Ask HN: What to get for my brother's 50th birthday?
My brother, who works as hardware installation tech, is an absolute gem who loves communications hardware, radio and internet broadcast tech, cars, bikes, whiskey, camping. I've been looking for something magical, that he will find useful and unexpected.
Over the years I've bought him: expensive whiskey or bourbon, a metal detector, radio gear, antennas, camping gear.. I'm looking for something I wouldn't think of to surprise him. Even better, something he can do with the teenage kids.
Any ideas, of something you bought yourself or were gifted and love?
73 comments
[ 5.8 ms ] story [ 25.0 ms ] threadFor example, the Milwaukee lawn mower is highly rated but also kinda pricey.
In that area they also have some real nice tools for car working now, impact wrenches, etc. But you'd need to know what he currently has to find something nice to have.
I've since purchased an inexpensive Muji pen. It comes with garbage ink, but I replaced that with a refillable cartridge and Parker ink. It's now my second favorite pen. (I say this simply to indicate that it doesn't have to be an expensive fountain pen.)
A mechanical keyboard if he doesn't have one. Not everyone likes them and there are lots of different switches that fans argue about which is best about. If he hasn't tried one it is a great gift.
Out of stock everywhere, but if you can get one a Fisher-Price - Chatter Telephone with Bluetooth is one of those cute things that many people will like to have on their desk (I'm not sure if anyone will use it more than once)
I recently applied to a couple companies and they all asked me if I had flown an airplane in the last 12 months.
https://www.victorinox.com/global/en/Products/Swiss-Army-Kni...
It depends on how much you want to spend or spend with a group... but a life experience is always a great gift. maybe even a course?
I know I'd get a huge kick out of something like a blacksmithing course... or something like that.
(I know a few people who exclusively track their bikes now to the point that they're not even plated any more; it's just where they want to go to enjoy the skills, and they've kind of lost interest in road riding entirely)
anecdotal, but in my experience with driving race cars : tracks are pretty far from meticulously well maintained.
perhaps meticulously documented; "T12s soft berm had been eroding for years, take a rain line around it.", but rarely meticulously maintained.
that said, maybe motorcycles have a different experience?
just .. the guy with the harley and no neck? leave him alone.
Maybe go fly by some nearby broadcast/communications towers or something, too?
My dad looked - for a long time - for a guitar that was made on my birthday.- same day and same year, then same month and year. He couldn't find anything that specific, but found something made the following month (which, in my mind, was probably being built a few days before, in my birth month).
So on my 50th birthday I was given a guitar with almost the same birthday as me. It was pretty cool :)
There may not be interests that align with that sort of timetable directly, but perhaps that can spark an idea. I just priced out some 50 year old whiskey, and... that may be too much :)
We got folks he hadn’t seen in a decade to say hi. We got poetry, jokes, even videos with painting people made him. His dad drove to their old neighborhood and took him on a short walking tour. We got his mom to give us pictures of him as a kid to cut in (gotta include that ubiquitous tub shot!).
When we showed it to him and we recorded his reaction and set that as a screen-in-screen video back to everyone who contributed, and couldn’t come to the party (darn COVID!).
It was a big lift - lots of coordination - but as you get older, old friends are harder see and older relatives begin to pass. That video lasts forever, which is cool.
These contacts are occasionally scheduled with organizations (schools etc.), but unscheduled for the general public.
Exchanges tend to also be one short question (how does earth look from above right now?) and one short answer (earth looks beautiful), and then it's on to the next person. Not just due to congestion, but also because the ISS is only visible for a few minutes.