Hobbies!
I suffer from an intense need to pursue hobbies that interest me. I seem to collect collections, and my hobby is having hobbies. Recently I've been giving
thought to all of the things that fill the personal spaces in the history of my life. These are the things that occupy my time when I'm not at work, or spending
time with my family, but in the spare moments in between. My friends and family often kid me about my profusion of hobbies. A running joke is that I am on a
three month cycle of rotating between different ones. Over the course of my life, I have spent significant amounts of time on collecting or pursuing each of the
following:
Collections and Hobbies
- Arrowheads (Surface hunting for Indian artifacts)
- Comic Books (Mostly graphic novels these days)
- Stamps (Stamp collecting, currently US but a few internationals also)
- Magazines (One of my guiltiest pleasures, I love magazines!)
- G.I. Joe toys (25th anniversary figures, I sold my vintage collection after divorcing)
- Transformers toys (limited to a handful of vintage toys)
- Star Wars toys (limited to pre-Phantom Menace items)
- Futurama figurines (still need a Robot Devil and Nibbler)
- Movies (Horror, and 70s oddities)
- Scans (Scan collecting was a late 90s Internet activity)
- Video games (No longer able to do this, but I still buy Bethesda's (The Elder Scrolls, Fallout) games)
- Gaming books (Still buy these from time to time hoping my daughter will play when she is big enough)
- Magic: The Gathering cards (Cardboard crack! Luckily, I am recovering)
- Dungeons & Dragons miniatures (Have a bunch, but no one to play with, yet ...)
- Legend of the Five Rings cards (IMHO, superior to Magic, but less well-known)
- Baseball cards (Still in a box in the attic from my childhood)
- Football cards (Ditto)
- Legos (Constraint to the Pirate themes, mostly ships)
- Coins (Another childhood hobby retired to the attic)
- Warhammer models (Why do I do this to myself?)
- Boardgames (Memoir '44, Heroquest, Scrabble)
- Model kits (Truly, I must be a masochist)
- Playing guitar (Since Thoracic Outlet Syndrome this has been retired)
- Programming (Ditto)
- Computers (Ditto)
- Stationary (I may have a fetish for pocket notebooks and stationary)
- Heroclix
- Star Wars miniatures
- Drawing (Filled innumerable days of my childhood, extremely painful now)
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Camping (and drinking, since these seem to go together when they happen)
- Canoeing
- Caving (Uncommon now that I have a baby)
- Reading (For the win!)
- Amateur Photography (Helps satisfy my fetish for gadgets)
- Amateur Astronomy (I try to keep the mosquito population fed on a summer night)
- Bowling (Not happening anymore)
- Golfing (Definitely not happening anymore)
- Running
- Card games (Poker, Rummy, etc.)
- Writing (Or at least, dictating, and badly at that)
- Gardening
- Disc Golf
- Amateur Radio (My 10 year license expires this summer, still have not bought a radio)
- Chess
- Skateboarding (Absolutely retired)
- Fossils, Rocks, and Minerals (I love to play in the dirt)
- Arts and Crafts (Making postcards, terrariums, homemade paper, etc.)
After listing these, even I was surprised at the amount of things I have invested time and resources in merely as a pasttime activity. I tried to break them
down over a couple of categories. First, I isolated them based on current activity. Those that I have spent any significant amount of time on in the last year,
I counted as Active. The ones that I have not involved myself in recently but can expect to do so at some point in the future, I labeled Inactive. Finally,
those hobbies and collections that I will most likely not become involved with again I counted as Retired. Here's the breakdown:
- Active - 18
- Inactive - 12
- Retired - 19
Next, I divided them out based on nature and cost:
- Number that are predominately related to collecting a range or series of items - 20
- Number that are predominately outdoor activities - 14
- Number that are predominately indoor activities - 35
- Number that require notable cost outlay or continuous expense - 28
- Number that are primarily gaming related - 11
- Number that are primarily science/electronics related - 6
- Number that are primarily solo activities - 28
Sitting down and writing this all out has had surprising results. I really expected the science and electronics category to be higher. I also expected a higher
percentage to be based around collecting items, because it borders on obsession with me once I get interested in a collection. The real shame (for me, not
really for e2) is that at one time I had at least seven extensive writeups dealing with some of the items in this list on the site. Unfortunately, that was
before I threw a temper tantrum and deleted 70+ writeups. Hopefully this list will at least provide me some structure as I slowly replace all of those.
Stickers!
Changing topics, I received this week the stickers that misterfuffie was giving away earlier. They look great, and I'm trying to decide what the best use for
them will be. If you have not requested one, please contact him and do so!
Postcards!
Changing topics again, the following people are on my postcard list and I have sent one to each of you at least once. Any user not on the list who would like me
to send you random postcards, just message me with your address.