Hobbies & Interests

Hobbies & Interests

I guess it's good that one of my hobbies is playing around with computers as that is also my job. That said, if I could have made it as a professional sportsman I would have much preferred that! As a young boy growing up in England,like a lot of young boys, I dreamed of one day leading out the England cricket team at Lords or the football team at Wembley. Suffice to say, that remained a dream, but at least I still play soccer with a bunch of "old guys" in an over 30 league every Sunday!! I also do still actively play a lot of other sports as often as I can. The list below summarises some of my main hobbies and interests.

Sports

I think it's fair to say I'm a sport's nut. Growing up, whenever I was not in school and not asleep, the chances are I was playing some kind of sport, most often football (soccer), cricket, tennis and golf. To this day, I'll watch just about anything either live or on TV and I still play a lot of different sports. I still follow the sports that I grew up with like football (soccer) and cricket very closely but I am also a big fan of American football and baseball. Even though I live in the USA these days,thanks to the great TV coverage provided by Fox Sports, I still follow the English Premier league very closely. I have been an Arsenal fan ever since I can remember and I still follow the team very closely. I also still follow the England national team with a passion and suffer the inevitable let downs along with everyone else! We had several late night TV watching sessions here during the 2002 World Cup in Japan/Korea. Fox Sports also shows a fair bit of Rugby (I got to watch England win the World cup) and they also show a lot of Aussie Rules. It's harder to follow the cricket as it just does not get any TV coverage over here. I also follow the Denver Broncos and the Miami Dolphins closely during the NFL season and I follow the Round Rock Express triple-A baseball team (we go to a lot of the games). I also follow the Houston Astros baseball team (the Express are their affiliate).

As for playing sports, I still play football (soccer) on average twice a week. I also play tennis on and off and golf when I can (taking five hours out to play golf is proving hard right now). I also play a lot of snooker and pool (I had to buy my own table to facilitate the snooker!). Believe it or not, there is a cricket team in Round Rock. I keep meaning to go watch them play and maybe even come out of "retirement" but I have not managed to make it to any of the matches yet.

When I lived in Florida (where it is very flat) I became a mad keen in-line skater. Since moving to Texas, where they actually have hills I have not been doing it so much. I still get out on them every now and then. I have also been ice skating a few times here which I had never done before, so that is something new I have discovered. I also learned to ski a few years ago and wish I could find more time to do it more often. I'm still intermediate at best. Recently I have got back into riding my (very old) bicycle quite a bit. This all began when my daughter learned to ride her bike by herself (without the training wheels) recently. We have been going on longer and longer journeys as her confidence grows.

Professional teams that I follow

Here is a list of some professional sports teams that I follow as closely as I can  :

 

Aviation

Ever since I was a small boy, growing up in West Sussex, fairly close to Gatwick airport, I have been fascinated by aircraft. Primarily commercial airliners but also just about anything that flies. As a kid I used to beg my parents to take me at the weekends to the visitors deck on the roof of the South Terminal at Gatwick so we could watch the big jets come in from places all over the World and then a couple of hours later, depart again. Who would have thought that I would grow up to find myself in a job where I spend a fair amount of time in planes and airports. I have a lot of pictures that I have taken over the years and one of my many goals for this site is to create an aviation section. I hope to do that soon.

Photography

I have always enjoyed taking pictures (of just about anything) but ever since I really got into digital photography, when I bought my Canon EOS 10-D, I feel as if I have rediscovered taking pictures all over again. I now also have a Canon EOS 20-D as well (long story involving a fall off a roller-coaster!). Of course, you'll find a few of my photos on this web site (all of the pictures are my own work - for better or worse). I also purchased a Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 which is a phenomenal machine. It can scan both 35mm negatives and slides into the computer. It's a slow process but over time I hope to make a digital record of all the old family photos that I have either collected or inherited. I have also started scanning in to the computer a lot of old prints for which the negatives are long since lost using my trusty HP Scanner. Suffice to say all off this is a very slow process. I think I would have to take about six months off work to get this all done but I am chipping away at it a bit of a time. I have also taken quite a lot of video over the last few years using a JVC VHS-C camera. Also on my to-do list is to make digital movies out of all the hours of tape I have taken. I have not yet got into digital video cameras. I also spend a lot of time using Adobe PhotoShop Elements which has proven invaluable in so many ways when working with all my old photos.

Reading

I still like to read as much as I can. You can see what I am currently reading in the Books and Magazines section. My eyes had been very tired after work and so I had not been reading much. I finally broke down and got my eyes tested and got some reading glasses. It's amazing how much more you feel like reading when you can actually see the words clearly!

Watching and collecting movies

I have become quite keen on collecting movies on DVD. I think part of the reason is that ever since DVD players became commonplace in laptop computers, it's been nice to take a few DVDs along on longer plane rides.

Listening to music

I don't buy CD's much anymore as they are, in my mind, way over priced, and in any case most of the music I like is now considered "classic" rock! I usually take some music, and the greatest of inventions, noise cancelling headphones, with me when I travel.

Travel

As you will get a sense of from the Travel section, I have always enjoyed visiting places. Especially places I have not been to before. I won't bother to say more here as I have a whole section of this site dedicated to travel.

Video games

I have created a separate section to discuss my interest in video games.

Playing around with computers and other gadgets

I have always enjoyed playing with electronic gadgets ever since I got one of the very early LED calculators back in the late seventies. To this day I carry a lot of "toys" with me when I travel including IBM Thinkpad laptops, Palm Pilots, a Garmin GPS Pro, noise cancelling head phones, cameras and numerous other things. As I said at the top of the page my job is to play with computers and that's cool as that is something that I also enjoy. I don't get to code as much as I used to but I still spend quite a bit of my spare time playing around with some new technology or another. I try and stay as current as I can.

Contact me. Last updated September 7th 2007