To answer the last two questions...
Unfortunately I don't play during the day, you see I'm a vampire and can only play at night! But seriously, I don't "practice" hardly at all or "study" anymore at all on my own. The only time I get to work on stuff is when the full band is ready to work on something. Either the new songs we're preparing for the album or working on a set for a tour. I do some preparing with my bass lines a few days right before the recording of an album where I'll sit with the preporduction and try different stuff. But aside from that minimal preparation, I don't study or practice on my instrument ever.
I used to, when I was younger and more eager to learn new things. Now I'm an old geezer who relies on instinct and intuition to get me through. Sad isn't it?
And the picture of the bass. It's a P-bass body (from a copy bass actually, I think it's laminated wood comp), but I had a J-style pickup routed in there to go with the original P-style. Both pickups Bartolini passive. The neck came from Fender, it's a jazz style fretless neck with ebony wood fingerboard - no graphite. I put a Badass Bass Bridge II on there too. But that's about it, pretty simple. I put all those parts together, so I signed my name on the head so that it would be a truly custom bass. Now it sits in the closet with rusty strings.
Come to think of it...the strings on all my basses are getting rusty. Gotta go!!!
SDG