Friday OT: Surprise hobbies

I started listing vintage/antiques from my Uncle's estate as a side hustle and also to help my parents (executor), and now find myself interested in antiques.
More fun, and unique, I salvage copper wire and turn it into decorative wire trees. At first I just mounted them on rock (so I am also on the lookout for cool rocks) but now I'm looking into epoxy resin, and I'm making an aluminum smelter.
I guess coaching could maybe be considered a hobby, as it's definitely not a career.
 
1. Group chats, apparently
2. Cross stitching (or as my husband calls it, looking at your phone for an hour, doing two stitches and going to bed)
3. Gardening/flower stuff
4. Procrastinating, probably
5. Napping
6. Being right
 
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Hey guys - just a question. I will be out of the country the next couple weeks, would somebody mind falling on this grenade and posting Friday off topics for the next couple of weeks? It obviously could not be less of a big deal if it’s missed, but we are closing on the start of the season!
 
Disc golf is one of my biggest hobbies. Though with this crowd it is less obscure since Iowa has one of the highest course per capita count in the country. It has also exploded in popularity since covid.

I played Carroll Marty and Stable run a ton when at ISU, then played leagues and tournaments regularly as an upper classman and early grad. Now I play less competitively, but will take trips to destinations for the sole purpose of throwing frisbees in a park/ woods.
 
Avid Reader 60-70 books a year -mostly fiction
Avid Xbox COD Warzone player (at age 50ish playing with much younger peeps)
Started finally recording the original music that's been in my head (played in bands for 25+ years) so that will be my biggest hobby hopefully through next year
 
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Happy Friday Fanatics! It is hard to believe we are just over 3 weeks from another Cyclone Football season. Besides following ISU athletics, what are some hobbies you enjoy that your fellow posters may not know about.

I'll start, I enjoy musicals. I have seen at least a dozen shows at the Civic Center over my life but saw my first NYC broadway show in 2022 and it was Iowa's own "The Music Man" with Hugh Jackman as the star. It was awesome seeing a star on the screen perform in person a show rooted in Iowa and now he is back in the news with the "Deadpool and Wolverine" movie.

Another defunct hobby that I am looking to start back up is retro video gameing. We moved last year and all of my old retro game systems are still boxed. I still have a Nintendo Wii and I might bust out the Zelda Collector's edition for Gamecube that has all Zelda console games through Majora's Mask. I am looking to setup a section of my garage with a TV and Wii/N64 setup. Anybody selling Mario Kart 64?

Yeah give me retro gaming over today's stuff about 7 times out of 10.
 
Disc golf is one of my biggest hobbies. Though with this crowd it is less obscure since Iowa has one of the highest course per capita count in the country. It has also exploded in popularity since covid.

I played Carroll Marty and Stable run a ton when at ISU, then played leagues and tournaments regularly as an upper classman and early grad. Now I play less competitively, but will take trips to destinations for the sole purpose of throwing frisbees in a park/ woods.

This is something I want to get into but haven't yet. Figure I have to be better at this than regular golf.
 
I do have to mention probably seeing ISU @ away football games. I've got the Big 8 covered, most of Big 12 minus the really new ones.
Unfortunately in my own personal experience everything about attending ISU road games has been really fun except for the games themselves. I think the Clones are something like 2-14 in games outside of Jack Trice that I attended from 2000-2020 (Last one was the Big 12 Championship).
 
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Gardening and yard work. I plant a garden every year and now my kids like to plant flower beds so that's something we do every spring together.

Slow pitch softball. When I was in my 20's and early 30's I probably played 3 or 4 nights a week at one point. Started playing co-ed through a work league which eventually led to me starting up my own co-ed and men's leagues teams then through that met others and got invited to play on some other teams for awhile. Been playing just 1 night a week for about the past 10 years or so and still have a few guys on my team that have played most of the years with me so it's turned into something where when were younger we probably were more concerned with being competitive where now it's just a fun thing for us win or lose to get out of the house for a night and have a few cold ones while playing a game with the guys. One guy on my team will have a son that will be 18 next year and he's excited to be able to have him play with us.
 
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This (as you well know) was one of my favorite hobbies before my job made it impossible.

ISU road games are an absolute phenomenal time and I couldn't recommend it more to any Cyclone fan who enjoys traveling.
UP is a lot of fun. Picture Rocks is awesome and that whole area has some great hikes, kayaking, and stuff like that. There are also some cool inland hikes in the wildlife preserve, Manistique lakes and along the Tahquemon (sp?) river. I like North Shore by Duluth and Apostle Island areas too, but preferred the UP.

As to the thread itself, in a couple years when we are empty nesters in addition to picking golf and other more typical hobbies up, I am going to do some more furniture building. I have done some in the past, and have a couple projects.
 
Unfortunately in my own personal experience everything about attending ISU road games has been really fun except for the games themselves. I think the Clones are something like 2-14 in games outside of Jack Trice that I attended from 2000-2020 (Last one was the Big 12 Championship).
Yup, been awhile since I have gone to a road game myself. Some of the ones I have gone to over the years were a lot of fun except for how the game turned out. Definitely helps when you go somewhere that the fan base is friendly regardless. Don't think I will ever go to a game in Iowa City again, just have not enjoyed my visits there even the tailgating is awkward because there are always some jackwads that have to mess with you even if you didn't engage with them.

A few road or neutral site games I remember, the FSU game at Arrowhead where Seneca was in. Great trip other than the outcome of the game. Have been to Missouri where again was a fun time before the game then watched us go down 14-0 thanks to a couple Bret Meyer picks then got to watch the start of Chase Daniel's career when we knocked out Brad Smith and he came in and just lit us up. Been to K-State, again fun trip other than we got our butt kicked. Been to Kansas 2 or 3 times I think including the year they made the Orange Bowl and just smoked us 45-7 in the regular season finale with a packed house and at the end of the game they replayed clips of their undefeated season up to that point which we realized they had only played 1 ranked team all season. The other times I've been there the stadium wasn't half full and I don't think we won any of those games either. Been to Nebraska when they were in the Big 12, again fun time tailgating before with a mix of ISU and Nebraska friends then disappointment watching the game although it was funny listening to the post game in the parking lot with Husker fans calling in and mad that they only beat us by 2 TD. LOL
 
Unfortunately in my own personal experience everything about attending ISU road games has been really fun except for the games themselves. I think the Clones are something like 2-14 in games outside of Jack Trice that I attended from 2000-2020 (Last one was the Big 12 Championship).
Excluding the Big 12 tournament since that’s practically a home game, I have never seen Iowa State win a road or neutral site game in person.

Is there a worse loss that traveling to see your team lose?
 
Growing up a farm kid, the not so surprising hobbies of deer and coyote hunting and fishing, and the obvious attraction of gardening. Those supplement putting food on the table (no, I don't eat coyotes) besides the comradery of the friends I participate with. For years one of my passions has been woodworking, mainly a winter pastime. Way outta the box compared to others mentioned here, for many years I engaged in Hosta hybridizing, as if the 5000 or more already registered cultivars aren't enough to sustain the human race. That became too time consuming and after I lost alot of my shade garden to the Ash borers it went on the back burner although I frequently think of delving back into it. I used to make a thousand or more crosses per year while documenting each one and growing the seeds under lights the following winter but the seedlings took 3+ years to mature enough to access their final color stabilization, plant shape and mature size. My "almost claim to fame" is that I developed one that was once thought to be the smallest ever. It was seven years old, had developed 19 "eyes" (meaning it could have been divided into 19 individual plants) and matured to a diameter of only 3 inches in diameter. It froze out and I lost it the winter I sold a division of it in a charity auction. Add to that my passion for college football and basketball and my "free" time is pretty much allocated.
 
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