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Old New Guy Saying Hello

Good Afternoon, Gentlemen.
I'm not yet 45, and certainly don't consider myself 'old', but SWMBO thinks I'm an old fogey. So, it's certainly very encouraging to find a forum of the like-minded.

I have been wet shaving since I was old enough, but always with cartridges. Now, I am about to start, gently with a Weishi, at first, to do it as 'properly' as I do with some other pursuits and tastes.

But what else goes with our style? What other pursuits and interests do we have? What values do we hold and what do we value? Reading some of the posts here, my guess is that the answers would all be very different and yet have certain 'somethings' in common.

For me, I love the older simplicity of analogue devices. They are easier to repair, have a pleasing sense of good design and history about them and require care in order to give long service.

Photography: I love the heft of my Nikon F2 and use it for carefully composed photos, the kind using handheld exposure meters, filters, tripods, and great, gibbous-eyed lenses. The Nikon F4, fully electronic and motorised, is more of my daily driver for film photography. I also have a Graflex Speed Graphic - which is packed away ready for the day when I can have my own darkroom again for 4"x5" B/W.

Radio: I am a tube radio fan. I love the Zenith Trans-Oceanic H500 series, as well as its successor, the 600 series. I have almost 40 examples, all in thje process of being restored. Shortwave listening is done on either a computer-controlled Icom R75 (for precision) or a tube-driven Collins R392 (for nostalgia).

Music: My CD player is an early '90's Marantz that has been rebuilt with tube driven output stages. This is hooked up to a homebrew tube amplifier, based around the 6SN7 and 6L6 tubes and is used for playing classical and jazz only. General thrash pop/rock gets fed from an MP3 player into an old-skool transistor amp - a Kenwood from the early 1970's.

Driving: I used to have a Land Rover Series 3 LWB diesel - before I got married - then it was all hyper-practical minivans. Now I am temporarily single (the missus and kids in one place, whilst I seek work elsewhere), I have bought an '85 Chevy Suburban - great ugly brute of a truck, with a bellowing V8, 6.2 litre, totally non-electronic, diesel engine.

How much of such stereotyped 'fogeyism' could be deduced, I wonder, by appearance alone and knowing that I wet shave? :tongue_sm
 
You'll find that you, like me, are truly middle aged around here. But, you'll find a lot of like minded renaissance men here that have interesting hobbies as do you.
 
I read a newspaper article about the "new" pursuit of Gentlemanly Arts...I think they used the phrase "Young Fogey".

So, consider yourself a Young Fogey!


Ohhh...a LWB...I'm going to be jealous now.

Welcome!

Cheers!
 
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