Do you have a gift? Maybe just a minor talent for doing something better than others?

Ralphy1

Ralphy1

Well-known Member
Don't be modest, tell us! I have been told that I make the best martini ever, but I try to tell people that it is not a gift but the result of years of hard work getting the right gin and vermouth mix perfected...
 

I used to be good at drawing, I was in an art show and sold some of my drawings. I, however, have been procrastinating to get back into it. I think I need to take an art refresher course first. I may do that when I turn 60 and can get free classes at the colleges here.
 

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One can develop a skill thru study and experience, but a gift is there from the beginning, and very few have one, and rarely more than one. The lucky ones are those who discover their gift at an early age so that they can enjoy it and perhaps build a highly rewarding life around it...
 
Tell us when and how you discovered this gift, and why you are judged to be better than others at it...
 
Ruthanne said:
I used to be good at drawing, I was in an art show and sold some of my drawings. I, however, have been procrastinating to get back into it. I think I need to take an art refresher course first. I may do that when I turn 60 and can get free classes at the colleges here.
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Someone told me that Ralphy can draw flies....
 
Flies don't come near me because they don't like the smell of my gin laden breath, ladies on the other hand, find my breath to be an aphrodisiac...
 
I was a medical photographer. One of my pictures appeared on the front page of all 3 city newspapers.

It showed the patient's incision from the newly developed heart-lung machine.
 
Well.. on 2 different occasions I have screamed an ear piercing scream that has killed the mouse that made me scream. My father loves to tell everyone about that. I seem to have given the mice a heart attack or something & they just dropped dead in their tracks.
 
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Ruthanne said:
I used to be good at drawing, I was in an art show and sold some of my drawings. I, however, have been procrastinating to get back into it. I think I need to take an art refresher course first. I may do that when I turn 60 and can get free classes at the colleges here.
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If it's something you love, you really should! I'm very good with pen and ink, but quite mediocre with water colors, and I totally suck with oils and acrylics. I found my forte with scrimshaw. I stopped practicing many years ago, and gave all my tools to an uncle who has since died. I have no idea what was done with my tools. Today, decent scrimshaw tools are pretty expensive. But way back when I started scrimming, it was with an exacto knife, a bottle of ink, and some old antlers. I could do that again. I've been reticent because of my back problems. While I have found good treatment for that, hours of sitting hunched over a bit of bone or micarta or whatever, straining my fingers, arms, and neck, would still cause pain.

That said, you've just lit a fire under my cu. After my next back treatment I'm going to get some basic tools, find a "canvas", and give it a go!

I'm also a good singer. My voice is untrained, and has lost the range it used to have, but it still impresses my grandchildren, and my son loves to take me karaoke-ing with him.
 
Okay, I've gotten over my natural modesty and shyness ...

I'm a very good martial arts teacher. In fact, I made it my career for over 30 years. I still have a private student I've been teaching for 15 years.

Also, and this will sound wacky, I had a certain talent for making large, complicated dollhouses from scratch. It started when my wife said she had never had a dollhouse as a child. For our next anniversary I planned on giving her one.

But instead of doing what a normal, sane person would do - going to the store and buying one already made, or at least a kit - I decided to make this one by hand. I cut scale 2"x4"s and 2"x6"s, cut the flooring out of sheets of exotic woods and marble, installed working electricity and plumbing ... the project just ran away with me.

It ended up finished one day before our anniversary - a 4'x4'x3' monster, built so that it could hinge open in three pieces and mounted on its own table.

After a few people saw it they started asking if I could make one for them. I eventually started a lucrative side-business building dollhouses and ended up exhibiting at a few major shows up and down the East coast.
 
SifuPhil said:
Okay, I've gotten over my natural modesty and shyness ...

I'm a very good martial arts teacher. In fact, I made it my career for over 30 years. I still have a private student I've been teaching for 15 years.

Also, and this will sound wacky, I had a certain talent for making large, complicated dollhouses from scratch. It started when my wife said she had never had a dollhouse as a child. For our next anniversary I planned on giving her one.

But instead of doing what a normal, sane person would do - going to the store and buying one already made, or at least a kit - I decided to make this one by hand. I cut scale 2"x4"s and 2"x6"s, cut the flooring out of sheets of exotic woods and marble, installed working electricity and plumbing ... the project just ran away with me.

It ended up finished one day before our anniversary - a 4'x4'x3' monster, built so that it could hinge open in three pieces and mounted on its own table.

After a few people saw it they started asking if I could make one for them. I eventually started a lucrative side-business building dollhouses and ended up exhibiting at a few major shows up and down the East coast.
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Oh man, that's so cool! I love to watch martial arts competitions. Used to sit up and watch Kung-Fu theater from midnight til 3am when I was a kid. I have 2 nephews who competed in mixed martial arts (in a fighting ring) when they were in their 20s, and I've got a massive collection of Jacki Chan (and others) DVDs.

I envy your wife for the doll house. I made one once, from a kit - mainly so I could collect miniature furniture and stuff.
 
Phil, I love doll houses, wish you had a pic of one of yours to show us. I had a tin 2 story house in the 50s and I'd have thought I'd died and gone to heaven if I'd had one like you made. Do you not have the desire to make another one? Seems like it'd be a lot of fun.
 

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