Dave, I have to say that Charles looks just as regal as his name would suggest. Nice muscular shoulders. He must give a really good chase.

As long as everyone is showing off their best four legged friends... You've already seen him as my avatar but here is another showing one of his moody looking pose.




St-Bernard always looks sad even when they are happy and the tail is banging holes in the walls (literally ). Gentle giant indeed!

I have so many hobbies its hard to fund them all. Besides the whole coffee deal I'm also a photographer and biker. I have many more, but coffee, photography, and biking are by far my favorites.

Photography gear contains Canon 5DmkII, 16-35L, 24-70L, 70-200L, 50mm 1.4, and 85mm 1.8. A whole bunch of flashes and lighting accessories including alien bees ab800 x2 with a vegabond battery.

Biking I am still pretty new at. Maybe around 3 years mountain biking and 1.5 years road biking. The mountain bike is a 2009 Trek Fuel EX8 while the road bike is a 2009 Specialized Allez Sport.

Hopefully I can do more shooting of all this stuff soon.

Alpine skiing is one of my pursuits.

That is my 9 year old on April 10 in the backcountry of Alpental at Snoqualmie Pass, WA.

My biggest interest is cycling, road and mountain. I put a lot of hours on my road bike because it is usually more fun then sleeping when the weather is nice. Probably 200-300 miles per week when the weather is nice and work permits. My mountain bike gets used mostly during the winter. I have a Jamis Dakota 29er, Fuji Professional and my baby is a Cannondale Synapse Hi-Mod, which is ridiculously light and fast. I also rock climb, but I wish I had more time for that. I started getting into photography, Olympus E-510, but I do not put too much time or effort into it.

I posted already I like music; in fact I really enjoy listening to different genres of music, from clasical and modern-classical, through jazz, rock, some soul, hard rock (even including some bites of heavy-metal), but honestly I have my favourites in each kind that I love most, like for example Anton Webern, System of a Down, just not to go more into the topic. But I also write music and this mostly comes out as modern classical style, though I used to play electric guitar in my teens
And writing music is so far mostly a passion, because it was yet hard to earn my living with it, though I received a prize in 2000 and lately an award. And thus award is in its fruition: during the concert on 30 April in Mannheim my composition 'Duetto for You' will have its premiere performance. Performers are 'Das Violinduo': Christoph and Marie-Luise Dingler.

My obsessions:
Motorcycles- I've been riding for 30 years and ride pretty much every day. It was one of my professions that turned into a job. I used to be a MC messenger in NYC, back in the late 80's. I currently own a Kawi ZRX 1200 that's been well modded (and will continue to be). I love pretty much all bikes, but I lean toward naked UJM upright, to Italian street and supersport. Not big into cruisers or touring bikes. My fantasy garage would have: 1974 CB400f super sport, 78 Kawasaki KZ1000, 2010 MV Agusta F4, 2010 Ducati 1198 S, 2010 Ducati Monster 1100, 1010 Suzuki GSXR 1000.

Computers- I've been into computers for almost 30 years, but really got into it in the late 80's. It was another obsession that turned into a profession. It's been my career for 20 years, and I've been a unix sysadmin for 17 years. There's too much stuff to list here, but if you want to see my resume, just ask!

Cooking/Food- I love to cook. Yes.. again, something I used to make money doing. However my real passion for cooking came years after. I worked as a prep and line cook in my late teens, early 20's, and honestly never would want to do that again. I like cooking all kinds of stuff, but recently a lot of Jamaican food. Just last weekend I made some Jamaican oxtail w/rice and peas, fried plantains and cabbage salad. Yum! I also make my own jerk seasoning and beef patties. I like to barbecue, too. I have 3 weber charcoal grills, and a large pit/smoker made from a 50 gallon drum, with a 20 gallon drum smoker attached. It is not unusual for me to tend a piece of jerked pork shoulder for 14 hours.

Art,Music,Movies- I spent 5 years at SUNY Purchase school of the arts studying film. I have a huge collection of DVD's, mostly genre specific stuff, almost no mainstream hollywood films. Lots of art and foreign stuff, of course, but also a bunch of exploitation, eurosleaze, asian horror, martial arts, etc.
Big music lover, too. indie, classical, electronic, reggae, R&B, funk, punk, hardcore, jazz, etc. The only thing I don't listen to much of is heavy metal or modern country music, but I even make some exceptions to that.

Muscle cars- I don't really have the money or the time to invest in a real hobby, but I love American muscle cars. I've had a '67 Firebird convertible, a '74 Gran Torino Sport (Starski and Hutch!), '92 Mustang GT convertible, '94 Trans-Am, and I currently drive a '05 GTO (400HP!). The GTO is 5 years old but only has 30k miles. I mostly drive the motorcyle. Hey, I live in LA, might as well take advantage!

Dear coffee friends,
you can listen to two pieces of my music for free here:
A 20-minutes long cycle of songs for soprano and string quartet
A 5-minutes long Violin Duetto
To listen press the small play button placed near my name (somewhat hard to spot)
Have a nice time

Basketball. I'm not very good and need a 3rd ankle surgery, but I love it and will probably play until I can't, to my wife's dismay

Well
1. Espresso/coffee/Cafes/coffee culture (obviously)
2. Consumer Electronics
3. Starting to get into photography

After coffee pretty much in this order:

1. Beer.
2. Organizing bike rides with my friends.
3. Photography, especially with film and vintage cameras.
4. Making noise.
5. Thomas Pynchon.
6. The desert.