Don's other musical tastes are wide and varied but consist primarily of international artists, or those who have voices which are very unusual in some way. You can get a fairly good idea of what he likes by looking at the Other Performers of Interest area on this site, which has a brief listing of some of them.
Electronics is also one of Don's hobbies. He especially likes "Home Automation," electronic music and video. He has a large video recorder 'collection' which includes "Cartrivisions," a very early 1970s home video system. He also has a reel-to-reel video system, in addition to more modern equipment. His grandfather, Otto Hellbusch was an electronics hobbyist and opened his own TV repair shop when he retired. Don grew up working with his grandfather in building projects both from 'kits' and 'from scratch.' One of Don's early projects when he was about ten years old was an electronic musical instrument called a "theremin," and is still collecting theremins today. He currently owns a professional model Big Briar 91A that was purchased pre-built and recently sold another portable one that was built from a kit.
Polaroid cameras are also in big supply in Don's collection. He has models range from the early '50s (model 80) to one of the first SX70 models and even a recent digital version, most of which are made of metal and leather rather than plastic and vinyl as were later editions. There are at least twenty Polaroids although most are currently in storage until he has time and space to display them once again.
Don is also an avid car collector, owning six antique luxury cars including Packards (1940-1956), Cadillacs (1965) and Imperials (1964-1965) after selling down from a maximum of about 22 cars at one point. His two former businesses (Packards California / Pacific Computec) where run from his home but were discontinued when he moved in 2006 to a new home. He also runs a hobbyist site called the Packards / Imperials Page for those two marques. Don spent most of his adult life working as a Journeyman Toolmaker/Designer but is now doing Web development and database programming full time.
Although self-taught in Web development and has been doing it for nearly two decades, Don completed a variety of courses at the University of California at Santa Cruz Extension in order to earn an official certificate in Web development, while also adding to his skills. These included Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver, Audio Production for the Web, Multimedia Management, Interface Design, Adobe Photoshop Design for the Web, SQL XML, and various other courses related to Web management and design. Back to Top