When she finally meets other gods, they are weirded out that she has no limit on her powers simply because she didn't know that she was supposed to have limits on her powers.

Anyway I sort of abandoned it when I ran across some other book that seemed too similar and figured that I must have read the book and accidentally lifted too many details.

[auntlada]

30 minutes ago, LucindaWalsh said:

With the last sentence,  you are an updated version of Never mind... tmRosannaRosannaDanna. ;)

Emily Litella (also Gilda Radner and also funny).

[RealHousewife]

Dancing. I like almost all forms of dance. It's a fun way to meet people and keep in shape. 

Makeup. It's kind of an expensive hobby, but I love collecting makeup, playing around with it, watching tutorials, and I want to eventually go to makeup school. 

[Kerryhua]

Yeah, I agree with you here. Dancing can help you to keep your shape fit and update. But don't rush out for all forms of dancing. Rather focus on one of two types. You'll learn a lot easier I think. 

[Caoimhe]

1 hour ago, icemiser69 said:

Do any of you have any recommendations when it comes to brands of coloring pencils?  They can get pretty pricey, and it looks like some of them use a special pencil sharpener.

I was given a set of 24 Faber-Castell Polychromos, they are expensive so I wouldn’t have bought them myself, they sharpen well, blend beautifully, and are just incredibly nice.  Prismacolor are the ones I bought myself first and my only complaint is that they break off a lot.  Perhaps I got a couple of bad batches because others seem to like them (and they’re more reasonably priced).

[auntlada]

3 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

Do any of you have any recommendations when it comes to brands of coloring pencils?  They can get pretty pricey, and it looks like some of them use a special pencil sharpener.

I was looking up Prismacolor pencils because I thought I remembered that some are softer than others when I ran across this site that you might find useful:  https://www.thebalancesmb.com/best-colored-pencils-4160786. I cannot vouch for the information or the prices, but it might give you some ideas.

[stewedsquash]

@Moose135 this came across my twitter feed and I thought of you. Planes/space/ photography

Pilot captures a liftoff above the clouds