3DNN

Other than computers in general what other hobbies do you guys enjoy?

I enjoy collecting and shooting firearms, building and running RC vehicles, AV equipment, movies & music, camping and am getting back into biking.

That is a real short list but should get the thread going.

-PK

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Basketball still

gonna enjoy the olympic games see if America can pull it of this time.

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Opera best browser made by mankind! Linux 2.6.27.7-9-x86_64 SUSE LINUX 11.1KDE: 4.1.3

I think we've got a chance this year. Much smarter to take a team that already know how to play together rather than a bunch of show boaters trying to steal the spotlight by only playing for themselves instead of as a team for the country they represent.

-PK

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snowboarding....

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Hackintosh
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
Processor Speed: 3 GHz
Don't Steal. The Goverment Hates Competition.

I don't, which I worry about.

Reading, my motorcycle, video games, and movies I guess. Don't really have the money for most hobbies and the majority of them don't interest me that much.

Oh I've played Fantasy Baseball for the last 3 years and I love it but it's getting rough to root against my favorite team just so I can get some points in a game.

Yeah, how about those Mets. What happened? Last I checked the were in the lead for their league and now they are third behind Florida.

Not that I can really say anything negative considering I'm a Nats fan. I'd say were locked into last for the rest of this season.

-PK

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Hrmm... this isn't easy.

Games - I still love games, but I don't play nearly as much as I used to. That's partly due to a lack of time, but also, due to finding anything worth playing. On the rare occasion I get a whole day with nothing I have to do, I can't play a game for more than a couple of hours... three tops. I guess they just entertain me less than they used to.

Movies - I seem to watch more movies than ever before. This might be in part because too many games are getting too theatrical, and I'd rather watch a movie in 2-4 hours than play the same story in 10. Of course, there are exceptions, like Dead Rising, for instance.

Books - I graduated high school in 2000, and the last book I read was either Hamlet or Macbeth. I can't remember which. I hated reading in high school, and very little kept me interested. Although it took a little more careful reading, I seemed to enjoy Shakespeare in high school. I guess because books about incest, fighting, swordplay, etc. interested me. In fact, if you look at the core of Shakespeare, it's amazing they even let us read it in high school. I also really enjoyed Of Mice and Men. Although it was sort, it told a solid powerful story, and I think that's great. I hate when a book just adds filler to make people feel like they got their money's worth (I'm looking at you Harry Potter and The Order of the Pheonix). After high school, I lost all interest in reading beyond news articles and magazines. It just seemed like a waste, and I had issues with keeping my attention on a book and having enough imagination to really enjoy it. Then two years ago, I started reading again. I picked up a copy of Jurassic Park at the local recycling barn. That musty smell of the hardback was like a lovely perfume. I took it home and read it and realized what I had been missing. That book was 1000 times better than the movie, and at the time it came out, I really enjoyed the film (mostly because of Goldblum). Then I picked up the Harry Potter series and finished book 6 just as 7 came out. Order of the Pheonix truly pissed me off because it felt like they were putting in so much for the sake of making the book longer. Blah! Sorcerer's Stone and The Deathly Hallows were way better, because they told what needed to be told, and nothing more. Even so, I enjoyed the series as a whole. Then I read The Complete Hitchhiker's guide, and that was it. I was now back into reading. Thanks to my classes, I haven't gotten to read as much as I've wanted to, but I skimmed Beowulf, The Odyssey, and Hamlet this term, and I intend to sit down and read all three in full when I have the time. I still have a pile of books under my bed-stand in dire need of my attention, but time is less of a luxury than in the past. Time or not, I went without sleep to get the opportunity to read The God Delusion. I felt that book put a lot of my thoughts into an well organized eloquent piece of work that I wouldn't have been able to come close to writing in even 30 more years.

Zoning out outdoors - I love a nice, or even a somewhat gloomy day, when I can simply stand or sit for a few minutes and breathe. My job stresses me out more than ever before. I do the work of three people, work more hours than I ever have, and I earn less money in this field than I ever have. I always told myself that the people who work the hardest earn the least amount of money, and I feel like I'm now falling into that trap. I feel like my boss takes advantage of my loyalty to our company, and since it truly does ride on my shoulders, I feel a lot of pressure to perform. Everything that goes wrong is my fault, but if something goes right, it had nothing to do with me. So, when I get a few moments to stop and smell the roses (to use a cliche), I truly enjoy it. Shame I'll die from a stress induced heart attack before I can truly make something of myself.

School - I'm enjoying school. I've been in almost two years now. I'm doing it part-time so as not to get overwhelmed. That, and I want to enjoy my time in school, not think of it as a chore or a nuisance, because then I'll quit, and where will that get me? I'm about 40% of the way to my Associate's Degree, and the final goal is to get my Bachelor's in English. I'm hoping to be able to write for a living, or fall back on my education to be an English teacher. I would truly enjoy teaching, but I am lazy, so the dream is to write for a living. Still, if I'm going to teach, I want it to be English. Even when I was a student in high school, I felt too few kids truly knew how to read and write. It seemed that if a kid moved to another school district, if the first one was slower and the second one faster, it was easy to skip a year's worth of material without skipping a great. The written word is the most powerful thing in this world. Between that and my feelings that enough education will solve the world's problems, I really would enjoy teaching.

Still, teaching doesn't have the wide scope of influence that I wish to have. As a teacher, you only influence a few thousand directly. I want to influence hundreds of thousands, if not millions directly.

Of course, some would say that will never happen, and the realist in me knows that I may never be a best-selling novelist. Still, I feel that if you have grand dreams and you only make it halfway up the ladder to those dreams, you've still made it a long ways. If, however, you dream of mediocrity and only make it halfway up that ladder... well, you've made it nowhere at all.

Pets / Animals - I've always been a bit of an animal lover, but I really enjoy watching animals. I love my hamster (Hammy, I know... real original), I love my fish (Nemo and Stripes, which my wife named), and I love my cats, Simon (of Firefly fame), Moo Moo (he looks like a cow), Gracie (for her nimble agility), and Misty (my chubby black kitty). I'm sure I could sit back studying animals for the rest of my life and be happy.

Astronomy, Meteorology, etc. - I could study most any science for the rest of my life and be happy. I love the weather, nice or nasty, and I love looking up at the sky and seeing all the stars, galaxies, etc. The vastness of space has always intrigued me, and I've loved it as long as I can remember. That's a fascination that will likely never go away, and I hope in my lifetime I get to see someone set foot on Mars. I know people think it's a waste of money, but I don't. Any scientific advancement costs a fortune up front, but as tech improves and time goes on, benefits come from it. Sometimes it's not a direct benefit, but high tech products used on a space flight trickle down into the consumer market and prove to be very useful. Besides... I take a certain comfort in knowing that if Apophis does end up being a direct threat to Earth, our technology will be able to prevent widespread destruction. A simple nearby nuclear blast could affect the orbit enough to prevent it from hitting a populated area and killing hundreds of millions.

I know some people think space exploration is a waste of money, but I can't see how. Some people think atomic/nuclear bombs are a waste, but again, I disagree. These things can be done for the good of people. A nuclear bomb can protect our planet from a natural attack by an asteroid. Space flight technology is how we will be able to get up there and use said nukes. What if something even worse comes along? What if an astral body the size of Texas does end up going towards earth, a la Armageddon? Our constant scanning of the skies will likely detect a behemoth like that decades before it would hit. The farther in advance we know about it, the most of an effect a nuclear explosion (or multiple simultaneous ones) could alter its course and send it into the sun, or at least, away from our planet.

We are the first species in the history of this planet to protect itself from extinction from an asteroid or comet. If the day ever comes when we have to do something Bruce Willis style, I will think that the trillions spent on space travel will have been worth it for that one single moment alone.

Sleep - I truly enjoy sleeping. Some of my best ideas come to me in my sleep. I've been getting more great ideas lately, because my pills really mess with my head. I absolutely love it. In fact, with that being said, it's getting late. I should finish up around here and hit the hay.

Nite all!

PS - I'm not going to proof this post, so my apologies for typos and mixed up words.

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This space for rent.

Games, naturally.

Movies, but only good ones.

History/Archaeology. Always a good thing to see where we've been, so that way we can see where we're going.

College Football. Living in the nexus of the Ohio State v Michigan rivalry, my Saturdays are spent watching and comparing teams to see who really deserves a shot at the national championship.

Fixing Stuff. Technical aptitude has been with me my entire life. I enjoy the challenges of repairing things (provided I actually have the tools to do it).

I've been called a music snob on more then one occasion. I spend quite a bit of time not just listening to music but reading about it and searching out new acts to enjoy. I'm a voracious reader. I usually finish one to 3 books a week. My reading tastes vary quite a bit but I tend to stick to historical texts and science fiction. In the past few years I've become quite the comic book fan. I don't tend to read "cape" books. I enjoy just about everything else however. Y The Last Man, B.P.R.D and and anything by Warren Ellis being my favorites. I'm addicted to geocaching and also love to camp and go shooting. I'm also an amateur photographer. I've had a hard time transitioning to digital. I bought a Canon EOS 40D a while back but rarely use it. I still shoot lots of film. Mostly with either my Canon Elan 7Ne or with an old school AE-1.

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I used to like playing video games which had to come to a stop when I got married 9 years ago. I've never owned any console post-SegaGenesis.
I like going to different places -locally- almost every weekend with my wife. (9 years of marriage, still no children)

Err.., does smoking count as one? Oh, there is a different word for that, a habbit. Yes, these are cigarettes for real, btw.

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My main hobby is travelling the world. I've been fortunate to be able to leave the US many times and I have plenty of filled up passports to prove it. I cant get enough of it. There is nothing more satisfying for me than waking up on plane and realizing you're in another country's airspace. Within my travel hobby, I usually do a little of my other love which is photography.

Computers are still a big part of my life, especially since I make the bulk of my money with a computer. However, I'm not as fanatical about it as I once was. Upgrades are justified based on need or value not braggin rights. It's kind of ironic that I now have more money to buy the latest and greatest.

Even though I own both an Xbox360 and a PS3. I don't play games that much. Maybe about an hour a month. I have them mostly for guests and when my girlfriend's kids come over. When her 9 year old can whip my a$$ in Madden 09, I guess it means I've outgrown gaming.

As far as movies go, I can only explain it this way. I don't watch movies, I watch film. If I'm going to sit down at home and spend two or more hours watching something, it had better educate me, invoke deep thought, or be well made. Between running my own business, and my project management job, I have so many things I'm working on that wasting time on crap really irritates me.

I never really understood people who have 200+ plus movies that are really only worthy of watching once. I mean how many times can you watch Batman?

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Formerly ByrdluvsK7 with 6500+ posts

I think we've got a chance this year. Much smarter to take a team that already know how to play together rather than a bunch of show boaters trying to steal the spotlight by only playing for themselves instead of as a team for the country they represent.

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guitars for beginners
Dog walking