Reddit, another way to avoid the workbench

There are so many things that keep me away from the workbench. The daily minutia of life (cooking, cleaning, family, shopping), television (Sons of Anarchy, American Horror Story, pretty much everything on the Military Channel), and the interwebz. I spend way too much time trolling a half-dozen forums, several web sites, and blogs like this one. I justify much of this time as simply being human, being a part of several online communities. But ultimately, every 10 minutes, 30 minutes, hour not spent at the workbench is another model or two going unbuilt over the course of a year. I haven't done the math to determine just how much time I waste. I'm afraid to do so.

So let me tell you about my latest time killer. Have you heard of reddit? Wikipedia describes it as "a social news and entertainment website where registered users submit content in the form of either a link or a text ("self") post." It's a bulletin board, kind of a global Facebook wall, but without the annoying status updates about your friends' work woes, complaints, and check-in's at Red Lobster.

I was aware of reddit but never spent time exploring it. That changed about two weeks ago when a Facebook link took me there and I browsed around. What I found -- among pictures of cute cats and disturbing images of human suffering -- was a collection of IAMA posts (as in, "I am a..."), and I think you'll be interested in some of them.

The idea is this. Reddit users request people in various lines of work or areas of interest to answer a long series of questions from reddit users. The interviewee, often anonymous, is generally willing to answer most any question in an effort to reduce misunderstandings about his/her background or interests or to simply satisfy our curiosity. The result is a fascinating series of conversations that will suck even more time away from your modeling workbench.

The upside is, there have been a large number of interviewees in the defense, aerospace, and aviation communities that you will be interested in. For example, you can hear from a survivor of and IED attack, a drone pilot, and even a Thunderbird pilot.

Here's a link to the military-related threads, but you should browse all of them as well. I guarantee you'll find something intriguing.