Ari Johnson. Hobbies.

What I Like to Do

Ah, yes: relaxation. I strongly believe that balance and diversity are core elements of a healthy, happy, and mostly sane life. My hobbies and interests reflect this. If you want to discuss any of my hobbies or interests with me, please feel free to contact me at any time. I'm always looking for someone to swap ideas with, whether those ideas involve computer source code or ammunition load data, or anything in between.

Music

Music plays a central role in my life. All through high school I played trumpet in the band and sang bass in the choir, participating in music contests at the regional and state level and even receiving 'star' awards at the state level for various performances, alone and in groups. I've also picked up a few other instruments over the years, with varying degrees of success. Through college I was a member of the UND Varsity Bards men's choir and in my senior year became a member of the Goliards, a select group of Bards that sings mostly contemporary a capella music.

But my favorite musical activity of all is playing guitar. I've played with various groups over the years and at gigs of various sizes, and whether I'm just jamming along with the stereo, recording acoustic music, or blasting away my ear drums and those of my neighbors, I find an emotional outlet, some would say my only one, in my guitar.

If you are looking for a guitarist, drop me a line. I play pretty much any style and enjoy new challenges.

Computers

I have plenty of computer-related hobbies, of course. That comes from long experience in the field.

Additionally, in the past I have written a couple of free software programs that saw a great deal of use. I've since handed off both Ari's Yahoo Client (ari-yahoo) and libxml++ to other competent developers with more time to perfect and maintain those projects. There's also Queue Server, which runs all the content on PurplePJs, a teen girls' online magazine.

Outdoors

Having grown up in western North Dakota, where the population density is low and the natural beauty is high (particularly in and around the Badlands, where I spent the first 18 years of my life), I am something of an outdoorsman. I love camping, riding horses, driving around on dirt trails in the '48 Willys Jeep that I learned how to drive on, fishing, and hunting. Also, I have grown very fond of motorcycles, and pride myself on being a very good and very safe rider (the Badlands came in handy here, too, as they provided plenty of sharp turns to hone my skills on). My favorite motorcycles are BMWs, because they are extremely well-engineered, very fast, and, most importantly and uniquely of all, extremely comfortable. On no other bike would I be nearly as happy to ride 6 hours at a time without stopping and over 500 miles a day as I am on a BMW.

When it comes to hunting, I come from a long line of North Dakota sportsmen and was lucky enough to inherit the marksmanship gene that's been handed down my father's side of the family for generations. My favorite hunting to date has always been for mule deer bucks in the Badlands, as the terrain is challenging and beautiful and the shots tend to be longer and therefore much more gratifying to make successfully.

I have also come to greatly enjoy hunting with a muzzleloader, having taken a Saskatchewan black bear with my 50-caliber Hawken rifle. Future departures from the typical hunt for me will possibly include bow hunting and hopefully a chance to hunt elk, moose, or caribou. My lifelong hunting goal, however, is to go on an African hunting safari.

In addition to simply hunting, I have taken after my father in his love for hand-loading our own cartridges. For the uninitiated: hand-loading is typically less expensive than buying factory-produced ammunition, but, much more importantly, allows the sportsman to fine-tune his load to his particular rifle and perfect each load for the absolute maximum accuracy and to ensure that it is as effective as possible at its task, be that task the taking of large game or simply the perforation of paper at 500 yards.

Philosophy

No, I don't just mean debating whether the chair I'm sitting on is really there or not (although I do my fair share of that, as well). I mean, simply, the Greek philosophos - "loving wisdom or knowledge" - that drives my life. Only when I'm dead will I take a break from learning, and even then the break will only be brief, I'm sure. I try to learn some significant new skill every year. The past has seen me studying languages, taking two semesters of Latin from my college and studying Classical and New Testament Greek as well as, most recently, a little conversational Russian.

Other areas of knowledge that I often explore include scientific knowledge, in particular that relating to the origins of the universe and the origins and intricacies of life on Earth and possibly elsewhere, and deeper understanding of my own Christian faith and how it relates to that scientific knowledge.

Reading

The simple truth is that I finish books more often than I update this page. If you are really that interested in what I am currently reading, please feel free to contact me and ask. I will certainly have a good recommendation if your own reading list is running short.

That said, my favorite author is Stephen Hunter. Read all of his novels in the order they were published, or start with Point of Impact if you want to skip ahead to the greatest series of novels written in the past half century.