Other hobbies

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Prince of Spires
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Other hobbies

#1 Post by Prince of Spires »

The other day I was talking with a friend of mine about how limited time is considering all the stuff I want to do in it (or have to do in it) and, looking at it from the other side, how many hobbies / things to keep me busy I have. I always seem to have too much stuff to do in not enough time. This got me wondering about Warhammer and about what other WH players I interact with (so, mainly forum members here) do outside WH. So, this topic is a bit about what you do outside Warhammer (or would like to do).

For me, top of the list is definitely my baby girl Lauren, 9 months old. She just eats up time (and almost anything else that fits in her mouth...). I don't think anyone realizes how much time they had until they have a little kid. Getting anything done before 19.30 in the evening takes serious planning. Of course, it must be said, I love it (and her). So don't think I'm complaining. Mainly stating a fact.

Other hobbies include
- playing squash.
- Traveling (though that's diminished with a little kid). Been all over the globe. Though I still have a big wishlist of places I want to visit.
- diving. Few things are as relaxing and exhilarating as jumping in a nice blue and warm sea, dropping to 25m deep and cruising around running into everything from coral to turtles to sharks.
- reading. Easy to do when commuting to the office. And still enough to get through 12+ books per year. Fantasy mainly though action, horror, Scifi, non-fiction and detectives all appear on the list. About 50% fantasy and 50% something else. But if I was given no choice, then I'd read almost anything (and I have read some dreadful books...)
- computer games: this one has taken a bit a backseat. My xbox (of the 360 variety) still gets some usage. But mainly when the wife is out. The same with PC games. I don't have the time anymore to spend nights in a row playing things like civilization. Or at least, not often...
- writing. An on and off thing. I enjoy getting short stories out there. But it comes in bursts a bit. With a few close together and then nothing for a while.
- Gardening. For Dutch standards I have a decently sized inner city garden (at 45 m^2, give or take), internationally speaking probably not so much. But getting things to grow or trying out weird plants brings a lot of satisfaction and it's a great place to take your mind off things. And, of course, home grown fruits and vegetables beat store bought ones flavour wise.
- Also, I've recently started (indoor) rock climbing. Good fun and a nice and different challenge.

So, any interesting hobbies out there?

Rod
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Ricold
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Re: Other hobbies

#2 Post by Ricold »

Rock Climbing or Bouldering Rod?

Bouldering is a really fun hobby, even if it can be a little dangerous at times (broken a few fingers and toes now)
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Re: Other hobbies

#3 Post by RE.Lee »

Board games mostly these days. I play computer games from time to time (got the Ultimate General: Gettysburg on gog.com's sale last week - cool game), but not as often. Reading a lot, too. I've discovered my local public library this year and I go through around 5 books a month (War and Peace right now).
cheers, Lee

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Re: Other hobbies

#4 Post by Ricold »

Because interactive pages are always interesting, I thought I'd share this one: http://www.boulderbrighton.com/virtual-tour, which is a tour of the place I've been bouldering for the last six months or so.

Otherwise my hobbies haven't changed much over the last six years or so, and haven't included Warhammer in that time at all really. I'm still mainly a board gamer and a LARPer. I posted up a pic a while back of me LARPing. I also have a reasonable hobby doing tech support and programming work for websites, but you already knew that! (I hope!)
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Re: Other hobbies

#5 Post by Duranthalis »

Outside of WH? I have too much on my plate.

Aside from working full time, being a husband, and prepping for our son in April:
  1. writing (participated in NaNoWriMo last month, but fell short of my goal
  2. reading (10+ books in the last 6 months)
  3. naps (as often as possible!)
  4. board and video games (Fallout 4 is directly responsible for my downfall in point 1)
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Prince of Spires
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Re: Other hobbies

#6 Post by Prince of Spires »

Regarding climbing vs bouldering, for the moment it's rock climbing for me. But that's because I'm still getting started and following an introduction course. After that (January-ish), I will probably move to bouldering, at least a lot of the time I think. The main reason here is that I don't actually have anyone to climb with. Which makes bouldering easier to do then try and find someone to hold the rope for me each week or so. And, it does indeed look like fun.

Board games (or card games, which I consider to be roughly the same category) is one of the things I love but rarely have time for / people to play against. Every few months I manage to get together with some friends to have an evening of playing boardgames. But it's infrequent unfortunately.

@Ricold: After I read your first post, I was going to say that the climbing venue I go to has a decent bouldering section. But then you posted your interactive link. That's a lot of bouldering space... To compare, this is where I go to: http://www.deklimmuur.nl/deuithof3d/kli ... ithof.html Not bad, but nowhere near your venue.

As for your web and programming parts, I've noticed :) And I'm at least very grateful for it.

@Duranthalis: congrats on becoming a dad soon. Just realize that the amount of nap-taking has a tendency to diminish a lot with a new born ;) At least in my experience... How far did you get in NaNoWriMo? And are you still working on the novel?

@RE.Lee: the Ultimate General game looks like fun :) the kind of game I enjoy playing at least. Good ones are rare to find though. I'll probably give it a try somewhere in the future. Thanks for that.

Rod
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Re: Other hobbies

#7 Post by SpellArcher »

Prince of Spires wrote:Board games (or card games, which I consider to be roughly the same category) is one of the things I love but rarely have time for / people to play against.
Me, even more so. Used to have a Talisman thing going. I love games like Dragon Pass, Britannia, Kingmaker. No-one to play though. Any time I get tends to go to Warhammer.
Prince of Spires wrote:Just realize that the amount of nap-taking has a tendency to diminish a lot with a new born
Lol, sleep becomes a blissful memory!

The thing is, no-one has any idea beforehand of just how hard it will be but also of the new world it opens up in front of you.
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Re: Other hobbies

#8 Post by Aerendar Valandil »

Boardgames (I prefer the heavier stuff, but I do not always get tot those)
Other (mainly historical) wargames
RPG'ing
Reading, however, as my job is translating books, I do not very often take additional the time for it.
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Re: Other hobbies

#9 Post by Ricold »

Prince of Spires wrote:@Ricold: After I read your first post, I was going to say that the climbing venue I go to has a decent bouldering section. But then you posted your interactive link. That's a lot of bouldering space... To compare, this is where I go to: http://www.deklimmuur.nl/deuithof3d/kli ... ithof.html Not bad, but nowhere near your venue.
I see your point, but that centre has a huge selection of normal climbs to choose from by the looks of it. It's a general climbing centre. Where I go you may notice the distinct lack of any tall climbs at all, because it doesn't cater for rope climbing, only bouldering. I've been told there are a few climbing walls in my city, but I have no head for heights, so will stick to the short stuff. Also I don't think I could live with the harnesses, and the inevitable barrage of safety checks that have to go with them. OK, so I do hobbies with extensive safety checks, but I'll keep the majority without.

What is it about climbing centres and interactive websites? At a glance, I suspect your place has similar number of climbs to mine. From memory, I think mine has around 180 different routes at any one time, with 30-50 catering for any person as they move up through the difficulties. The centre sorts difficulties roughly by colour, with each colour providing roughly 15 climbs making a set. The cross over between two adjacent sets (for difficulty) is reasonable, allowing easy progression. There are around 12 colours (12*15 being 180)

Somehow it doesn't surprise me that there is a fair cross over between board games and this place. Maybe we should set up some play by forum stuff?
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Re: Other hobbies

#10 Post by Shannar, Sealord »

I tend to do most of my climbing outdoors. Michigan isn't great for that, but Switzerland is amazing. Any indoor stuff climbing I do is simply to keep in shape for the real thing.

Cycing is my other major time sink. I did a 100 mile ride just this last Saturday. Took about 6.5 hours, but the cold morning slowed me down a bit. The mild winter has actually caused me to get fewer miles in. Usually I've switched to indoor riding by now, and can get some time in at night. But as long as the weather is nice I prefer to ride outside, even if that ends up meaning a little less time on the bike.
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Re: Other hobbies

#11 Post by Loflar »

OK, so I will also add something.
- board games (various, I will recommend some Czech games here, especially Galaxy Trucker and Dungeon Lords)
- recently I started to play Wings of Glory
- historical fencing (actually, we now spend most of our trainings playing floorball, but it is fun anyway)
- family is not really a hobby, it is simply part of life
- politics (several years ago, I became member of Greens, and it is an interesting experience)
- reading books, of course, although I now don't have as much time for fiction as I would like to
- gardening and learning about permaculture
- and recently tai-chi

I have not played Warhammer for years, though...
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Prince of Spires
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Re: Other hobbies

#12 Post by Prince of Spires »

The topic seems to evolve into a climbing and board games one ;)

I did indeed spot the lack of ropes in your climbing center. It does take a lot of trust, especially in the ropes, to go up (or actually, in my experience the tough part is going down). I generally dislike heights. But when I was younger (15-20 years ago) I did a lot of abseiling as part of canyoning (which is basically hiking through a canyon, great fun, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyoning for instance). Which means I have a lot of confidence in a climbing rope. I have no problem hanging on a rope 50m off the ground. Of course, in climbing it's slightly different, since someone else is in charge of your decent. But the principle is there at least. The safety checks are indeed there. But you get used to them (they pretty much beat them into you). Your comment does leave me wondering what hobbies you do with safetychecks...

In my climbing center there is indeed roughly the same number of routes (according to their website at least). 44 ropes for 130 routes in total, and then a bunch of bouldering routes (20-30ish would be my estimate). They're changed up every now and then. So I suspect that you need to do a lot of climbing to get through all of them. In my climbing center, the colours have no meaning other then to indicate a route. Difficulties are marked out at the bottom of each route, giving the difficulty number. You can see the little cards on the interactive website at the bottom of each route. The good thing is, once I do run out of routes (if ever), then the venue has another climbing hall nearby (about a 2 min bikeride further away).

I have climbed outdoors a few times. And I must say I probably prefer it to indoors climbing. It's a different kind of challenge and feels more 'natural' somehow. I've heard good stories about outdoor bouldering as well. Problem is of course that the number of natural outdoor climbing routes in the Netherlands is very limited, seeing how we don't have any actual mountains. Still, the indoor stuff is fun. And the community seems active enough around where I live.

All the boardgaming doesn't surprise me either. Warhammer is sort of a boardgame taken to the extreme. :) Some play by forum stuff could be fun. Though we would need to think of how it would work in practice.

As for cycling, a friend of mine sometimes takes me mountainbiking. Lots of fun, but somehow weird stuff always happens to me. For instance, I think I'm one of the few people who managed to dislocate a finger by falling of his bike (it's painful by the way...).

@Aerendar: have you translated any books we might know?

@Loflar: I like the principles of permaculture (as far as I understand them). But somehow my garden is too small to try anything close to it. For instance, I will not let any of the plants in my garden grow over roughly 2m in height (about the height of my fence), simply because it will take away sun from my neighbor's garden. And when you only have 45 m^2, all of them count. So, I stick to square foot gardening for my vegetables.

Rod
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Re: Other hobbies

#13 Post by Loflar »

Prince of Spires wrote: @Loflar: I like the principles of permaculture (as far as I understand them). But somehow my garden is too small to try anything close to it. For instance, I will not let any of the plants in my garden grow over roughly 2m in height (about the height of my fence), simply because it will take away sun from my neighbor's garden. And when you only have 45 m^2, all of them count. So, I stick to square foot gardening for my vegetables.
Yes, neighbors are always a problem ;-) Of course, on 45 m2 you cannot have food forest, chicken yard and a pond, but you can still distribute the plants so they provide mutual support, keep the ground covered to keep moisture and fertilize by compost and mulch. Not that I could give much advice on that, I am still learning basics.
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Re: Other hobbies

#14 Post by Duranthalis »

Prince of Spires wrote:
@Duranthalis: congrats on becoming a dad soon. Just realize that the amount of nap-taking has a tendency to diminish a lot with a new born ;) At least in my experience... How far did you get in NaNoWriMo? And are you still working on the novel?

Rod
I think I got around 5,000 words in the first week and then things stopped flowing. I'm still tinkering away at it, trying to add meat to the skeleton I started ... but slowly. I think I made a mistake by following the inspiration that started it as it's too closely related to work (so, not something I want to come home from work and think about).

As for the napping and lack of sleep ... I'm already starting to feel it (wife can't get comfortable in bed, and so if she's not sleeping, neither am I). :D
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Re: Other hobbies

#15 Post by Chracian »

My main other hobby is karate. I've been training now for about five years, with my two children, and a couple of mates and their children. It's been a great way to keep fit, get some exercise and have another common interest with my kids apart from star wars and science. It's also got me to give up smoking and keep my weight under 12 stone.

Also I can now kick some serious butt!
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Re: Other hobbies

#16 Post by Prince of Spires »

Bouldering is hard work...

Turns out I seriously underestimated the number of bouldering routes at my climbing venue. They have between 100 and 120, which change around every two months. And they're adding a second hall just for bouldering.

Last Monday I spend the evening bouldering. Two hours hanging from my arms and fingers. Turns out there are a lot of muscles in that region that can ache... ;) Never had such stiff fingers before. In the end, I did manage a 5c boulder though (Fontainebleau grades). While probably not that impressive to regular climbers, I'm quite proud of the achievement, considering the toughest I managed before Monday was a 5a top-rope climb. It took me probably a dozen tries or so, and some tips from a more experienced boulderer (is that a real word...?). But I did get to the top in the end.

It was great fun. It's a technical and strength puzzle. And I was with 2 other guys and you really push each other to try just a bit further. More so then with longer top-rope climbs, which is more individual.

All in all, I'll definitely give it another go in the near future. Once I'm able to lift my arms again without feeling them that is... ;)

Rod
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Re: Other hobbies

#17 Post by Shadow star »

Dance, theatre, coding, attempting to make art, running, making a fool of myself, researching whatever topic has my fascination at that moment, cosplay, LARP and comics.


Also drinking but don't think that really counts as a hobby.
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Re: Other hobbies

#18 Post by Prince of Spires »

I came across this fun video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI7kLrp ... e=youtu.be. Thinking back to the climbing / bouldering talk in here earlier, I think perhaps Ricold will like this one :)

It looks like fun. Though also likely to cause injuries...

Rod
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