So what do I enjoy?
I own upwards of 800 books by now, and I have a entire bookshelf that I need to get through yet. (Check out my English and education pages.) I like to joke that when I get to Heaven the first thing I'm going to do is apply for a library card. Never enough time... I also enjoy writing-- I've even made a couple of attempts to write a book. I've posted many of my essays, short stories, and poems.
Blues, Rock, Classical, some Jazz, almost no Country/Western. Lately I've starting listening to The Classical Station off the internet. Also at Christmas I like to listen to the Greek Orthodox station.
I just like poking around in things, which is why I got started on the 'sorta-chopper' project with the motorcycle. I've also got plenty of work to do on the farm now. I re-wired the garage and an outbuilding, and I have plans to eventually rewire and renovate the house. With the siding, windows, doors, and HVAC done, I figure I'll start working on it room by room over the next couple of decades. Not like I got anything better to do.
Of course I also built my last two computers from components just because I can, and I've helped out with a friend's computer, getting it to do some interesting things. I've also started working on a custom database for my church, though the web site is beyond my meager skills.
I recently started looking at public license software, particularly sound and image editing. I downloaded the Audacity Sound Editor to try to learn how to work with audio files. I took a wav file that I copied from an old cassette tape and cleaned it up. The original is a WAV clip of my maternal grandmother (Tillie Mouw Vant Hul) reciting Psalm 23. I just removed some of the noise and then exported it to MP3 format. Note that those files are pretty large - Here's a smaller file at a lower, but still acceptable, quality.
Lately I've started playing around with an experiment in 'galvanic etching' inspired by the Steampunk Workshop. As part of that, I'm try to learn how to use GIMP to produce the images for the project. At least I haven't burned the house down yet.
What can I say? The Democrat Party is morally and ethically corrupt. And quite a few Republicans, have bought into the Dems' belief system, and few want to challenge the biases of the electorate even when they have sympathy for Constitutional rigor. Bloody depressing, and keeps me pretty pessimistic. I'm this close to officially declaring myself as a Libertarian. The trouble is that, while they've got a lot of good ideas, they don't seem to be able to articulate any sort of moral position aside from 'leave me alone'; And I find this troubling. I suppose I'm just going to remain a fire-breathin' conservative right-winger a-barkin' in the manger of the GOP. Unfortunately, the GOP establishment seems to be doing its best to act like Democrats. And don't give me any of that nonsense about being judgmental. Any society that claims to live by rules must have some way of judging when the rules have been broken, and what the consequences must be. And I fear our society is broken beyond repair.
Oh, just a do a search on the internet and you can find all the humor sites you want.