My Hobbies...

Click a Hobby.....	Astronomy	Role–playing	Reading	Sports

Whoa! Where do I start.

Well, a number of them are considered weird or crazy by most normal people, but the fact is I would rather be role-playing in Middle-earth than, say, lubricating the pavement with bodily fluids, funded by my hard earned cash in the early hours, as a lot of those who think I am weird do. Duh! Who are the idiots?

My main hobby is role-playing, which after family and work, is what I spend most of my spare time on.  Certainly the character creation spreadsheets I have developed for a variety of role-playing games have taken literally hundreds of hours on Excel to create and hone.  Without role-playing life would certainly have a touch less colour.

Reading Tolkien's works ranks as highly as role-playing although it doesn't take anywhere near as much time.  My life would be very different, I am sure, if I had never experienced Mr T and some of the other great fantasy authors who came after.  I'm by no means widely read, even in the fantasy and Sci-fi genre.  I'd rather know inside out several universes than have a little knowledge about many.  I consider myself a bit of an expert on everything Middle-earth, The Land (Stephen Donaldson's epic about Thomas Covenant) and Julian May's Pliocene and Galactic Milieu series of books.

A side hobby is astronomy.  I am no expert, but the vastness and wonder of space is, for me, much more majestic and wonderful than just about anything else (except family and the above) I can think of.  I do have a simple 8" telescope, but without a counter weight, the slightest wind sends the images rocking badly on high magnification. One day I'll get a decent telescope with a digital camera facility and start to take some great shots.

Sports, specifically Karate, SHOULD be big in my world, but I am so overworked with home life and work life (or just lazy as some would say) that I just do not have the time to get back into it.  However, as middle-age approaches and the belly expands, the need is growing with every passing day and I can see myself getting back into it as soon as possible.