Work and hobbies

[ChrisMClark]

I've been here a while, and I know nothing of any of you apart from you all like a smoke So. This is me! I'm an army musician, currently posted the the Light Cavalry Band.

This is what I do:


As well as smoking, I also love photography when I'm not at work.
I love taking pictures of people in and out of the studio.
This is my friend Dave, a friend from work and also my bassist in my rock band. It's a picture I took for our publicity pack.


And this is the lovely Emma-Louise...no real reason for posting it up...but she's hot Was from a studio shoot I had last year:


What do you guys do? Work and off-duty hours? I know we've got quite a few musicians, hwat sort of bands do you guys play with?

[Soulmanure]

Day Job--English Teacher
Off-hours hobbies--Playing guitar and video games. Used to be in a couple of bands, but that was some time ago. I recorded a few songs at home that turned out alright, but I realized in the process why people have recording engineers. That is some laborious work there.

By the way, nice shots! Kinda reminded me of one of the best Python sketches ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kwh3R0YjuQ

[Lee Nub]

Work wise I own a Cartridge World franchise, I'm more on the business side these days but I'm a qualified laser technician

Hobbies I have a few, I paint fantasy and sci fi models, I also paint canvases with the airbrush. I have played mmorpg, massive multiplayer online games for many years now.

I also have my dog , a huge dogue de bordeaux and I have kept african cichlids for many years. I'm about to upgrade to a marine reef tank, I've done my apprenticeship with fish now

Other than that I'm married with 2 teenagers

[rokkitsci]

Rather than repeat myself, you n00bs can read all about it

----> here <----

[tippexx]

Freelance Graphic Designer.

Collecting lead soldiers. Gardening. Liverpool FC. Watercolours. Running .... and annoying Rokkit!

[Soulmanure]

Rather than repeat myself, you n00bs can read all about it

----> here <----

Amazing background--I'm just a bit skeptical about the piano.

[satch]

I live in Wakefield. Two kids, boy 17, girl 14.
I was a plasma profile steel cutter until my machine was taken away a couple of months ago.
I'm now dismantling my works prior to losing my job next friday (26th)
Hobbies include motorcycling, cycling, cricket, real ale in real pubs, camping, walking. I read books whenever I can.
I'm also 2nd Dan Wado Ryu karate but packad it in a couple of years ago. It was damn near killing me!
I have seen loads of bands (big name and pub). Got loads of LP's, CD's but can't play a note except a bit of mouth-organ.
I also have an unbelievably brilliant and tolerant wife and consider myself a lucky chap to have met her.
Photo: me, my bike, some of my LP's, camping gear.

[moppy]

Currently unemployed and in my second gap year, worked as a Theatre Assistant in my first gap year, watching orthopaedic surgeries and mopping up blood and bone afterwards.

Going to study Biomedical Sciences at Sheffield come September and hopefully plan to study Medicine after that!

As for hobbies, music (GOOD music not the trash your typical 20yo listens to), movies (again, not the Vin Diesel shit) and a light bit of gaming. Play guitar at a beginners level and hopefully on the way to becoming somewhat of a cigar smoker

[patrickspark]

purchasing & materials manager with leopardstown park hospital - a community facility that looks after over 170 patients including 50 veterans from the british armed services. www.lph.ie
wife, 3 kids and luckily some good friends
hobbies are somewhat sedate these days, but i do like reading and going to see st.annes gaa and shamrock rovers matches occasionally.
love my holidays in the sun
and i enjoy an occasional cigar too !

[Simon-JG-hr]

Used to be in the RN (Warfare), now studying International Relations and writing about maritime doctrine and nuclear deterrence. Fingers crossed that my crocked back recovers enough to rejoin, otherwise I'll have to consider Whitehall for a proper career...

Hobbies are pretty much all outdoors - rugby, skiing, sailing, hiking (especially in the Lake District), cricket, shooting and other such things. I've been known to provide some great entertainment on the golf course too... Oh yes, and BBQing, real ale (preferably at an outdoor beer festival in scorching hot weather) and cigars.

[gt3911]

This would be what keeps me entertain most of all

[eggopp]

This is me

And this is me, im ex army, Ex Army Catering Corps prior to them going RLC (i left that year)

From Left to Right; This is me in Falklands in 82, Then in 1985 in Belize whilst attached to 14/20 Kings Assholes (cavalry bleh worst unit i ever served with!!) This is me and my Terry after being dusted down by crap roads... Then 3rd and 4th pic is me stationed in South Georgia with 3rd Bn Royal Anglian Regt, best unit i ever had pleasure of being attached too. Then theres me in my Number 2's hated this uniform, so hot and stinky.. Oh notice i had hair in those days... Then this is me now... handsome bugger aint i... But finally this is me as a sweet 16 year old in basic training.. yeah i can play an instrument too!!

Well thats me.. 13 years 161 days in Her Majesties Armed Forces.. Happy Days, Now i work as a Probation Officer and have done now for almost 18 years. I have 4 dogs and a cat.. and spend all my money of cigars and pet food.. lol

[monkey66]

Now that takes me back. I used to race 10th buggies back in the eighties. Did the national series and a couple of internationals. From Kyosho Tomahawks to 1st gen Optimas with Hirobo's, PB's, Schumacher's, TAG's and RC10's on the way. I am sure I have missed out a few.

This would be what keeps me entertain most of all

[68TriShield]

I'm with rokkit.

http://www.ukcigarforums.com/showthread.php?t=3801

[Robusto]

I'm lucky to have a brilliant wife and two fantastic sons. We share the house with a superb labrador. We all enjoy each other's company.

I've been a teacher all my working life. I had the call to it. I've done a number of jobs along the way in different types of schools and am currently a Head of Music. It can be a very satisfying profession and it can equally be very stressful. Since about the mid 80s, the amount of bullshit (data crunching, dodgy accountability, league tables fiddling, curriculum wheel of fortune) has made a demanding job become an utter drag a lot of the time. The pupils suffer a lot because of this. The holidays are still better than most folks' but I have to say thank God that they are because many of us avoid total nervous exhaustion because of the stops.

Friends I have in the Public Sector (including nurses, policemen, police firearms squad, ambulance drivers, firemen) all complain of drowning in unnecessary paperwork and energy-sapping bullshit thinking. Like me, they have to direct other people towards numerous artificial ends and ever shifting goalposts. Now that I am older and wiser, if I could turn back the clock... I would like to have learnt a practical trade such as a joiner or plasterer or plumber. I would have liked to have been self-employed and have built up a company of my own. Instead I work at times with teenagers who, for whatever reason, will not benefit from any subject or activity at school at all and who seem to have stopped learning in primary school. Some of these teens are insolent and/or violent by default and a lot of time is put in to try to sort their issues out. If you have to deal with a bad incident at 0915, you are often slightly off-kilter when dealing with the rest of your classes til the end of the day. You have to be very good at keeping your mask on in this job, and you have to remember you are there to concentrate on the good, quiet kids, too. (It is easy for them to be overlooked when you have to deal with troublemakers). As we all become more comfortable, more gadget-oriented, more quickly satisfied with gizmos, it's going to be harder and harder to 'sell' the value of education to kids and adults who cannot see the need or the point. Global economic recessions are a big of a bugger on this point, too. It's ironic when people like myself are very well equipped and can hand out piles of macbooks for the all-singing all-dancing curriculum to be used like sweets in a classroom. I found myself thinking about classes of hundreds of kids in schools in Africa yesterday all lucky to be being educated at all. In our richest countries we have all life's starter chances on a plate and yet we (in the UK) are not a nation of keen bright buttons in many places. Next I'll start to point the finger of blame. Maybe we just need another war to sort everything out, eh?

I'm 51 and am beginning to think about retirement. I can't go until I'm 60. I know I'd love teaching more if I could afford to do it only three days a week.

Music - playing in groups - has always been my main escape and source of excitement. I've met so many different kinds of people through bands, groupies, venues. I'm a clean boy who likes to play on the seedy side, really. I honestly wish I was debauched but I'm too well behaved. My loss. I know. It's the frisson of the dark side that makes me love gigging. I can play a number of other instruments passably or poorly, but my main instrument is piano/keyboard. I've played in some excellent bands - and some dodgy bands - and have depped with many bands who needed a replacement player. I am a very good keyboard player and I have first class aural skills. I play by ear rather than printed music. I'm trying to improve my singing. I think my moderate cigar smoking habit has added something richer to my singing voice.

I'm not in a band full-time at present. I needed a break. A couple of mates have approached me to form my own band and offered their playing services in support. It would be a big commitment. I've thought about it before but I don't think I have the front-man confidence or energy or vanity or ability in a big enough dose to pull it off. It's nice to be asked to do it, tho. Last week I played with some people in a decent pub. It was enjoyable but I ended up having to show my arse crack as I bent over trapped sofas and shit to plug into the electricity. At the end of it, I was carrying kit out over pools of beer and broken glasses and asking pissed people again and again very nicely to please make some space so I could carry things through, and there were two complete loonies (sorry) hanging around to talk and get signatures and getting in the fucking way of the late night pack-down. Although I love the playing side, I do hate playing in Wierdsville with its contingent of freaks and I wish I was tucked up in bed instead of at the carry-out after a pub gig. (I have no idea why wierdos drift towards bands in pubs. On this occasion an OK Blues band. Why don't they just leave?).

So, just as with the teaching, there are parts of gigging that I love and parts that I loathe. I wish I could accept the good in both, and just not reflect on the bad?!

THIS is my Reverbnation page. I'm quite chuffed with some of these tunes. Other tunes are bollocks. I've kept them in because they amuse me.

I have other hobbies but nothing that approaches the time spent on music.

I had a very very neurotic attitude to smoking cigars for many years. I felt guilty about it. I feared punishment. Read THIS. Because of this site, I am now an out and proud cigar man. It feels great. I think we're all here because we know a great cigar in the right circumstances makes for a sublime moment and the cares of the world can drift away for an hour or more. I also love being a quiet cigar man poseur when I'm out and about in the world. It's a bit of street theatre, really, and it always cheers me up. Like doing a knitting pattern cover, but with big brown clouds instead of balls of wool. I've changed from being a Davidoff 50 cigar desktop humidor man to a seven rammed drawers Humidoro humidor man in the last year. I've tried out many different superb cigars since joining this site and took myself off to Cuba in late 09 with the family to have a fantastic time - and to bring back some mighty stogie plunder.

My name's Bryan and I swear by almighty God that I do hereby declare that I adore this glorious sensual indulgence.

I write sensibly on here, and also stupidly on here. Occasionally at length, too. That reflects my ups and downs, really. I very much enjoy writing and like to get things out of my system this way.

The top line of what I've written is the most significant by far.