Page 3 of 7 FirstFirst 1234567 LastLast
Results 31 to 45 of 96

Thread: What are your other hobbies besides Woodworking?

  1. #31
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Eastern Iowa
    Posts
    751
    Bridge, bicycling, tennis, umpiring, and volunteer as a tutor for at risk students.
    Haven’t been able to do anything since I relocated in 2018 though.
    Twelve hours after I arrived in our new location in Des Moines, we got 10” of rain in four hours. Our basement, in a neighborhood the realtor said has never had a water problem, flooded and our insurance maxed out at $10,000 on a $30, 000 estimate. Spent the next months doing the restoration work myself to stretch that money.
    The next year was building a shop and just trying to get the house the way we wanted. Then covid.

    Get my 2nd vaccination in two weeks, then maybe will be able to start again.
    Comments made here are my own and, according to my children, do not reflect the opinions of any other person... anywhere, anytime.

  2. #32
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Fairbanks AK
    Posts
    1,566
    For not having any formal training I am a pretty good cook. I am the crew chief of my church's youth BBQ team. We just got our spring picnic scheduled (May 23, 2021 if you are in town) this week. If you don't mind us telling you about how much Jesus loves you come on over, we are doing brisket, pulled pork, hamburgers and Cubanos, and if you know to ask one of the pit crew there will be some really good sausages on one of the smokers. I cook as much meat as possible outdoors because keeping the house clean is easier, moving away from charcoal towards live coals, moving towards becoming an asador.

    Once the arthritis got really bad I cut my hobbies down to two. Woodworking and cooking.

    Retired hobbies are scuba diving (about 500 dives, mostly NC shipwrecks), fast motor vehicles (no more new stories), modifying cars and learning to play oddball musical instruments like bagpipe and ukulele.

  3. #33
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    SE PA - Central Bucks County
    Posts
    65,688
    Quote Originally Posted by John K Jordan View Post
    I dabble in cooking but it's not even a casual hobby let alone a serious one. The live-in world internationally known chef has things well under control! On one of those rare times I'm actually in the house she occasionally lets me peel or zest or chop or stir but usually it's "don't you have something important to do ouside?"

    Her other main activity in life is reading. A few years ago she started keeping a diary of every book she read over the year along with impressions, comments, rating.

    JKJ
    Professor Dr. SWMBO hasn't taken any joy in cooking for quite a few years now for some reason. She bakes occasionally, but prefers our current arrangement of me cooking M-Th + S, local takeout on Friday nights and her cooking on Sunday night. I used to watch a lot of shows like Chopped! and Masterchef (only watch the latter these days) and it made me really think about the possibilities of "you have x ingredients...now what can you make with them?" Some of that is an actual chemistry lesson. At any rate, it's my job and I take it seriously. We do eat well here it seems. Just ask the scale.

    ----

    Scott, formal training in cooking can bring a deeper understanding, but it's certainly not a requirement to make really good food! Some of it's practice that includes, um...failing. At any rate, I recently read an incredible book Professor Dr. SWMBO gave me that I highly recommend...

    Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking

    Book by Samin Nosrat

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HMXV0UQ...ng=UTF8&btkr=1
    Last edited by Jim Becker; 02-13-2021 at 10:18 AM.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  4. #34
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Vancouver Canada
    Posts
    716
    When I read about what so many of you have endured and triumphed over in your lives I’m really humbled.
    I dabble in woodworking as a hobby; don’t consider motorcycle riding as a hobby (even though I ride every chance I can, summer or winter) because I hate the discipline of riding in a group; and, I’ve started container gardening.
    I’m sure it’s not a hobby, but we’re foster parents, and I also chair the maintenance group at my house of worship.
    Young enough to remember doing it;
    Old enough to wish I could do it again.

  5. #35
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Wenatchee. Wa
    Posts
    769
    I really enjoy mountain biking. And with a good ebike it has become even more fun. Except for the part where the bike stops and I don’t.

  6. #36
    Recreation via things with internal combustion engines for as long as I can remember -Boating & RV'ing in particular, and whenever possible.
    Not all, but many of the recreational toys I/we've owned over the years:
    boats.jpg
    rv-bikes-mustangs.jpg
    We still own the Sea Ray, the Party Cruiser, the SkipperLiner, the Regal, the Allegro Bus, the 2 motorcycles and the 2 Mustang GT convertibles.

    I'm one of those who is NOT taking the move to all-electric well...
    ========================================
    ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
    FOUR - CO2 lasers
    THREE- make that FOUR now - fiber lasers
    ONE - vinyl cutter
    CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle


  7. #37
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    E TN, near Knoxville
    Posts
    12,298
    Quote Originally Posted by Bernie Kopfer View Post
    I really enjoy mountain biking. And with a good ebike it has become even more fun. Except for the part where the bike stops and I don’t.
    Yikes! A good friend of mine did that a few months ago. He was e-biking on a great trail that he had run many, many times, even as late as the day before. He went over a rise to find a small tree had fallen across the trail sometime in the last 24 hours. Fortunately someone came along soon and called for help - he had been knocked out cold from the impact.

    I did that on a dirt bike (Hodaka wombat) once, following three other guys on a powerline trail in Rhode Island unfamiliar to me. What I didn't know was just over one jump the trail turned sharply to the right. I saw it too late, had to continue mostly straight on a mostly flat spot through some waist-high grass. The left fork hit a tall rock hidden in the grass which stopped the bike in a pile but sent me flying. I got to experience a broken collar bone from that adventure!

    JKJ

  8. #38
    I have one different from anyone else so far. I do structural modeling of bicycle wheels for automated truing. I get to talk to the people who build the machines that build a billion wheels a year. I get to solve their math problems. Been doing people’s math homework for fifty years. Would you like to know the optimum tension settings for your spokes? I have the answer. I also build my own wheels.
    Last edited by Thomas Wilson; 02-13-2021 at 9:17 PM.

  9. #39
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Newtown, ct
    Posts
    52
    Fly fishing, fly tying and photography.

  10. #40
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    New York, NY
    Posts
    2,203
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Becker View Post
    Scott, formal training in cooking can bring a deeper understanding, but it's certainly not a requirement to make really good food! Some of it's practice that includes, um...failing. At any rate, I recently read an incredible book Professor Dr. SWMBO gave me that I highly recommend...
    Failures should be expected with cooking anything new or unfamiliar as I find that I need to make the same thing over and over until I get it nailed down. They say the difference between a cook and a chef is whether you need to follow a recipe or not.

    Other than cooking, my three Yorkies take up most of my non-working, non-woodworking time.

  11. #41
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Longview WA
    Posts
    27,347
    Blog Entries
    1
    One of my hobbies is gardening with an emphasis on culinary and healing herbs. Home grown food is almost always better than what can be found in the stores. Same with culinary herbs. Plus many herbs are not available in stores. The main local grocer doesn't carry summer savory. When it can be found locally it is about $5 for a bottle.

    Photography is also a hobby that hasn't been done as much as years ago. All my darkroom equipment is gone. Digital photography is enjoyable, but film has so much more depth. Not sure where to buy film these days.

    Coin collecting was another hobby that is still in the back of my mind. It is one of those hobbies that gets more expensive as you go. It is even more expensive than woodworking. Coins in circulation still get a close inspection out of habit.

    Puttering around the shop is another favorite pastime. Often it is just fettling some metal/mechanical thingamabob or another.

    Bicycling was my passion 50 years ago.

    Walking and sitting in the woods behind my house is an indulgence during good weather. This summer will be busy down there. At least a half a dozen trees came down in storms this year.

    In another post the word dilettante was used. That may describe my bird watching. My bird watching isn't so much as to identify the different bird species as much as it is to delight in watching them interacting around the bird feeding area. Some of the species are known. Others are occasionally looked up in my guide book. As often as not the exact names are forgotten in a few weeks.

    There is also cooking. The downside of learning to cook well is often when going out to eat, the food is disappointing. Ever try to get decent sunny side up eggs in a restaurant? Very few do it well. If you are on 4th St. in Berkeley, CA and like omelets, stop at Bette's Oceanview Diner. That is also one of the few places that does good sunny side up eggs.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  12. #42
    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Location
    Wayland, MA
    Posts
    3,655
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    One of my hobbies is gardening with an emphasis on culinary and healing herbs. Home grown food is almost always better than what can be found in the stores.
    Would that it were true! If we had to rely on what I could grow we would very quickly starve to death. Even the simplest things fail utterly-- over the last decade I've invested a huge number of dollars in soil improvement, irrigation, and fencing and countless hours in trying to grow a decent tomato. I've gotten a grand total of three. The hornworms move in and decimate them overnight, the squirrels attack, and the vines get some sort of nasty virus, curl up and die. I've tried growing potatoes a couple times, the deer jump over the fence and chew them down to a nub; install 8 ft deer fence and the groundhogs crawl over and/or burrow under and chew them down to a nub. There's a big CSA farm right around the corner from us, they've taken to posting guard dogs 24/7 in the fields in addition to their electric fences to try to discourage the deer and other critters. Apparently it's only partially successful. The farmer's newsletter is always lamenting what won't get harvested due to the animals and bugs having eaten it. I'm afraid it's the farmer's market for me for veggies; I've surrendered on home grown.

  13. #43
    Join Date
    May 2019
    Location
    On the Continental Divide somewhere in Montana
    Posts
    102
    I don't really call this one a hobby per se, it's more of a second profession, but it pays the same as a hobby - I'm the Assistant Fire Chief for our rural all-volunteer Fire Department. I started as a firefighter late in life - at age 41. 18 years later, I'm a chief. I've done a lot in this career - structural fire fighting, wildland fire fighting, EMS, High-Angle Rope Rescue, Swiftwater Rescue, Ice Rescue, and served as the Engineer on an engine for many years. I still love to get into the thick of things when a fire is really rolling, but as a chief my role has changed to that of being in charge of the crews doing the "fun" stuff. I get to do a lot of instructing and teaching - and teaching young firefighters is one of the most rewarding parts of my work.

  14. #44
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Richardson, Texas
    Posts
    214
    I enjoy shooting all clay target games but spend most time shooting Trap.
    Also like Golf.

  15. #45
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    SW Michigan
    Posts
    668
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    One of my hobbies is gardening with an emphasis on culinary and healing herbs. Home grown food is almost always better than what can be found in the stores. Same with culinary herbs. Plus many herbs are not available in stores. The main local grocer doesn't carry summer savory. When it can be found locally it is about $5 for a bottle.

    Photography is also a hobby that hasn't been done as much as years ago. All my darkroom equipment is gone. Digital photography is enjoyable, but film has so much more depth. Not sure where to buy film these days.

    Coin collecting was another hobby that is still in the back of my mind. It is one of those hobbies that gets more expensive as you go. It is even more expensive than woodworking. Coins in circulation still get a close inspection out of habit.

    Puttering around the shop is another favorite pastime. Often it is just fettling some metal/mechanical thingamabob or another.

    Bicycling was my passion 50 years ago.

    Walking and sitting in the woods behind my house is an indulgence during good weather. This summer will be busy down there. At least a half a dozen trees came down in storms this year.

    In another post the word dilettante was used. That may describe my bird watching. My bird watching isn't so much as to identify the different bird species as much as it is to delight in watching them interacting around the bird feeding area. Some of the species are known. Others are occasionally looked up in my guide book. As often as not the exact names are forgotten in a few weeks.

    There is also cooking. The downside of learning to cook well is often when going out to eat, the food is disappointing. Ever try to get decent sunny side up eggs in a restaurant? Very few do it well. If you are on 4th St. in Berkeley, CA and like omelets, stop at Bette's Oceanview Diner. That is also one of the few places that does good sunny side up eggs.

    jtk
    Jim, film photography is making a bit of a comeback. B&H for one still sells color negative and B&W film and developing supplies.

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •