Hi all.
I know we all share the same interest in astronomy but other then that we really dont know each other at all,so I am starting this thead with the hope that maybe we can keep this going and get to know each other alittle better.

There are a few things that I really enjoy. I love to cook and I cook mostly over an open wood fire all year round. I have a grill/smoker that can cook up to 100 lbs of what ever you like to eat.

My wife Laurel and I have a place close to the allegheny National Forest in Pa. We both love camping hiking fishing and oh yea hanging around a camp fire at night. When we can go away on a vacation we seem to always go to the Nc.Shore,we love the ocean.

I teach martial arts. I have trained in Goshin jitsu and Matsusoken white crane for over 25 yrs. I also hunt for fossils,Ive been collecting and giving away fossils for 45 yrs. I will post some of my finds soon.

Anway my name is Paul and I hope to here from you. Clear skies to all.

Spelling lessons?

(Sorry, I'm a nitpicker.)

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Paul, I see your images and am corroded with jealousy (which means I can't wait for your next).

I write. Not much gets published.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

I think we've done this before but what the heck...

I like to cook, too...in the kitchen, on the grill, and in my smoker. In the winter, the wife and I shovel a path out to the grill on the deck. I cure and smoke whole meats and sausages. I hand-toss a mean pizza too. I've even made cheese a time or two.

I'm a flyfisher, flytyer, and shooting enthusiast. I haven't hunted in quite some time but I do have a Labrador Retriever that I throw in the lake on a regular basis so he can bring retrieving dummies back to me...with great enthusiasm.

I'm heavily into DIY around the house and I'm otherwise pretty good with my hands on the occasional woodworking project. I do leatherwork every now and then, too.

I'm a photographer whose main interest is landscape but I shoot a wedding every now and then.

I'm an aficionado of fine cigars, whiskies (especially single malt Scotch), wine, and beer...although I'm no expert on any of them.

I build my own computers when I feel the need for a new one. I enjoy flight simulation to the point of having a full set of controls: yoke, throttle quadrant, and rudder pedals. I've also just gotten back into FPS co-op gaming.

I'm retired USAF and a member of American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (Life).

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Brett
Peters Creek, Alaska
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Single and reasonably happy that way, I like to tinker with model railways and motorcycles. Mid-life crisis in full swing. Chronic and enthusiastic smoker of the products of more than one Continent. BAUT forum groupie. Secret crush on Kleindoofy. Oops!

I used to do quite a bit of soaring and was a member of the British Gliding Association and the Soaring Society of America. Now I don't do it as much because I currently do not live close enough to a glider port (*Sigh*). Besides, I get enough flying in my regular job anyway.

My wife and I currently do pottery however, I do it much more frequently than she does.

I also travel quite a bit (stopped counting after 35 countries).

Lately, it pretty much consists of talking on the phone and playing counselor to everyone. When I am not doing that I am quietly judging every little thing other people do. Apparently, I was a much nicer person when I had my own problems.

Didn't realize this topic had "been there, done that" but as you say, what the heck. Haven't posted for awhile so I have lost track your non-astronomy laden lives.

Noclevername, touche. Back on topic, grammar, spelling and punctuation are not interests of mine (there were SO many other words on which to have nitpicked ), though when necessary I can write with the best of them. So, other than astronomy and nitpicking, what ARE your interests?

Mike thanks for the kudos, I will try to post soon. What subject(s) do you write about?

Peter you are a multifaceted guy. Good thing you are retired or you wouldn't have time to sleep! I can picture your Lab now . I used to be a fly tyer and still have much of the paraphernalia tucked away. I am an avid reader, mostly magical/fantasy, but other well-written genres can definitely catch my attention. I used to hunt (archery and rifle/pistol) but about 20 years ago I decided that I would rather hunt with a camera - very satisfying and I get meat from my buddies.

Middenrat, you sound very happy, kudos to you! The wife won't indulge me in my desire to have another bike as I have messed up my body pretty well when I was a 'youngster'.

adapa, oh to have travelled like you have - I'm green with envy. Gliders - something I would love to try someday.

closetgeek, sounds like you need to get together with Middenrat and have a smoke.

I will be posting some fossil photos and hope you all enjoy; perhaps you'll want to pick up another hobby!

I post to and read from this forum with great enthusiasm and my posts won't always be perfectly rendered. It's the thought that counts, and the stars don't care

Me enjoying a rock climb over Boulder:

I am a big gaming fanatic. I play alot of PS3 games with my kids. We also love camping, fishing, hiking, and walks on the beach. I do some gold panning for a hobby, thanks to my dad. I don't expect to be rich, but it is good to get out in the fresh air. I love shooting for sport but have never been hunting.

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Defining science can be difficult. It’s a method, a way of looking at things. It’s a compendium of facts, knowledge, data. It’s a tool, used to investigate the world and to make sure we don’t let our biases, egos, and wishes get in the way of finding what’s real. Science (and skepticism) boil off the dross and leave the pure nugget of reality. ~Phil Plait

My name is Paul as well! I enjoy a good BBQ as well (during summer, right now it's in the low 40's and pouring rain, bad for BBQ...). I've been experimenting with different marinades, seasonings, etc. for chicken, burgers, steak, what have you.

I'm a big home theater junky. I'm lucky to have a dedicated space for it downstairs, and a wife who tolerates all my bass traps and subwoofers...

I enjoy reading, esp. Sci Fi. I also enjoy history.

I also like camping and hiking, lots of that up here in the Pacific NW. The NW isn't real conducive to clear, stable skies, but I get my scope out whenever possible.

I love a good road trip. Last summer I took my scope to Great Basin National Park in Nevada and experienced the best skies I've ever been under. The hiking was nice too.

Wow!

After reading some of the previous posts my life feels rather mundane..

Still heres my small list:

I do off road motorcycle competition, mainly moto x & trials.
I play golf and am a 5 handicap at the moment.
I do keep fit, gym work 4 times a week then do 3 sessions of CV a week, running, cycling and rowing.
I like to read sci-fi novels Dean Koontz being a favourite author of mine.
Other than this above I spend the other time either working or looking after my young son.

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ooops..... wrong forum!!!

Reading, watching movies, photography, cycling, swimming, cooking, shooting, camping, hiking, and spending time with my friends.

Oh, and I love to fly, but I'm just not in a situation where I can afford to or be paid to fly at the moment.

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If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

Flatirons?

Very nice - I've hiked up the second flatiron (as well as several other trails around Chautauqua), but I haven't done any climbing there.


As for me, aside from astronomy, I love skydiving and amateur rocketry. Here's a recent launch of mine to around 17,250 feet at mach 1.1:

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WANTED:

Schroedinger's Cat

Dead And Alive

Hey, I'm only retired from my military career. I still have to work for a living!

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Brett
Peters Creek, Alaska
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Besides astronomy, I am interested in languages (just refreshing my Esperanto, and Spanish is somewhere on my list), reading voraciously (fiction: thrillers of all kind and hard SF; nonfiction: popular science, magazines like Discover and Scientific American), and anything that has to do with the brain, be it crossword or sudoku or chess.
Sport however I just don't do. I like walking (fast but no power walking) - 20 miles per day should keep me fit but otherwise no thanks. Not even watching sport on the TV.

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Mars Society.

I'm a Junior in High School. I want to major in archeology in college and go into either archeoastronomy, underwater archeology, or remote sensing archeology. (Can't decide, they're all so cool!)

I enjoy reading mystery stories and comic books, and I write stories of my own that may or may not be any good.

I run Cross Country at my school, and just completed the season. I am scuba certified, but I don't get to dive much. Other than scuba and XC, I don't really like sports, although I always watch the Olympics.

In my spare time, I like to write, draw, take photographs, and help out as a stagehand at my school's plays.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Yeah, that was the First Flatiron. I've climbed on a few Flatirons and also in the neighboring areas like Eldorado Canyon, Boulder Canyon and Lumpy Ridge. Very fine rock around here. I've also gotten into a lot of the hiking around here and summitted my first fourteener a few months ago. I also did my first snow/glacier climb this past August.

Hi, I've been rebuilding my Daughter's home near Boston, making some furniture, replacing my boiler (do it yourself pays well..) rebuilding my CJ7 jeep for snow plowing, golf ( shot a 34 for 9 last time out...personal best),
sailing when I can, pretty good potter , but it's getting expensive to fire.
I am frequently found haunting the Bautforum which I enjoy immensely.
Oh yes.... and I cook fairly well. And I never pass up a ride in a small aircraft.
Some water colour ( sea scapes and landscape/architecture )
a good jump in the ocean , and time with my friends playing guitar.
My grandaughter takes up the rest of my free time! !!
As you can see, with my Wife and I retired, we have nothing much to do.

Best regards,
Dan

Other than astronomy,

I love making paper models, writing poetry, art, music (haven't yet attempted to create any), and I especially love a good game of chess. Not big into PC games, but I do enjoy a few. I don't go out much, not much to do, few people to visit with with similar interests to mine. Recently finished highschool, and am working now because I can't afford to further my education.

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Look at the BAUT banner, something fishy about it. Boxing gloves are probably not able to withstand the pressures involved in space. Another thing, look at the astronauts visor? See the sun? It's in front of him, but the illuminated ground that we see in the reflection is also in front of him when it should be behind him. Furthermore, the stars shouldn't be visible if the camera exposure was set for viewing lunar landscapes and astronauts. In all, I'm fairly sure the BAUT banner is fake.

Go figure, I fly for a living. My passions outside of aviation are all about the great outdoors; hiking, climbing, scuba diving, skiing, biking, running, swimming (triathlons), and most of all my family. Astronomy has been a great interest since living in a great dark sky location here in the Southwest USA. I am all about good foods too and I like green chilies, red chilies on everything, microbrew beer especially IPA's, and good Bourbons. Bourbon is best with a quality cigar served outside on a warm summer evening. Love reading SCI FI and my favorite of late was the Old Mans War series. That ought to sum it up for now.

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

I'm a father of 4 (freshman in college, senior in HS, 4th and 3rd graders) so you can imagine what things other than astronomy take most of my time.

I really enjoy hiking /camping and am now within 200 miles of finishing the Appalachian Trail (northbound) but alas, this year's trip was put on hold; I'm looking forward to Mt. Katahdin.

However, I coach soccer, play music (finishing up a solo project where all parts are played by me), garden/ landscape, Sail - although only once this year (I've a 24' Hunter), but most of all I play disc golf, alot.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Gardening, including green housing (produce rather than pretty flowers, sorry BD), preserving said for winter eating.
Old-school crafts¹, mainly related to viking age which depending on how you look at it is late iron age or early medieval.
I'm likely to catch some flak from reenactment people when it comes to that as I do the crafts with a modern aesthetic rather than going for making perfect replicas.²
Playing with computers for fun and profits, preferably simultaneously


1) tablet weaving, smithing, colliery, bowyery, carpentry and other crafts also used now, as well as any craft where the directed stubbornness of keeping doing it over and over until it's good enough will actually get the job done⁴.
2) an example is the helmet in my album which is a combination of the Ulltuna and Valsgärde 6 helmets, which I consider allowed because the two helmets were found within 20 km of each other and are dated as less that 50 years apart, so the smith of the last can definitely have seen the other. That one would probably be considered just plain wrong by reenacters because it isn't a replica of a specific find.
I think it's right because it'll stop an axe. Yes, I tested it, I can show you the faint line it left
It also makes for a really impressive sound when headbutting another guy with a similar philosophy on "live rpg" armor³.
3) Their weapons are padded so they don't harm, my armor is real so I don't care. That also means it looks really good rather than intensely naff.
4) Therefore not skydiving.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

HeinrikOlsen, How big is your green house? I have been wanting to construct one on some very limited space about 7 feet x 12. I had wondered how practical such a small green house would be?

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

Mine is about 8 feet by 8 feet and is practical enough for me.

That's room enough for 8 capillary watering boxes for grow bags with space for 2 or 3 tomato plants in each, as well as a small table where I can work and have seeds germinating and so on.

This summer I had tomatoes in 6 of the boxes, peppers in 2 and it gave me about 3 pounds of tomatoes a day in the peak weeks so I had to make sauce of a lot of them.

Attached Thumbnails

 

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Here are my pasttimes:

Play Chess

Running/biking/swimming

Birdwatching

reading math books

playing with power tools in my garage

taking care of horses and sheep at the local 4-H farm where my kids are members (the work keeps piling up)

working (I'm a database programmer).

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Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

Henirik, Thanks, currently the space I was referring is where my dogs kennel is, however I use it as a reverse kennel. It keeps the dog out rather than in and I have my outdoor garden inside it. I had been contemplating replacing said reverse kennel with a green house, but wasn't sure it would be worth the cost. I have done well growing tomato's and onions, but poorly on peppers (which is strange given New Mexico's reputation for peppers). Apparently I need to work on my soil to optimize it for other produce. Anyway thanks again.

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"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Alexander Pope, 1709

Hey Paul, how've you been?

Other than astronomy . . .

I'm an avid golfer. I got my handicap down to 7 this year until an injury put the brakes on my golf season. I hope I can pick it up next season where I left off.

I also work out regularly, mostly doing yoga (three times a week until the above mentioned injury)

I also brew my own beer at home. I'm not a real home-brewing afficionado, I just like to drink beer occasionally and it's far superior to the the average North American domestic brand.

I'm a sports fan and watch whenever I can, the NHL and Montreal Canadiens in particular.