So let's talk about other hobbies...

I build scale models of automobiles. I have since I was about ten, but really got into the customizing and detailing about twenty years ago. I have competed in contests and have a stack of plaques and a shelf of trophies. They have been published in magazines. But, it has take a back seat to writing erotica for the last two years or so.
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I'm old and I grew up in family that did it themselves, never hired anyone. Want a house get a shovel dig a foundation, pour concrete, frame the house!
Want to add a bathroom, same, buy the pipe, dig and build.
So my hobby has been my home, if it breaks we fix it, if we want another room we build it. Want a door there, we get the tools.
 
My latest hobby for the last six months has been to get away from the computer screen and exercise my eyes scanning the woods at greater distances. I look for movement which might feed other wildlife ... with dead squirrels. I spend at least an hour per day carrying a .22 cal. air rifle to create a meal. The crows, hawks, and buzzards call to me when I haven't fed them for a few days. And I'm sure the local fox family appreciates taking away a dinner overnight. I've fed them 23 confirmed so far, and probably five or six which decided to limp off and feed them in another yard.

BTW, those furry tree rats destroyed vapor recovery lines on my truck's gas tank, costing $2,400 to replace. So, the wife said, "They've got to go!" But we're now seeing more large birds around our yard.
 
Gamer. Had a few faqs published that were top o' the line at the time. Ran the #1 midi site for Dragon Quest tunes when midi was a thing. Mine is still the only comprehensive YouTube vid series on the Taito game Gladiator, and the only one that isn't A) abysmally terrible gameplay and/or B) cheating with the infinite armor dip switch. ( and I was playing on a controller which sucks compared to the real controls ) High score was somewhere around 7 million on an actual machine, but I had to spend a half an hour purposely killing off extra men to put my name on the board before the Laundromat closed. There wasn't a Gladiator machine within a 45 minute drive that didn't have my name at the top of the leader board a mixture of me and one of my friends on every other position.

Average of 375k points per lap if you're optimizing points. Maybe 10-13 minutes per lap if you take no breaks after breaking an enemy weapon to rest your wrists/fingers. A few less points and a little quicker if you use quick-kill strategies on every enemy. The world record of 41 million had to be about 10 hours of straight quick-kill laps and no pee breaks, so more realistically about 12 hours in a best case scenario, and the guy probably couldn't move his wrists for a week afterwards.

Self-taught amateur coder. I was half of the team working on what was a wildly popular Invision board attack system mod that let members attack each other RPG fashion. Most of my contribution was the guild system that let the guildmaster collect dues, and members pool resources/strategize, though I did some tweaking of the core battle system as well.
 
I cook, bake, sew, roller skate (not roller blade... quad skates by Moxi), and game (tabletop and video).
 
Board games is the main one I'll admit to. Doing lots of Azul and Dominion atm, plus various Ticket to Ride versions - the India/Switzerland board is great on both sides for 2 players.
Our family is big into in board games and Ticket To Ride is a favorite. We have several boards. I’ve created custom long route cards as the games don’t come with enough to provide variety. We connect the U.S. board with Europe with transatlantic routes. It’s all very nerdy.

We play with my son and DIL cross country over FaceTime. They have a board set up in NYC and we have ours at home. We have house rules and bring the rules from one board to the others. Asia is my favorite board.

Azul is great too.
 
Never heard of Ticket to Ride, but it seems to crop up in lots of stories. Must check it out.

I play Scrabble with my parents over face time. With my wife and kids it's all about cards (knaves and shithead being favourites).
 
i like to travel Exploring new places is a fantastic hobby. If you're into traveling, make sure to plan ahead, pack light, and immerse yourself in local culture and check arizona snowbowl customer service for more details about hotels. If you ever need assistance with bookings or travel advice, don't hesitate to reach out to customer service for help.
 
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Never heard of Ticket to Ride, but it seems to crop up in lots of stories. Must check it out.

I play Scrabble with my parents over face time. With my wife and kids it's all about cards (knaves and shithead being favourites).
TTR is pretty good as a game with relatively simple rules that still has a lot of strategic depth. It does get a bit PvP ("you took the route I needed for my objective!") so if playing with kids I'd want to be sure they're old enough to cope with that.

I love that a lot of game shops have a library shelf now so I can try games out before I buy them.
 
TTR is pretty good as a game with relatively simple rules that still has a lot of strategic depth. It does get a bit PvP ("you took the route I needed for my objective!") so if playing with kids I'd want to be sure they're old enough to cope with that.

I love that a lot of game shops have a library shelf now so I can try games out before I buy them.
The TtR London version is good for kids as it only takes 15-20 min and there's a goodly amount of luck in who wins. If buying one, Europe is better than USA because there's one US route that pretty much guarantees victory. Once you have one of those (or Scandinavia, for 2-3 people) you can get expansions. I like Pennsylvania with the share options, and Switzerland, because spouse and I have played Scandinavia so much we can predict what routes the other has from the first moves... UK with tech is a bit rubbish IME. India is good but does my head in (you get bonuses for mandalas, ie completing a route in two non-overlapping ways to make a circle).

I have just lost terribly at Azul. Minus 13 points in one round. The winner had earlier been relieved you can't get negative points!
 
I am a HAM radio operator and I volunteer for my county as a Watch Officer, officially monitoring the airwaves for cries for help, and I'm also a model railroader. This is my personal locomotive, a DM&IR 2-8-4 on the Colorado Model Railroad Museum's 5,500 square foot layout about 6 years ago.

 
I am a HAM radio operator and I volunteer for my county as a Watch Officer, officially monitoring the airwaves for cries for help, and I'm also a model railroader. This is my personal locomotive, a DM&IR 2-8-4 on the Colorado Model Railroad Museum's 5,500 square foot layout about 6 years ago.


That's a fantastic layout and a very cool locomotive. I was into model railroading as a kid, and I still have some of the books. I've always been partial to steam locomotives and mountain scenery, and that layout has great scenery. I assume that's HO gauge?
 
That's a fantastic layout and a very cool locomotive. I was into model railroading as a kid, and I still have some of the books. I've always been partial to steam locomotives and mountain scenery, and that layout has great scenery. I assume that's HO gauge?
Yes, HO. It's been featured in Model Railroader and is all over YouTube, just search for Colorado Model Railroad Museum. This video only covered 1/2 of the layout. It's based on the Oregon, California & Eastern, the last logging railroad in the US and the layout fills a 5,500 foot space. The layout is filled with great little scenes and bits of animation that is incredibly popular with non-modelers. I've seen men dragging their wives in and later having to drag them out.

We had visitors from all over the world. I was a docent (guide) there and I had a lot of Koreans as visitors. There was a group of Korean students who I gave a few tours to, and they told their families and their families made it a point to visit when they came to see their son or daughter in Colorado.
 
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