Hobby Without a Horse

This article is about me, or at least the hobbies I've had over the last ten years. Now I don't have a hobby like stamp collecting etc. that can be a lifelong passion. Mine are more like part time jobs, that after awhile, they reach some conclusion and I move on. Some people are obsessed with following celebrities. That could be a hobby. Most people finish with that hobby after their teens, but some people try to stay young forever. You just have to remember that celebrities are people and have the same faults as your nexr door neighbour or your relatives.

I think the first hobby was selling on ebay. For myself and other people. I had a friend who had a lot of unusual items to sell. One was a Union Army belt buckle from the Civil War. Another, I can't remember what it was, came from a U.S. submarine. This sub was now a museum and the item was in the sub when it was active. The curator sent me a photo of the inside of the sub with the item. He was very happy to get it. And it was more like a donation.

After awhile I said enough of this packing, I need something simpler. I came up with the idea of old magazine ads. All I needed was an envelope and cardboard backing. That I did for a number of years. With the recession, business slowed down but Post office expenses didn't. I closed my ebay store. The ads I still display on two other sites. http://oldmagazineads.blogspot.com/  and  http://www.originalmagazineads.com/wordpress/  The first site gets about 1000 visitors a day. It seem that I have become somewhat of a library. People want them for school products, university magazines and movies. For one movie I had to send a photo of a big tooth. Got my name in the credits. Once I sent an ad to CA 90210.

These ads plus others provide me with money from adsense, ebay and Amazon ads. They run automatic and I have to check them ever so often to make sure of that. While this was going on, I was restoring antique radios. You know, the old tube type. Did that for a couple of years. Then decided that this was too much like my military job. And the cruncher was when they got rid of all AM radion stations. Now I can't listen to them.

Three years ago I bought a 25 year old snow blower. No plastic on it. All steel, 32" cut, 7 gears forward, 3 reverse. So I figured with that, I better learn how to fix the motor. Same as a lawn mower, just bigger. I always used an electric mower because I could fix them. So I had better learn to fix a gas one. That was last years project or hobby, which I finished this year.

Prior to all this, I learned to use a computer, then I learned to fix a computer, then I learned how to build a computer from scratch. I think now I am hobbyless. Maybe I should write a book. I have two brothers that do that. Both are published, but not on a grand scale. Or maybe I could just sit on the patio and drink beer.