Managing your Hobbies

[Redav]

Aside from playing / customising / painting HQ, what hobbies do you have and how do you split your time? Does anyone find themselves over stretched or do what I do, (much to the wife's amusement) I'll focus on one thing for a while and then I'll get distracted and get into something else hahaha?

I guess the main hobbies I have are;
Lego castle building - I have an interest in medieval history, castles and always loved Lego so it's a natural match but a slow process. It moved to the backburner when our friends and family started playing HQ
Analogue gaming - most of our circle of friends / family frequently enjoy playing board games, cards and dice games. Especially while camping
Photography - this come and goes in waves but currently happening as we have an 11 month old. Really kicks in around when we travel. Time-lapse photography has the largest time constraints so hardly happens
Reading - most of my reading is done during the work commute. Sometimes a little at home or on holidays
Sport - played soccer most of my life but these days I'm in an over 30's comp on Fri nights. Just sucks my brain is writing cheques my body can't cash
PC / PS3 gaming - I have some favourites but will go months without doing any. Oddly enough, it's usually the DOS games that I come back to

[JasonMCM]

PC / PS3 gaming - I have some favourites but will go months without doing any. Oddly enough, it's usually the DOS games that I come back to

I don't know how many times I have re-played X-Com.

My list
-board games (currently I've been playing a lot of Sorry! with the kid my wife nanny's for) (He's to young for HQ)
-sewing (current project, making myself a messenger bag.)
-books (current book series; The Tapestry by Henry H Neff)
-watching T.V. shows on DVD (current show; Dr. Who season 8)
-old computer games (currently working through Deathlord, an old Apple ][ rpg game)
-spending time with family (currently working on avoiding this as much as possible... just kidding.)
-getting in shape (currently failing miserably at this, but I'll never quit quitting!)
-spending way to much time on Ye Olde Inn... Well who doesn't?

[Ragnar IronFist]

I jokingly tell people my hobby is acquiring hobbies. I do, in fact, fear that I spread myself too thin, and find that some hobbies may hit the backburner for a matter of years. Not to mention the fact they may give me a bunch of skills at various things, but at the expense of not finding expertise at anything. But, alas, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I just finished posting my new arcade cabinet restoration project on arcadecontrols.com. That was right after answering a ham radio question on FJCruiserForums.com. And I posted my recent batch of painted miniatures here yesterday. This was after I finished another session of boxing training in my garage gym. (Boxing is the most recent thing to suck in my interest) But all these interests, along with having a wife and kids, are at the expense of older hobbies. An epic Star Wars collection is sadly still in storage and my bagpipes have been collecting dust for a few years. My longest, greatest interest is film and video. But I managed to make it my day job, so that's how I managed to incorporate that into my regular life. As for most of my current, 'active' hobbies... I can only squeeze in a precious few minutes to a few hours a day...usually only a few times a week. Due to the wife and kids, mainly. (I gotta keep my priorities)

But I like it that way. Life would get pretty dull the minute I decide there's nothing more out there to pique my interest.

[Sjeng]

my bagpipes have been collecting dust for a few years

Oh wow, I would give anything to be able to play the bagpipes! Is it hard?

[Redav]

I don't know how many times I have re-played X-Com.

Me neither but it's a cracker!

But I like it that way. Life would get pretty dull the minute I decide there's nothing more out there to pique my interest.

Gee, don't forget to breath!

Oh wow, I would give anything to be able to play the bagpipes! Is it hard?

Heh heh... I have a friend (another Aussie) who was living in Dubai and was taking lessons to learn the bagpipes while there. Bit of an odd combo. Not sure how long it lasted for, I'll have to hit her up.

[Blackthorn]

My main hobby is playing music, although it used to be my career and I still earn money from it too. I play upright bass with a few different jazz bands and with my daughter who is an indie folk singer-songwriter. I also play electric bass, acoustic guitar and ukulele and have a modest but interesting collection of musical instruments. Related hobbies include collecting vintage sheet music and method books as well and songwriting and home recording. I also run an annual music festival here in Florida that's on it's fifth year. I can provide some links if anyone is interested.

I enjoy playing other board games besides HQ including Chess, Talisman, Forbidden Island and most recently Settlers of Catan. Although I'm pretty good a sketching I've never been into painting miniatures, so all of mine are naked. I guess you could say collecting HQ is a hobby as too as I've obtained all of the NA expansions since joining this forum.

I enjoy reading and get a lot of use out of my Kindle. William Somerset Maugham has recently become my favorite author.

It's tough balancing all of this with my day job and family commitments and I'm occasionally burning the candle at both ends when it come to my musical endeavors.

[knightkrawler]

I also tend to get distracted and my schedules tend to be postponed a lot.
I'm also a hobby shifter and am very glad that this one encompasses so many different hobbies.
- painting minis
- collecting
- playing
- and so on

I used to be into Lego Castle, Masters of the universe collecting, and X-Men comics, which i owned 6,000 of at one point.

Aside from that, on a daily basis, to calm down: American TV series
Breaking Bad, Six Feet Under, Gilmore Girls, Lost, Alias, Buffy and Angel are among my favorites.

Very heavy and/or experimental post-rock/post-metal music in my car.

[Hero_Of_Retro]

Same.

-PS3 (Mainly Final Fantasy Collection, indie games)
-Amiga 1200 (Fav gaming machine!) I would love to buy this again and get the entire catalogue of games. Only have a few of the classics from online.
-Board games.. Hero Quest, Zombicide, Myth, Space Hulk, Dark World. Growing.. and the space for them all is getting thin! Finishing the entire collection of these is slowly coming along. need to paint them all and get a good display for them.
-Also, ive always wanted to get a site up and running to display some of my work. I only have my Youtube channel to show it all off.
-The Waking Dead, Game Of Thrones are the only things i tend to watch on TV.

[tasoe]

...Gilmore Girls... are among my favorites.

Well, that is just ridiculous.

I can't really combine more than one hobbies. I used to listen to a lot of music, (death, doom, black metal), but now with painting and questing taking up most of my time I have reduced it to a minimum. I can't even listen when painting, cause it's hard to keep still when listening to Trym's (Emperor's drummer) fast and heavy drum banging.

I used to watch a lot of films and TV shows, but now I can't do it cause of my painting. While painting, I can only watch something I've already watched in the past so I mainly rotate around my favourite TV shows and easy to watch films, while painting. Can't say how many times I've watched the entire series of Curb Your Enthusiasm but it can't be fewer than 10. I think I can replay whole episodes in my head.

I used to play soccer once in a while but my easily twisting ankles kept me away from that as well.

As for PC games, I almost never play something new, so once in a while I'll install Mafia I or II and play the hell out of it for about a week. Then six months later I'll do the same with San Andreas.

[TMU]

I don't have free time