Wednesday, June 15, 2011

guilty minor distractions

As the title to my blog suggests I am a serial hobbyist. This means from time to time I get distracted by my various hobbies. I sometimes feel a great deal of guilt from this, however I am finally grasping that like I state all the time its a hobby not a job. I should feel no guilt from treasuring my other hobbies.

I joined a woodturning club at the beginning of the year and really like it. Since getting a lathe I have become addicted to finding projects for it. Lathes are fun tools, you can finish really quickly, find fun creative projects, and mostly get wood for free just go around looking for people that have cut down trees. I started turning pens as well at the beginning of the year which I find entertaining. I am always seeing ideas for turned objects and scraps I would like to find a purpose for.

Recently someone contacted me about buying one of the airplane kits I have stashed. At first I was seriously tempted to sell it. Means I could have some more money for hock irons or other such thing I have desires to purchase. Well that ended when he stated he wanted to see pictures of the kit. I opened the box and a waft of balsa "energy" came over me. I felt a sadness at the idea of not building it. I got the kit in trade for building an airplane a few years ago. Its a plane called a Hammer 40 a sport pattern plane from the 1990s before the company's factory and warehouse burned down putting the company out of business. It is such a rare kit and has just sat in my garage for all this time. It sparked my interest in airplanes again and now I am eager to start building another airplane. This fall I can build it and re-up my AMA coverage and join another club somewhere again, we will see.

I had purchased an electric helicopter but got about 75 percent done with it before getting distracted. Was hoping to get back to readying it for flight but that might be on hold again since a friend of mine game me his old electric helicopter. It had been sitting around not getting flown and he decided to part with it.

I want to do a review on the blog when I get a chance. Everyone that knows me believes me to be a Linux fanatic. So when I went looking for a laptop I was determined to find again a company preloading them with ubuntu. I like this for two reasons, I feel I am supporting the distro and I am not buying a license I plan on tossing out the minute I get the computer. Two companies out there right now that sell preloaded systems are System76 and Zareason. I chose Zareason because they had what I was looking for in hardware and in price. I went through a lot recently trying to see if I could get one from Dell which turned out to be a bust since they no longer really sell many systems with Ubuntu or Linux period. It causes a lot of headaches to order one now with the operating system you want instead of the one that has a strangle hold on the market. I will say I did end up with a great laptop for a fair price.

Alot to say in one post! I find myself in a woodworking quandary when I do love to build stuff but often get distracted. I'm still working to get rid of the guilt but that comes so natural. I need to let that go or else I wont enjoy everything else I like in my life.