Ask HN: What's your hobby?

Bouldering/Climbing!

Love this sport. Everybody, whatever their level, does the same thing : Fail and try to outdo themselves.

It's difficult to go run with someone better than you, or play football because of the skills gap. I found that with climbing whatever your shape you can have the same kind of fun.

I also love the combination of body shape, technique, and thinking (how can I pass this, what does the route want me to do?). And because everybody is trying its hardest, I like that it creates group interaction on trying to solve a problem.

I play guitar (poorly) and bass guitar (well enough to convince bars to pay my band money).

Several times in my life I've completely burnt out of playing music. The most recent time was about a year after graduating from college. I was tired of going to bars, tired of playing the same songs over and over, and tired of playing music in general.

I quit the band I was in and sold all of my bass gear to buy a Fender Telecaster and an amp to go with it. I thought changing my instrument would be enough to bring the passion back. Unfortunately it wasn't and my Telecaster was largely unplayed.

I tried several synthesizers, a digital piano, busting out my old trumpet, and an acoustic guitar but they all ended up sold on Craigslist or sitting around collecting dust. I was also pretty depressed at this time in my life and I think that's why it felt like I would never enjoy playing music again.

I found other ways to occupy my time. I bought a fancy gaming computer and played a lot of Overwatch. I watched way too much TV and read some really good books. Eventually I lost interest in those things too. I hit a really low point with my depression but bounced back with the help of my wife. Things got better.

I happened to go into a Guitar Center while I was on vacation to look for something to try igniting my musical passions with. I happened to stop and play a bass guitar that had caught my eye.

This was the only love at first sight experience I've had in my life and it was amazing. I only played it for about ten minutes but I couldn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the day.

The next day I went back to Guitar Center and bought the bass along with an amp. That night I texted one of my old band mates and a few weeks later it was just like old times. I started playing the bass guitar everyday again which led to me playing the guitar everyday again which led to me recording myself playing again.

I won't be surprised if I burn out again in the future. I think it's a natural part of life for me. It's comforting to know that however bad it gets music will be there for me when I'm ready for it. That's why it's such a good hobby.

Boardgaming. As a father to 5, I have plenty of willing participants. My long game has finally borne fruit!

I don't really have any right now. When I get home from work, I just spend the rest of my evening in bed reading stuff on my phone or laptop.

I'm trying to develop enough upper body strength to start bouldering. I have a pullup bar, but it's slow progress.

* hydroponics. since people always ask: no, not weed. mostly orchids, lettuce, cucumbers, etc. Gonna try hydro chilis in the future, not sure how that'll go.

* concertina and harmonica. maybe i'll pickup the accordion one of these days.

* mountain biking when I have time to do a long drive out of town, maybe once a month? I bike around the city a lot.

* been really into Cities: Skylines lately. Learned a lot about city planning and it's a lot of fun. the modded radio soundtracks and dlc soundtracks help make it kind of relaxing to play

I have many hobbies!

My primary hobby is working on life simulations and other personal projects. Other hobbies include:

* Taking care of my cats

* Growing plants

* Vermicomposting (this is a newfound hobby)

* Learning new things

* Reading (this is usually an "in-between" hobby - I do it when I have some time on public transport or before bed.

* Walking in nature when I can find time to do it, or just taking a walk through a nice part of the city.

My interest in each of these comes and goes so they tend to rotate. The constants are learning new things (which I do by working on fun life simulation projects) and my cats. I now have worms to take care of too, so vermicomposting has been high up there on the hobby priority list.

I like to learn new things.

I have a (bad?) habit of spending all my energy learning as much as I can about a new topic until I get either bored or distracted, and move on to the next thing. Never fully learning one thing (jack of all trades, master of none).

Some examples in the last year: Etching circuit boards, woodworking, ZBrush, speaker design, reading Cyrillic, photography, Erlang.

Funny and may be sad but I found myself learning more and more about servers, linux, nginx, load balancers etc. in my FREE time. So seems like that is a hobby of mine for now. I do work with my own business where I have to tinker with servers but the more I get into it, the more I enjoy.

I used to work out at the gym, but I got bored of it, and wanted to do something that would give me some kind of 'skill' at the end of it.

So, I looked on Twitter, and found a post about a BJJ class near the office. I had my gym clothes with me, so I popped down for the class after work, and I've been going a few times a week for the past three years.

I can have a terrible day at work, and the second I step on the mat every worry I have tends to melt away, if only for an hour or two. It also gave me a great perspective of being "the newbie" again, something I had missed at work at times.

Bluegrass (and other styles) mandolin at the moment. It requires no Internet connection, runs for hundreds of years strictly on power supplied by the user's hands, never needs updates (key word being needs), and there's a whole community of fellow users who get together regularly (which, ironically, is why I need an RV full of tech gadgets for festivals).

It's my low-tech break for the day. I keep one in my office for the occasional riff between builds.