Toys and hobbies, hobbies and toys...
My first hobby was collecting 45 RPM records way back in junior high and high school. Ken Forbes and I, he was my neighbor had the most complete collections around.

Next hobby was just staying alive and trying to figure out where I was headed. Had no idea what career to pursue so tried several things until I came across Fiberglass, the kind boats are made of, tanks, whirlpools, and kit cars. I made the above fiberglass statue for the Golden Chariot Restaurant here in Florida. Made a bunch of those replicars too.

Then Florida souvenirs which we sold everywhere until the first oil crunch. I still see them on Ebay now and again and they are selling for a bunch more then we did, and they have lasted all these years. Sold my company and set it up in Jamaica which went over real big and lived the life of Riley for a few years, traveling back and forth from Fort Lauderdale, to Kingston.

While in business I took up photography as a way to document jobs I was working on for customers, step by step, since that is how I got paid. Some projects took a year such as plugs for the mold and then the molds for the production models.

Getting bit by the photo bug naturally got me interested in darkroom work and processing and printing my own photos. I started using the kitchen sink, then sectioned off a portion of our bed room right next to the bathroom, and put up a false wall accessible only from the bathroom, and shortening up the bedroom by about 6 feet. Easy to do in a mobile home. Equipped it with everything ‘darkroom’.

My next darkroom was in the plant. I worked so much I talked my wife into letting me put a 3000 foot home inside the factory and we moved out of the mobile home into another kind of loft on the ground home. After all I had to be close to my work shop tools, welders, and other things. I often got up late at night and worked on some home project which was just a few steps away. I did put in 20 hour days easy and when the rush jobs would come along, I would work days without sleep looking for that next installment.

Those installments helped pay for our next hobby, motorcycles. I say ‘our’ hobbies since my wife got me on that kick. She wanted a motor bike. The first one I got her was a Honda 125. She only rode it once, the kids borrowed it the next morning as we went to a job site. They got it in first gear and never got it out and burned up the bike with less then three hours on it.

Before the weekend was out I got bitten just a little by the motorcycle bug and bought her a Enduro 175, Pink and faster then a speeding bullet. The first time she gunned it, it flew out from under her and she never went over 40 unless I was with her on Alligator Alley, 80 miles of road. I bought a matching 175 turquoise and black but I grew tired of it quickly. And got a bigger and better one.

After trying for a week she just couldn’t handle it so I got her a 225 Honda, then a 400 Honda, each time she got used to it she wanted more. Got her a sporty 550 Kawi Sportster which looked like a miniature Harley, she liked that bike until it was stolen.

I was a little slower settling in so I got me a Kawi 1000 and just went crazy making it into a fancy full dress. Now she had to have a full dress bike and I got her a Susiki 1000 as fancy as they come, I had to have the biggest out at the time and went to an 1100. It kinda happened that way

since we were making Fiberglass trailers for camping, the Travelier some times known as the POD which we liked to hand deliver. I took a lot of pictures then so I was in the darkroom even before super time.

My landlord liked what I did with building a home into the factory and wanted to double the rent. The corner you see in the picture to the far right is the wall to the house, which was 3000 sq and it did have a loft where the three girls slept.

Right around there I got my first boat which was a real moment of pleasure for me but the wife hated it. So I was a sole Captain unless I could talk a couple of employees to go along to keep me out of trouble. A little to scary for me when I would go out in the ocean far away from land and not see the lights of land. I tooled back in and just cruised the canals.

We went house hunting and I basically gave up on manufacturing. Literally walking away from a 25 plus year old business.

I took over one of the new rooms in the house and made it into a comfortable dark room this time. We decided to get a home at this time since the girls were growing up so fast so that’s when I built one of the spare rooms into a darkroom/computer room/office and used the rest of the house as small studio sets.

Then my wife wanted something to do so I bought her a lingerie store, which was named Della’s Exotic Lingerie. We renamed it to Sheer Fantasy and soon there after opened another one. The newsletter was named Sheer Fantasy too. And went for several years until I just couldn’t handle the circulation any more. I honored the last of the year long subscriptions and bowed out gracefully with one heck of an inventory of images,

That’s when I really got into the photography taking fotos for the catalog sheets, blooming into portfolio’s and boudoir photography all from the clients. Lingerie, bathing suits, stripper outfits, Topless bathing suits and mostly dancer outfits, which Sandy made. Sandy had to make break-a-way thongs, and tops for the dancers and a new night club dancer would come in every week for a fitting and more outfits. When they saw my photos they wanted theirs taken too. I was very inexpensive. So that also kept me busy.

From there I managed 8 one hour labs (Snap Shops) and my time was once again consumed. Put in a one hour process and print unit at the house too so I never had to farm anything out.

Then started up a mail order business and expanded the newsletter which I sold all over the world and started writing articles for amateur photography magazines, Cheri, Camera Shopper, Quest, Photo Image news, Western Photography, and so many others I can’t remember.

All the hobbies pushed me more and more into the direction of computers. Starting small with a Commodore 64, up to a 128, then and 8088 and my first real IBM which was a 286. Always built my own computers, (you can see one of my darkroom/computer rooms else were on the site actually over at the http://www.bidderbug.com site. The room I had was the old shed, 20 x 10 and it was loaded to the rafters with computer junk. Now I have moved back into the house since my daughter and her husband and grand daughter have moved out gives us three rooms to fill. I can never be more then a flush away from my computers. Now I am auctioning off thousands of  rolls of film on Ebay from all those years.

Along the way I started to collect video tapes, then CD’s so I am back into the Music of the Night. Collecting 45’s. And now Ebay consumes me more then working for a living again. And the computers are taking over my life.