Sorry for not doing this sooner.  Starting to make a few friends and so I guess it would be better than having to answer questions repeatedly via PM's, in case anybody else wonders.

I am 51 and happily married for 34 years to the same woman, two children and two grandchildren.  Not looking for any online relationships other than friendly.  Ok!

My interests have been many and I'm known as a problem solver, tinkerer, inventor, mr. fix it and probably the world's greatest unknown fisherman! Whatever enters this brain and hits the special interest button will most likely become an obsession until it is figured out and all bugs eliminated to the best of my ability, depending on budget.  If it does not exist I will find a way to create it for the intended purpose, given there is enough junk in the recycle yard.   :)

Fourteen years of this life were spent in a refrigerator factory, another fourteen as a waste-water operator and everything else a small town needs by way of public works/utilities.  I know what hard work is, in freezing cold and burning heat and have literally taken crap from everyone lol.  Many more jobs in-between, here and there also.

Currently I work as a delivery driver for a popular bolt & screw business in Fort Smith, Arkansas.  It beats getting splashed with sewer and I get to meet many people in my daily travels.  Most of them seem unhappy so perhaps I can be a bright spot to some, others make me not care if I ever see them again.  

Hobbies... Where to begin?  

Bass fishing dominated earlier in life.  One day a friend was catching some nice one's on a silly looking soft plastic crawdad.  I thought if they like to bite that ugly lure then they would really like a real looking one.  So I went to the creek, caught some crawdads and set out to make a mold.  Took a couple of years to figure it out seeing as there was no internet then but it turned out pretty good!

   

 

Learned a bit late that hand pouring soft plastics (plastisol) can lead to health issues so I don't do it any longer but still can make molds and do about once a year for some folks.  Have made molds of lots of objects since the beginning.  

With fishing, bait and such comes worms.  Raising worms for bait, composting, castings for gardening, etc. has always been right there among the "never get tired or bored of" hobbies.  Most all if not all problems surrounding worm rearing can be solved with this contraption I call a "Vermi-Tumbler", which is a hybrid of a worm bin and compost tumbler...

 
 

 

This works really well.  There is no handling of or damage to the worms when tumbling and the bedding gets nice aeration.  Egg capsules come through with the castings as do some small worms but that's ok with me.  At one time I had many thousands of worms that got carried away by a flood down at the old sewer plant.  Since then I just keep some at home.

Woodwork has always been a passion and so with fishing + woodwork comes boat building!  Wife says of all my hobbies she has liked the woodwork best.  Have built quite a lot of log furniture in the past as well as some slightly more refined cedar pieces.  Here is the arbor most recently built for my son's wedding a couple of weeks ago...

 

Oh I did say boat building!  Here's my pride and joy "Mis Años Diez". 

   
She is a 10 year work always in progress lol.  A modified Pygmy Taiga canoe built from a kit with added decking, storage, folding cherry and oak seat and place for a sail mast, sail yet to be made along with outriggers.  Someday she will sail. :) 

Very interested in natural cures for "incurable" things, I became interested in Mycology some years ago.  Already mentioned in my first, not very good introduction, I grow fungi on logs and in substrate jars, mostly to use as log inoculation.  Reish (Ganoderma lucidum) and Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) dominate my interests in this field, mostly because I have personal knowledge of two people who were given up for dead with stage 4 cancers and are now cancer free with the help of these fungi.  Shiitake follows since I love to eat them and they are also a good medicine mushroom, as well as growing a few Pearl Oyster and Chicken of the Woods. Here's one of my jar Reishi, grown on oak sawdust with sorghum grain.

    

These are probably the major life hobbies, others are way too numerous to list.  Have done a lot of things, made many things and failed at very many things.  That's how we learn to not do things!  

Now figs.  Still not quite sure why this is so dominating but it most definitely is.  I'm spending way too much money on these crazy things.  Eight or ten more were ordered yesterday.  It's like I have no control over buying them.  I'm pretty sure the credit card people like it though, damned things lol.  

Hope this intro serves better.  I'm very glad to have found f4f.  You all seem like a good bunch and I'm learning more every day.  

Keep on figgin' :)  
 

Renaissance Man!

Excellent second introduction Charlie. Welcome to the forum. Would love to read more about the mushroom hobby and the tumbler. When you have time, a few O.T. posts from you would be interesting reading.

So when do you sleep?

Just kidding, thanks for sharing and welcome!

Man of all trades and skills

Thanks for sharing a bit of your bio.

Renaissance man indeed! I enjoyed the read Charlie. =)

Regards,
bill

Nice growing mushrooms!
Amazing man!

Dude I have been tournament bass fishing since I was 16. I don't fish as much anymore as I have a autoimmune disease. The medication i take is made out of a mushroom. Small world i poured worms for years now I'm into figs. I'm in Ca nice to meet you.Brian

Welcome!  You have a lot of fascinating activities. 

Impressive Charlie. Great introduction.

Charlie - the lure molds are neat. Funny - I've been fishing since I was a kid - I'm 40 now - but I never gave one thought about how they're made. I remember one summer in my late teens always fishing with mouse/frog lures in a rock quarry that we sneaked into. The good old days....

Great intro, Charlie, thanks for taking the time to share it with us!

I've watched/listened to the mycologist Paul Stamets a few times, he's a fascinating guy with some interesting insights and stories.  For folks who are unfamiliar with him, here's a TED talk that he gave a while back (I highly recommend it):

Sounds like your a man after my own heart, my husband is constantly amazed that I find a new interest and master it then move on the the next. I have a list a mile long of all the things I want to learn to do....I hope to have my wood shop finished when the kids start moving out... Glad to have you aboard the fig train and look forward to what you will come up with... welcome aboard!!

Hey Gloria and all, thank you!  :)

James, Thanks for posting the video.  He is the mushroom man!  His business at fungi.com sells all sorts of mushroom kits and starter cultures.  The best of both worlds is to fruit a kit and then use it for log spawn.  

I started out buying kits and gradually moved into germinating spores to liquid cultures to grains and other such myco stuff as I learned.  If you practice good sterile techniques you can grow practically any mushroom.  Most mushroom growing video's online deal with the silly mushrooms but they basically all use the same procedures, given substrates and varying requirements between species like not trying to grow shiitake on manure/hay compost like the popular button type.    Good luck with the morels. :) 

Many of the skills learned in mycology are easily adapted to growing plants and visa-versa.  They actually would compliment each other given the right setup.  Mushrooms produce CO2. just what the plants need  

Charlie I was pouring worms in the early to mid nineties. Pro worms were really big in Fresno they helped me out alot. I actually won a tournament on my own pour it was smoke with a gold line and light black and gold flake. It is now known as pro gold but i was pouring it first. My disease is multiple sclerosis and its a bitch. The drug is called Gilenya and derived from cordyceps mushroom.

Charlie,

A very nice re-introduction.  

Hey Charlie, PM me or email the info on that canoe kit. Years ago, I use to fish bass tournaments and when I started my new life with figs, I sold my boat on eBay more than I paid for it. I told my wife, one day I would pick fishing back up. But if I do, my boat would have to be a small boat or canoe. My largest bass came off a plastic crawdad jig on a Texas style rig. Crawfish are a major part of fish'e diet.

Charlie - Welcome. Have you ever read 'Outsmart Your Cancer' by Tanya Harter Pierce, or come across the Encyclopedia of Medical Breakthroughs and Forbidden Treatments by MRA? If not, they will both greatly extend your knowledge of natural cures for incurable diseases. Been a while since I checked on MS though. Last time I looked, there were no 'magic bullets'. Just regimens for slowing down its progress. 

Unfortunately, you won't find any help here to overcome your fig addiction. There is no cure for that, whether natural or Big Pharma.

@ Charlie & Brian - Now this looks really interesting, except that Mike Adams calls it muscular sclerosis rather than multiple s. I think he might have got his m's mixed up, unless that's an alternative name for it in the US:

http://www.naturalnews.com/039361_cordyceps_Gilenya_multiple_sclerosis.html

I think he makes a valid point - 'Big Pharma' is just a $$$ racket. If there's a natural alternative, I will always go there first before I consider their toxic, grossly overpriced, side-effect laden offerings.

Brian - Have you checked out curezone yet? There might be some useful advice there as well. Either way, hope you find that cure. We have close family friends similarly affected, so I empathize. As you say, it's a real bitch.