I find distressed audio equipment and bring them back to life.

Here is a photo of some of the pieces I’ve worked on:

Top Shelf:

Adcom GP-555 It’s actually dead. I cannot get the left channel to work at all. Resoldered the entire signal path, replaced the opamps, cleaned the controls, bypassed the controls… Just cannot find where the issue is…

McIntosh MC7108: On/off circuit issues. This one I didn’t really fix, just bypassed the affected circuit, because I don’t care about turning it on and off via a switch. I use it every day.

Second Shelf:

Carver TFM-15cb: Needed new lights in the meters and the input level pots cleaned. That is all the one pictured needed. I have another one that required the same things, but also had to recap it. The one in the photo will need new capacitors before too long. Great sounding amps, but not very well built.

Bottom Shelf:

Soundcraftsman PRO-PA2X200: This is actually an amp my wife has owned for over 30 years. The power supply caps went out and needed to be replaced.

Here is a photo of said capacitors:

I make espresso.

A professional is someone who fell into the trap of turning their hobby into a source of income

Self hosting, I guess it makes me an IT person as a hobby?

Astronomy. I have a big ass reflector that I use for struggling to find globular clusters, oggling the fuck out of Jupiter and the Orion nebula, and very slowly working my way through the Messier list*. I considered going to school for it, for a hot second, but I kinda really don’t want to end up the fucked up publish-or-die academia world making less money than I do now but with PhD debt.

*I don’t use a GOTO system. No judgement for people who do, I’ve even considered a GOTO mod for when I do outreach, but I think there’s some magic in slewing on to target by hand.

I make pretty good beer and pretty shit furniture.

Mechanic. I have the tools and know how to fix my own car so long as we’re not talking about an engine rebuild, (and even that I could do and have done in the past, but it’s a pain in the ass usually and I don’t wanna). I enjoy the tinkering and troubleshooting. If it were a more desirable and high paying gig, I could see myself doing it for work. I also am IT support for my boomer mom.

I am developing software as a hobby that is fairly specialized in nature. That is only because I could not get a job doing the same thing. Fuck corporate monopolies.

I fix all the tech at work because our IT department is dog trash and not fixing something when I know how feels like bees in my brain. Does that count as a hobby? :/

I also sometimes cook food in a more elaborate way than necessary which I’ve heard some people get paid for

Fixing bikes. But if I had to do it for a job, under time pressure, I’d hate it. Give me all afternoon to fix a bike and let me put on a 5 hour podcast about the collapse of the Aztec empire, that’s my happy place

Influencer (I shitpost non-stop)

Ice hockey goalie. I’m no good at it, but it’s so much fun.

Doing stuff with CSS

Sex

Photography.

I’ve been doing it for a long time and I’m still somewhat mediocre. It could theoretically make me money, but for me the excuse for not doing it boils down to “but it would require me to deal with people”, given that most sought-after and commercially viable things to shoot are weddings, graduations and so on. In the end I keep it as something I (mostly) enjoy and occasionally do as favours to friends and family. I mostly shoot live music in order to support the local scene; I also do extreme sports and a bit of wildlife & landscapes.