Aside From Coins, Do You Have Any Other Hobbies?

Won a mug at a charity run today. Actually every finisher got one. And shortly afterwards came an e-mail from the organizing team with a promo code and discount for their "midsummer run" on the longest day of the year. Fine, I looked ... oh, the 10K run starts at sunrise - 5:16 in the morning. Thanks but no thanks, hehe.

Christian

 

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It's a video game... Grand Theft Auto 5. In the game you can steal cars. Eventually you can buy property and fill garages with all the fun cars you steal. It may be one of the most fun ways to waste time ever created.

 

Here’s last Thursday night’s scores. Best night in a long time, also a personal best 17 in a row.

 

Thanks. Was just coming back to explain.

Here’s a pic

 

That makes me feel better. My albatross is only an 8 inch dob.

 

I PC game some, here is my brand new computer!

• Ryzen 7 2nd Gen 2700X (3.70 GHz)

• 16 GB DDR4

• 1 TB HDD, 240 GB SSD

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB GDDR6

I've been playing Fallout 4 at 3840x2160 with everything maxed out.

This is also the reason why I don't get any coins until February however.

 

Is this where I make the joke about dating being a hobby?

 

And now let's have an argument over whether it's an "investment".

 

It's an "Adventure".

 

I collect antique & collectible glass. Below are photos of a glass paperweight made by Paul Stankard, signed & dated 2001, 3 1/4 in. dia. Stankard has been hailed as the greatest paperweight artist in history, & all his paperweights are made entirely of lamp-worked glass. This one is decorated with flowers, leaves, seed pods, insects, & a pate-de-verre head on the underside. The theme of this piece is with death there is regeneration & life. Stankard's glass can be seen in many museums around the world including: The Corning Museum of Glass, The Victoria & Albert Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art (Sapporo, Japan), The Museum of Fine Arts - Boston, & many others.

 

I'm very interested in literature, experimental fiction, Hellenic philosophy and world history mainly. Reading Seneca, Marcus and Suetonius, as well as Gibbon, sparked my interest in coins, so I would say that coins are an offshoot of my interest in philosophy and history.

I also play a lot of games because I have a disability which limits my attention and mobility, and certain kinds of games are one of the only things I can do without severe consequences if I spend too much time concentrating. So my half hour to and hour of reading time in a day is the real focus, and gaming is the relaxation.

Just started to study Latin in the last few days, so that will be my 'reading' time for the near future.

 

That is an incredible piece of glass! I love paperweights and don't collect them but somehow I've accumulated a few dozen of them over the years.

 

dadams, You've got some nice looking millefiori paperweights in that photo. A couple of them appear to be Perthshire weights from Scotland. I've attached 3 photos of a "scrambled millefiori" weight made recently by Mike Hunter. In the weight he has a portrait of Marilyn Monroe & a young Liz Taylor, & an owl.

 

@Al Kowsky I like the millefiori weights best and know I have a couple by Caithness and I'll have to look at the canes for a P for the Perthshires. The scrambled millefiori shown has a cane marked 1887, but I think it's much more modern. Most of these aren't signed and I don't have the knowledge to identify weight makers by style. If I like them and they are cheap I'll pick them up - mostly at estate sales. I just counted a total of 47 weights!

 

coolest glass I have ever seen. Where is the best place to shop for Stankard glass?

 

Paul Hoenke, There are a number of dealers who specialize in paperweights like L.H. Selman Ltd., in Chicago, who carry his weights & auction paperweights several times a year. I've seen his glass on Ebay too. A simple Google search would probably yield results. The Corning Museum of Glass Gift Shop always has some of his glass in stock. His paperweights can be very expensive, some costing many thousands of dollars.

 

The glass paperweights remind me of my wife's collecting hobby: bells. She only collects bells that were made for ringing and avoids things made to be collected. She has tap bells, animal bells and things made to make a noise. Some of her friends collected 'art' bells made to be collected by 'name' artists like Ballentine. She does have some made to be collected items that are a hundred years old but never got into the new ones. The point is, many hobbies share similar separate sub-hobbies. We are all different.

A 20th century desk set with servent call bell:

 

Last Sunday morning’s scorecard.

2019 is certainly starting on a good note.

 

Good bowling! My average keeps falling, but hey, I'll get it together one of these days.