Most of these links lead on to others, but first let me throw in a few sites which have links to almost every imaginable activity or interest one could care to name -- a few unimaginable ones, too...check out the Useless WWW Pages for more of the latter.
The Web is growing at an incredible rate, which is one reason why so may of the links you'll find on my pages are probably now hopelessly defunct, but you can use a variety of search engines to quickly find what you're interested in. The following sites can also help you get around the Internet pretty easily:
Virtual Index...a HUGE
site with something for everyone
How
to use USENET
Deja News...search USENET
newsgroups
These are a few of my favorite things...
Music, whether
with lyrics or not, is
very important to me. I have a broad range
of tastes, but my favorite genres are undeniably "oldies" and classic
rock as well as blues
and music steeped in the blues. My
all-time favorite performer is Elvis Presley.
Right behind
him I dig the Beatles, who I think are
absolutely
gear. I haven't seen all that many live concerts, but after the
two
Paul McCartney
shows I've experienced I feel like I have
seen about the best of what a live performance ought to be. Other artists
I
particularly like include John Lennon, Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Marvin
Gaye, Ray
Charles,
Humor is also something I value highly -- in fact, there should be an old proverb which states that with music, humor, and love, nothing else is necessary.
Movies are something I rarely get to see any more, but I love them. Living in Los Angeles for a few years, with my wife's family active in "the business" (show biz, not organized crime, though it's sometimes hard to tell the difference) was an education.
I love to travel, though the novelty of jet travel wore off quite quickly during my first trans-Pacific flight. "Budget travel" (a.k.a. "backpacking," these days) is my favored mode of locomotion, using whatever means are available to get around, though I long for another lengthy tour of America on my trusty motorcycle (which is definitely not one of those behemoth touring bikes), currently languishing outside as victim to the carelessness of the moving company that brought us to Georgia and my lack of time to do anything to rectify their damage (perhaps I should have exercised my constitutional right and sued their pants off for damages and psychological trauma). Regardless of travel modality, there is nothing like the fear-thrill of not knowing where the day will take you when you wake up in the morning (assuming you were able to find a hostel, protected park bench, or some other place in which to sleep). I guess one of the most important lessons I've learned is that this thrill need not be limited to mornings spent in far-flung destinations, but can be a part of every day. One needn't go anywhere to travel -- we are all traveling through time, anyway. Whoa!...deep...
As far as outdoor activities go, in recent years I haven't been able to do many of the things I enjoy with the exception of SCUBA diving, as a result of my underwater research. While SCUBA is a necessary tool in the kind of research I conduct, it is also something I enjoy immensely for its own sake. I may never do another purely "recreational" dive again, but some "research" dives are more fun than others, and even the nasty dives are better than a lot of other things I could be doing.
I love the sea, though she, perhaps, couldn't care less. I find its inhabitants fascinating, beyond my scientific interest, and also very photogenic. Like many people, I have a strong interest in "nature" and animals which is stimulated by television documentaries such as those shown on the Discovery Channel as well as by articles in magazines and books. If it weren't for Jacques Cousteau's televised epics and the National Geographic Magazines I grew up with, I probably wouldn't be doing what I am now (becoming heavily indebted in the pursuit of scientific truth).
I grew up at New Zealand's Outward Bound School, which offers a environment even more conducive to outdoor activity than New Zealand, in general, does. Some of the activities I enoyed then and now include:
hiking
sailing
rock climbing
kayaking
motorcycles
photography
running
snorkeling
Martial arts, and associated philosophies, are very important to me...
I used to love making plastic models as a kid, and never really outgrew it. It was the attention to detail necessary to produce a true replica in miniature which really atttracted me, though I have always had a strong interest in military history and aircraft. Though I have no time or space to get back into it, I have quite a collection of unbuilt kits and airbrush equipment languishing in storage, and I figure I'll at least have a good hobby for retirement (by which time my F-14 Tomcats will be on a par with WW I biplanes today). My maternal grandmother was an artist, and I seem to have inherited that particular inclination to some extent, though my drawings are largely limited to doodles and the occasional biological "still life" these days. The main "creative" outlets for me are underwater photography and videography -- again, a research tool, but there's no reason why the footage has to be lacking in aesthetics (though it often is, all the same). I also enjoy writing, and started writing magazine articles as a way of spreading the word about the subjects I find interesting in my career field, as well as making my small contribution to "saving the world" by raising the environmental awareness of readers. The income I have received from sale of magazine articles comes in handy by further supporting my research habit.
Reading non-technical books is something that I've started again, to take my mind off my research and to allow me to have barracuda-free dreams at night...
Select here to select more - miscellaneous stuff and WWW "gadgets", world statistics, dates and times, weather maps, outdoor activity references, food, the Feds, writing resources, quotations, student resources, resume writing, and references (languages, dictionaries, thesaurus, zip codes, 800-numbers, area codes, etc)...