what's your area of expertise?

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My area of expertise that is "encyclopedic" is roller coasters---particularly historic wooden coasters of the 1920s era. By the time I was in high school I had every roller coaster in the United States, Canada, and Mexico memorized for its height, length, year of build, designer, and builder. The information I absorbed came easy for me. Someone would just ask about a particular amusement park, and I would begin telling the statistics behind every roller coaster at that park.

There are other some other areas I have done this for too---but roller coasters were my big area of expertise.

There are four things which I think I can truly say have surpassed interests and become areas of expertise. "Encyclopedic" is a key word here.

1. When I was younger, Dinosaurs were huge to me. I studied them and memorized everything about them. I set up dioramas and did research projects. Fascinating.

2. In my adolescence, it was The Simpsons. I had the dialogue to nearly every show of the first 12 seasons in my head, and could recite at will. The events of daily life seemed to only be a generator for "Simpsons references".

3. Geography and History have always been very intense interests for me. I get utterly lost by looking at maps, and I have supreme powers of reference for these topics. Too bad knowing isolated historical facts and world capitals doesn't earn you a paycheck.

4. As an adult, Plant Classification and Culture has become my primary focus, as you can tell from my signiature. I cannot drive down the road without noticing every clearly visible tree and shrub and flower, and thinking of the botanical family/genus/species taxonomy for it. I obsessively cultivate a garden, and collect as many useful, beautiful, and unusual plants as climate and budget will allow (and sometimes more than they will allow!)

Other areas of pseudo-expertise (high interest, much knowledge, but not the totality and motivation of an "expert") could be:
music performance and acoustics
meteorology
writing
photography
ecology and environmental systems

Good topic.

Hmm, I've got a few, and some of them are more intense than others.

Guns and weaponry would be the big one, I went so far as to move to Colorado and get my degree in gunsmithing, and have a well equipped machine shop on my property for building my own. Though it's mostly modern weaponry that I work with, older stuff fascinates me as well, and I often build modern versions of old oddball weapons that I come across for my own entertainment.

I suppose you could call heavy machinery and machine tools an area of my expertise as well, since it dovetails perfectly with my weapons fabrication hobby and I love anything mechanical. Some of my tools are from the 1930's and have big exposed gears and flywheels, giving my shop this sort of steampunk vibe with my ultramodern electronic readouts sitting next to fully mechanical tools, it's pretty cool.

Cooking is a very consuming hobby, I read cookbooks like novels and mark anything interesting with color coded tags for later quick access. My kitchen is almost as well equipped as my machine shop, between the Moroccan fence that I used to work with and Craigslists I've managed to come up with almost any kitchen appliance I could ever need, on the cheap. I particularly like to cook Latin or Southeast Asian food with a lot of color and spice, since living in the Seattle area I have to live with 9 months of gray sky, and hot weather food helps cheer me up.

A med interaction has cooled my obsession with bartending for a bit, but I still possess a bar to rival many commercial establishments, as well as an encyclopedic knowledge of liquors, especially single malt Scotches. I'm a particular fan of the Islay malts with their heavy smoke and peat flavors, though I can also appreciate a honey flavored Speyside on occasion. Although I've disastrously learned that commercial bartending may not be for me, it's still a fun hobby when I have guests, and hopefully when I get my meds straightened out I can come back to it.

Music and music culture (twee pop, post-rock, boston scene circa late eighties/early nineties, sad-core/slowcore)
Regulatory Policy (my job)
Synthisizers (I have owned dozens and know how to program each and every one.)
Guitar effects
Sound Engineering
Songwriting
Dune books (Frank Herbert's, not the ones by his son.)
Kaiju movies.
Auteur Directors
Simone de Beauvoir (french feminist philosopher)
Kafka
Hayao Miyazaki
U.S. Civil Rights, Womens and Labor History post civil-war.
Progressive Anime
Musical instruments in general
Constitutional law

I know there is a few more, but this list is pretty comprehensive.

Hi starygrrl---I also like synthesizers. I was into them heavily while I was in college. Here is my current collection of them:

Moog Polymoog
Moog Opus 3
Moog Rogue
Sequential Circuits Prophet 600 (first MIDI synth in consumer production)
ARP String Ensemble
ARP Omni
Yamaha DX7
Yamaha DX9
Yamaha FB01 (tone generator)
Yamaha S03
Yamaha QX5 (sequencer)
Roland D50
Roland (arranger, forget the number on it)
Ensoniq SQ2
Casio CZ1
Casio CZ101

non-synths:

Rhodes stage piano
Hohner Clavinet
various Yamaha and Casio keyboards

organs:

Hammond CV (1948) with tone cabinet
Hammond A101 (1961) with 21H Leslie
Hammond E100 (1966) with Leslie
Farfisa Compact Duo

I would love to communicate with other keyboard/synth people.

you found one right here , but I'm more of a piano man. Chappell piano's are beautiful, as are bechsteins. Havn't tried a steinway yet. It's It's not my specialisation though. I used to do the whole obsessive hobbies thing, but I've tuned myself towards being a jack of all trades. I can play songs as advanced as Muses Space Dementia on piano, I'm a 3ds graphic artist, excellent at biology, decent philosopher I also learned to cook chicken skewers the other day, if the next person doesn't give me an E-High five for that they're a cold, cold person

SpongeBob SquarePants
Nickelodeon
Cartoons / Animation

I'll give you an E-High five for that ryan93.

Bechsteins are great pianos. I have a funny story on a Steinway. My wife saw an ad in the paper once for an upright Steinway. We went to the people's house and sure enough---there was a nice Steinway. The house was rather dirty, and when I sat down and played a couple notes on the piano, several cockroaches came out of the music stand area and walked along the front of the piano---needless to say---we didn't bring home the Steinway.

I have two pianos. One is a Queen Anne styled Baldwin Hamilton (mid to late 1990s). The other one---my first piano---is an upright grand Behr Bros. and Co. built in 1885. It has numerous carvings on it and it is the piano I learned to play piano on.

Like you (ryan93), I have several interests. I am also into roller coasters, astronomy, caves, writing, house plans, etc. But most people know me for my music.

Serial killers - I'm not an 'expert' but it's the one thing that I know the most about. I also know a lot about psychopathy due to this interest (& my mothers ex boyfriend, which is for another story).

Area of expertise? None

Antiques and collectables. Mainly glass and pottery. I guess that makes me 'potty', or a 'glassoholic'.

I used to read a lot on serial killers. I still do some research from time to time. I have read the following Harold Schechter books:

Depraved: The Shocking True Story of America's First Serial Killer---H.H. Holmes of Chicago.

Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer!---Albert Fish of New York.

Fiend: The Shocking True Story of America's Youngest Serial Killer---Jesse Pomeroy

Deviant: The Shocking True Story of the Original "Psycho"---Ed Gein

A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (co-written with David Everitt)

Something I found interesting was that one of the older members of the church I go to was a police detective in Wisconsin just before Ed Gein was arrested. He recalled hearing the stories about him in the news and the events leading to his capture. This man also said that the people in the area kind of considered Ed Gein as a strange sort of folk hero. As he explained, it wasn't that people thought that what he did was good, it was just a sort of "I feel sorry for him" type of thing. And people were very curious about his strange "deviant" ways. It's interesting to research Ed Gein because people around him at the time sort of felt an odd compassion for him. Even the judge seemed to show this. I doubt his two confirmed victims felt that way though.

Felines, both wild and domestic.
MGS - Yeah...Don't ask?

I know a good bit about music
Space
Mid evil times'
I am not as big but I used to be obsessed with dinosaurs.
There was a time when I could tell you a lot about NASCAR and Dale Jr. ( my celeb crush at the time).
Spongebob- he he

I know a good bit about music
Space
Mid evil times'
I am not as big but I used to be obsessed with dinosaurs.
There was a time when I could tell you a lot about NASCAR and Dale Jr. ( my celeb crush at the time).
Spongebob- he he
Jon and Kate plus 8
Little people big world.
18 kids and counting
a good percentage of big families
I know a good bit but aint a complete expert on the bible
Twilight!

My mt said I do not have obsessions but rather limited interests so they are like borderline obsessions.