There is something very satisfying about construction. Being able to stand back and look at the finished project is something you don't get to do with computers very much, and being able to then walk inside it is just an amazing feeling.
Really makes me wish I had more time to work with Habitat for Humanity.
I've recently started focusing on a home remodeling after some renters destroyed it. It is a lot of hard work. Very manual labor: ripping out walls, painting, cleaning up the yard.
But yes, very rewarding. You can actually see the work. People in the town stop and comment on how much better it looks. Everyone can tell if a house looks better, but not many can tell if a website has a better architecture.
Equine blacksmith. You're basically a cobbler/podiatrist for horses. All the fun of being an equine vet, without having to castrate them or stick your arm up their butts.
My Dad used to be a farrier. He went to a blacksmith college in Oklahoma, which was the only post-HS schooling he has had. It's a very dangerous job, and most guys who are farriers for any length of time end up with serious wounds. All the lifelong farriers seem to end up with a limp, no matter how careful they are. My Dad stopped before he got hurt and he eventually started his own trucking company. There is now a shortage of trained farriers. My Dad handed out his last business card in 1979, and he still gets people who track him down and beg him to do work for them. They usually pull a mangled copy of his old business card out of their pocket. I'm always amazed by that.
When I was growing up, people would ask me what my Dad did. The conversation usually went like this:
"What's your old man do for a living?"
"He's a farrier." Of course, no one ever knew what that was, so then I would elaborate:
"He shoes horses."
"He SHOOTS horses?!!??! WTF?!!"
That's actually why my first girlfriend broke up with me. She thought I was the offspring of some sort of equine mass-murderer. Killing ponies always goes over big with the ladies ;-) She had a new boyfriend by the time we cleared up the misunderstanding.
Greens crew. I did it for a bit when I was younger and except for the 4:30-5am starts and the occasional rain it was pretty relaxing and good for thinking about random things and you got free golf rounds out of it.
Even though I can command pretty good wages, it's often worth an afternoon, for example, to swap out the rotors and break pads on my car. I'm almost earning enough to pay for it, but when you consider that the money comes out post tax, it still makes sense for me to do it myself. Besides, it's interesting and almost relaxing. And it means that I make superior decisions as to when I need to replace the thing, too. (it also means I can economically own a much nicer car than otherwise; at one point I had a used bmw 325Is. having a professional swap out the breaks was north of a grand, or maybe 1/4th that in parts to do yourself. Luxury cars cost a lot more to repair, and as far as I can tell, it's a 'because we can' fee- it was actually much easier to work on the BMW than to work on the nissan I currently drive. Assuming you have the right documentation, that is. there was always a 'trick' that made what you were doing really easy on the BMW. Pay extra for the Bentley publishing manual, if you have a BMW. the Chilton brand 'book of lies' is not worth the paper it is printed on.)
On the other hand, I usually pay others to, for instance, change the oil. It's usually cheap, and it's pretty messy to do in the driveway.
Every actual musician who I tell I left the "professional bassoonist" career path for computers looks at me like I'm a total fool. "Do you know how many gigs, grants, and scholarships there are for bassoonists?!"
The bassoon is in kind of an interesting position because it's used in basically every full symphonic score ever, but uncommonly played. Most universities will have two to five bassoon majors at any given time. There are tons of less commonly used instruments but they are usually played as a side project by another instrumentalist. A lot of bassoonists actually double down on the saxophone which is used rarely in the symphonic context. Myself I alternated between Bassoon and Tenor Saxophone, which was my other love.
The instrument itself plays differently from anything else in an orchestra. It really is a bizarre instrument. And it's an absolute riot to play. The double reed, woody sound, and enormous four-octave range make playing the bassoon a really unique endeavor. The instrument is built out of tune with itself. It takes a certain kind of... distinctive individual to really connect with the instrument. Ask any concert musician - they'll nod and grin when you mention those odd bassoonists.
The closest instrument I can think of in terms of rarity and unusualness is the French Horn. It's really the odd duck of the brasswinds. French hornists are a little more common than bassoonists, but then most instrumentations call for a few more horn players.
Man, this has been a trip down memory lane. What might have been....?
Gardening. Actually, right now I have a small garden on my balcony that I take care around 30 min each day, helps to relax, clear my mind after programming all day.
I am way too tempted to apply computers to whatever manual job I am working on. For example working on cars I find fun, so working at a garage sounds nice, but that will no doubt lead to me hacking on the chips in the car...
I spent a couple of years doing part time constrution work, and I miss it. No other work has ever given me the same kind of satisfied feeling at the end of the day.
Nothing stopping you from doing professional flying in a small aircraft. There are a few communities on the west coast of BC that are a pain to get to by land or sea, but a 4-6 seater seaplane convertable for cargo is something I'd enjoy doing.
It's one thing to cook well for your family, and a completely different thing to routinely cook 30 orders in 60 minutes during a lunch rush. It gets very unglamorous very quickly.
Stone mason. You carry all of your tools in your back pocket, you get to work on and build beautiful and cool things that people enjoy, and when you're done your work can last for hundreds of years. (Plus you get to be outside and meet lots of interesting folk)
I've also had a hankering for owning my own sub shop at the beach. Walk up in your bare feet, place an order, and minutes later I've created something that makes you happy. I get to wear whatever I want, and the scenery is gorgeous.
It's neat that I can find someone else who has the same answer as me for something that's mildly obscure, and that this answer has 3 upvotes already. Hackers and stonemasonry, who knew? Makes sense, though.
My father-in-law makes and gives away enough that he's probably violating a few laws about liquor distribution.
He's from Eastern Europe and everyone he knew made wine. It's amazing how interesting his wine tastes compared to the bottled variety. No sulfites, no ingredients other than grapes.
It tastes best about 9 months after it was created and goes south after about a year. The craziest thing, though, is that at about month 12 it starts to sparkle a little. Nothing serious like Champaign, but a bit of tingle on the tongue (and it hits you a little quicker imo).
There's only a few downsides:
1) Fruit flies. Oh man. It's bad. When I assisted him last year the first stage of filtering, we poured the waste out and it looked like half of it was dirt... except the dirt was moving. He does it in his garage so for about three months there's a thin layer of flies over everything in there and enough get into the house to make it sufficiently annoying.
2) Pressing is hard work and the amount that he makes, just about every other step in the process is very tedious. Part of that is because he refuses to use anything resembling modern equipment. It's all hard labour.
3) The temptation to turn the wine into Brandy always looms. Which is a great idea and produces fantastic truly snifter worthy brandy, but also runs the risk of burning your house down.
It's worth it though. Even the labour, since in the end you have natures best pain killer as your reward.
Load up 20-40 tourists on the catamaran (based on the size), and charge them something like $40-50 each.
Costs (other than the boat itself and local fees/taxes) would be a crew of 2 or 3, food and booze, and whatever cut the local resorts get for referrals.
Biggest challenge would likely be to make sure the tourists don't get too drunk and fall overboard. (seen it happen once, the captain wasn't pleased).
166 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 261 ms ] threadhttp://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/3/19/133129/548
Really makes me wish I had more time to work with Habitat for Humanity.
But yes, very rewarding. You can actually see the work. People in the town stop and comment on how much better it looks. Everyone can tell if a house looks better, but not many can tell if a website has a better architecture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farrier
When I was growing up, people would ask me what my Dad did. The conversation usually went like this:
"What's your old man do for a living?"
"He's a farrier." Of course, no one ever knew what that was, so then I would elaborate:
"He shoes horses."
"He SHOOTS horses?!!??! WTF?!!"
That's actually why my first girlfriend broke up with me. She thought I was the offspring of some sort of equine mass-murderer. Killing ponies always goes over big with the ladies ;-) She had a new boyfriend by the time we cleared up the misunderstanding.
Even though I can command pretty good wages, it's often worth an afternoon, for example, to swap out the rotors and break pads on my car. I'm almost earning enough to pay for it, but when you consider that the money comes out post tax, it still makes sense for me to do it myself. Besides, it's interesting and almost relaxing. And it means that I make superior decisions as to when I need to replace the thing, too. (it also means I can economically own a much nicer car than otherwise; at one point I had a used bmw 325Is. having a professional swap out the breaks was north of a grand, or maybe 1/4th that in parts to do yourself. Luxury cars cost a lot more to repair, and as far as I can tell, it's a 'because we can' fee- it was actually much easier to work on the BMW than to work on the nissan I currently drive. Assuming you have the right documentation, that is. there was always a 'trick' that made what you were doing really easy on the BMW. Pay extra for the Bentley publishing manual, if you have a BMW. the Chilton brand 'book of lies' is not worth the paper it is printed on.)
On the other hand, I usually pay others to, for instance, change the oil. It's usually cheap, and it's pretty messy to do in the driveway.
I'd guess the oboe as the next least popular, but that's probably just because of the joke.
What's the difference between an oboe and a bassoon? The bassoon burns faster.
The instrument itself plays differently from anything else in an orchestra. It really is a bizarre instrument. And it's an absolute riot to play. The double reed, woody sound, and enormous four-octave range make playing the bassoon a really unique endeavor. The instrument is built out of tune with itself. It takes a certain kind of... distinctive individual to really connect with the instrument. Ask any concert musician - they'll nod and grin when you mention those odd bassoonists.
The closest instrument I can think of in terms of rarity and unusualness is the French Horn. It's really the odd duck of the brasswinds. French hornists are a little more common than bassoonists, but then most instrumentations call for a few more horn players.
Man, this has been a trip down memory lane. What might have been....?
Also trying to save the world for my kids, but that might end up being a virtual effort so I'm not sure I can list it.
I think I'd do something like BBQ probably through some kind of catering situation.
I've also had a hankering for owning my own sub shop at the beach. Walk up in your bare feet, place an order, and minutes later I've created something that makes you happy. I get to wear whatever I want, and the scenery is gorgeous.
That would be cool were it true, but the fact is that all construction work nowadays requires a ton of equipment, stonemasonry included.
See here: http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001414.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winemaking
My father-in-law makes and gives away enough that he's probably violating a few laws about liquor distribution.
He's from Eastern Europe and everyone he knew made wine. It's amazing how interesting his wine tastes compared to the bottled variety. No sulfites, no ingredients other than grapes.
It tastes best about 9 months after it was created and goes south after about a year. The craziest thing, though, is that at about month 12 it starts to sparkle a little. Nothing serious like Champaign, but a bit of tingle on the tongue (and it hits you a little quicker imo).
There's only a few downsides:
1) Fruit flies. Oh man. It's bad. When I assisted him last year the first stage of filtering, we poured the waste out and it looked like half of it was dirt... except the dirt was moving. He does it in his garage so for about three months there's a thin layer of flies over everything in there and enough get into the house to make it sufficiently annoying.
2) Pressing is hard work and the amount that he makes, just about every other step in the process is very tedious. Part of that is because he refuses to use anything resembling modern equipment. It's all hard labour.
3) The temptation to turn the wine into Brandy always looms. Which is a great idea and produces fantastic truly snifter worthy brandy, but also runs the risk of burning your house down.
It's worth it though. Even the labour, since in the end you have natures best pain killer as your reward.
Load up 20-40 tourists on the catamaran (based on the size), and charge them something like $40-50 each.
Costs (other than the boat itself and local fees/taxes) would be a crew of 2 or 3, food and booze, and whatever cut the local resorts get for referrals.
Biggest challenge would likely be to make sure the tourists don't get too drunk and fall overboard. (seen it happen once, the captain wasn't pleased).