I always enjoyed the scene in Crimson Tide where submarine captain Gene Hackman interviews aspiring Executive Officer Denzel Washington.
He asks him what he likes to do in his spare time, and Washington says he rides horses. Hackman follows up with, “What’s the best horse you ever rode?”
This has become one of my favorite getting-to-know-you questions. So everybody: what do you like to do, and what’s the best X you’ve used/ridden/played, etc?
In my case, I fly airplanes. Best airplane I’ve ever flown: L-39 Albatross.
I love wood and wood working. I never skimp on the goods for my wood shop that being said, I carry nearly the top of the line in Delta wood working machinery. God I love my workshop
Oh I also have some vintage stanley tools and a lathe that is better than the top o the line stuff I see today…
You’ve asked 2 questions so I will answer both. The best equipment I’ve used in a hobby would have to be a GPS when flying. It makes the experience easier and safer. I wouldn’t attempt to fly to Oshkosh by myself without one.
The best airplane I’ve ever flown was an AirCam. It’s a twin engine pusher that puts the pilot ahead of the wings in an open cockpit.
The second best piece of equipment I’ve used in a hobby is a Cannon flat bed scanner. It’s thin enough to fit in a laptop case and allows me to reproduce old photographs faster, better, and cheaper than photocopying with a 35mm camera. This has revolutionized my hobby of researching transportation-related items. Computers and high-resolution inkjets are a part of that mix. After that I’d say digital camera’s are a nice addition to the hobby. Oh, and the internet. Wow, almost forgot that. I can trace remnants of railroads and canals from satellite photo’s without ever leaving my house. I can transpose that directly to survey maps also found on the internet.
My hobby is video editing, and the best software I’ve used is, uh, what I have–Vegas Movie Studio. I’ve gotten to use Final Cut Pro once (for school and all of ten minutes), but I found some of the behaviour a little odd comapred to Vegas.
I would love love love to get Adobe After Effects though, just to play with, but there’s no way I could possibly afford it right now. Although that reminds me, I have a copy of Bryce (3d software) I wanted to fiddle with and never got around to…
I’m a woodworker, too. Wife’s favorite joke: “At his age, he has to go to the lumber yard to get wood.” I actually drive two hours to get stock because local lumber yards don’t have anything but construction lumber.
Best piece of equipment in my shop, bar none, is my radial arm saw. I’ve waited five years for that puppy, finally got a used one. It’s a Craftsman/DeWalt, and I have the original owner’s manual. There’s no indication how old it is, but the manual is printed in only one language. I’m thinking late 1960s, early 1970s. Works like a dream!
In woodworking, my favorite tool is my Sears 12" bandsaw. I use it for everything from cutting up firewood to sawing out decorative brackets.
In model building, it’s a tie between my Optivisor magnifying goggles (holy cow, I can see!) and the stainless steel scalpel I’ve had for a million years (which works sooooooomuch better than the canonical Xacto #11).
On the non-technical side, I knit. The best purchase I’ve made and the most fun thing to use is a ball-winder (also called a wool-winder, but it works on other fibers). A lot of better quality yarn doesn’t come in nice, neat pull skeins, but this will convert many yards of wool, silk, etc. into a nice, neat one in only a few minutes.
As for which yarn I’ve liked working with most, it’s hard to tell. I’ve just finished a project with a nice merino wool/merino/cashmere blend, but it was a bit bulky for my taste. Maybe my favorite yarn’s the next one?
Best painting medium, “wet look enamel”. Comes in small bottles and looks like shiny nail polish. I paint two- and three- color realistic full size portraits.
I’d kill for one of those just because they look so cool. But I barely have enough counter space to make a sandwich, so I won’t be getting one any time soon.
Magician here. The best piece of equipment I’ve ever used to perform magic? That’s a tough one as it is not about the equipment, but rather about the magic being performed. What is the best magic that I’ve ever spent money on to perform? Probably the “Pot Hole” trick by Michael Close. I’ve adapted it to my handling and presentation to make it something that absolutely stuns people.
I love my sawzall. I’ve recently gotten into off roading/rock crawling and the sawzall has come in extremely handy dealing with various clearance issues.
I’m also a triathlete and putting a set of FSA K-Wing handlebars on my bike is darn near the best $250 I’ve ever spent. They’ve made a huge difference in comfort on long rides.
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