Other pursuits beyond art music?

[DFO]

Y que tal anda tu español? Mucho mejor que mi inglés, espero.

[greg]

No lo habla mucho aparte de hablar con mi amigo de Columbia a veces.... de donde eres tu?

(actually, i'd like to know if you would use tu or Ud. in this situation!) 
(and please excuse the lack of accent marks, since I need to learn again how to type them).

[DFO]

I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Three Little things:
1) You used correctly "tu" and no "Ud", because you said "de donde eres". To use UD you should have said "de donde ES" (usted).
2) No "habla" but "hablo". EL habla. YO hablo.
3) You'd repeat "habla". You can change the second time for "aparte de conversar" or if you like it more "platicar"
Always at your service.

[greg]

2) No "habla" but "hablo". EL habla. YO hablo.

arrrghh silly mistake. Meant to say "hablo."

3) You'd repeat "habla". You can change the second time for "aparte de conversar" or if you like it more "platicar"

Good tip- it'd make my speech more colorful and natural-sounding, I guess.

Always at your service.

Yes, sir!

[Sean]

Daedalus

Lexicon http://www.box.net/shared/bzx93tvyne

English phrases http://www.box.net/shared/jx7rjxnpb7

[Wanderer]

...bird-watching...

I'm also interested in that, if only going merely as far as watching birds fly by the balcony.
There's a related scene from Beetlejuice I find particularly hilarious; the Manhattan businessman  - Birds of America right beside him - tries to relax doing some bird-watching in the country; the first thing he sees through his binoculars is a crow pecking flesh off a dead animal. Typical Tim Burton! 

...and bike-riding (will take a 185-mile bike ride later this year)

Impressive! Any details on the itinerary?

[Daedalus]

Daedalus

Lexicon http://www.box.net/shared/bzx93tvyne

English phrases http://www.box.net/shared/jx7rjxnpb7

Interesting Sean. Just looking through the files now.

Thanks for uploading.

D.

[owlice]

Hi Owlice - I've been an amateur woodworker for quite a while and have a nice basement shop (unfortunately I've not done much in months, although I do have a list of potential projects - hmmm!).

Actually, I started a thread on the Old Forum HERE, and posted a number of my projects; I'm basically a cabinet (CD/DVD storage largely) and book shelve builder - love to work w/ hardwoods (cherry, oak, & mahogany, as the projects show) - take a look, if interested - 

SonicMan, I remember that thread and your beautiful work! It made me wish you lived right down the street so I could get woodworking lessons from you!!

I have a cousin (who I am certain I would not recognize if I passed him on the street) who is a cabinetmaker, so I was told when I was a girl, and that always intrigued me. I think it'd be fun to learn how to make something functional and beautiful out of wood.

I'm also interested in that, if only going merely as far as watching birds fly by the balcony.
There's a related scene from Beetlejuice I find particularly hilarious; the Manhattan businessman  - Birds of America right beside him - tries to relax doing some bird-watching in the country; the first thing he sees through his binoculars is a crow pecking flesh off a dead animal. Typical Tim Burton! 

Impressive! Any details on the itinerary?

Bike riding is a good way to bird-watch, which is just one of its attractions for me. I prefer to bike on trails rather than on the road, so the itinerary of the upcoming trip is the C&O Canal towpath from Cumberland, MD, to Georgetown in DC. A friend is going to drop me in Cumberland and will meet me at the end a few days later with my car. It'll be a leisure ride, no more than 50 miles/day, as I'll be stopping to .... watch birds! And anything else interesting that I see, of course.

A lot of people camp along the way, but I'm way too lazy for that and will be staying in bike-friendly B&Bs instead. A lot of people also do the ride in two days (and some in one); definitely not me! I'm way too slow on a bike to do so.

I was riding a rail-trail in Maryland a couple or three years ago which was vaguely uphill when traveling northbound; it's just over 13 miles one way. I was nearing the northern trailhead when I was passed by a little old lady wearing a flowered dress and straw hat... on a one-speed. (Thank goodness she wasn't walking past me!!)

Heh; years ago I was in Switzerland and had taken a funicular up into the mountains so that I could hike the "easy" trail down. (I had asked for advice at the Interlaken visitor's center, and was given a very nice, easy hiking suggestion by the young man there; he told me the route was "only" a six-hour hike. That was the easiest suggestion he had for me -- six hours!! I did not take his suggested route.)

My "easy" trail down didn't quite work out as I'd hoped, as I missed some signage along the way and ended up in places for which I was not adequately shod nor otherwise prepared. There were rather steep sections of whatever deertrail I was stumbling along; these trails were used by much more ...ah... mature women who lived in the villages I was passing as shortcuts, and they'd come walking UP the mountain through the woods on these narrow trails at a good clip, yakking away with their friends and carrying groceries. *I* was panting going *downhill* and wasn't carrying anything that couldn't fit in a pocket, and here they were, older, laden with groceries, and not the least bit winded from walking *up* the mountain... I'd have been embarrassed had I had the energy to be!

[ChamberNut]

Chess, crosswords, sudoku, walking the dogs, linesman at son's soccer games

[DFO]

About chess:

[karlhenning]

When I have too much time to devote to composing, I'll worry about other pursuits 

[karlhenning]

Alternatively, given my current av, I suppose I ought to say: bowling.

[Elgarian]

I know someone who knows someone who used to collect stamp hinges. This makes one part of me want to put my head in a bucket, while the other part of me wants to rejoice in the sheer quiddity of such an idiosyncratic choice. One day, I may take it up myself just to see how it feels.

[Dundonnell]

Research interests: Roman Catholic Cardinals throughout History, British 20th Century Naval and Military History, the German Army in World War One and Two, Japanese Naval History, Byzantine History, US Senators from 1861, American Civil War, Roman Imperial History.

Other interests: watching Cricket and Golf, Politics(British, American, Soviet Russia, China, France), Hill Walking, Films, late Victorian and Edwardian 'popular' fiction, Travel, Socializing with friends, Cats.

[jwinter]

What I like to read:  History (focused on US 1750-1826, Ancient Rome, and WWI, but other eras as well), old-fashioned mysteries (Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Poirot), Shakespeare, Plato, Hemingway, Robert B. Parker, Vonnegut, classic & pulp sci-fi/fantasy (R.E. Howard, E.R. Burroughs, Cliff Simak, A.C. Clarke, E.E. "Doc" Smith), cheesy old super-hero comic books, The Atlantic, Slate, The Washington Post.

What I like to do:  Play with my kids, listen to music (all kinds, mostly classical, blues, rock, pre-1970s country), cook, crossword puzzles (nice big Sunday-sized ones), PC role-playing (Elder Scrolls) and turn-based strategy (Civilization) games, watch The Daily Show & Colbert Report, Philadelphia Eagles NFL football, tinker with iTunes & various other gadgets, goof off on a certain classical music forum.

[jwinter]

I know someone who knows someone who used to collect stamp hinges. This makes one part of me want to put my head in a bucket, while the other part of me wants to rejoice in the sheer quiddity of such an idiosyncratic choice. One day, I may take it up myself just to see how it feels.

OK, I'll bite -- what's a stamp hinge?

[Elgarian]

OK, I'll bite -- what's a stamp hinge?

It's so nice to be humoured ...

People who collect stamps often stick them into albums, yes? And so they need something to stick them in with, right? Hence the humble stamp hinge, which is basically no more than a small gummed rectangular piece of paper folded in two - though the gum must be such that the hinge can be easily removed, and doesn't damage the stamp. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_hinge

Now I assume that there is a great stamp hinge industry out there, supplying the needs of stamp collectors everywhere with various patent designs? At any rate, this guy, I gather, collected them. Which raises the even more interesting question: if a stamp hinge collector puts his hinges in an album, what does he stick them in with? And if the answer is what I think it may be, are there people out there collecting stamp hinge hinges?

[Dr. Dread]

I collect the sticky stuff from the stamp hinge. 

[Elgarian]

I collect the sticky stuff from the stamp hinge. 

Do you keep your samples in an album? And if so, what do you stick them in with? (For I am a keen student of such matters, as you know.)

[Lethevich]

I know someone who knows someone who used to collect stamp hinges.