What do you do when you're not playing WoWs or on DevStrike?

[Gillhunter]

71, and retired here, but still enjoy working part-time. (Working is a lot more fun when you don't have to. LOL) I do woodworking when the weather is bad and fish with the wife when it's good. I enjoy cooking and do most of it now. My wife bakes. The wife enjoys gardening, and I still do all the lawn work and house maintenance. I spend more time than I should on the computer.

 

[Guest]

All sorts of things.

Other games, usually RTS/4X/FPS. Fish. Golf. Frisbee golf. Play basketball with the boys. Coach college kids in flag football. Travel. 

Sometimes I just sit on my back porch and watch the lake.

[Wolfswetpaws]

Read.  Play other games.  View youtube videos.  View Twitch streams.

I need to excercise more (like I used-to) with hiking/walking/bicycling.

[clammboy]

 I'm working 2 jobs my own seasonal restaurant and on my friends route at 5:30 am. I have not been playing a lot of wows lately. My place is closed till March 3rd and then when I open I will be working like crazy again. My last 2 girls are almost done with college and then I can quit this morning job but for the next 2 years I still need it.

Edited February 4 by clammboy

[Snargfargle]

WOWS is usually a winter past-time for me. When the weather is nice I'm too busy to be playing games. My stuff seems to be falling apart faster than I am and it gets harder to put it back together each year. I re-sealed the siding and painted the house trim last summer. I hope that's the last time I'm going to have to be up on a roof. This summer I'll need to either get the fence that blew down in the recent snowstorm put back up or torn completely down. 

I generally do a bit of shooting and some hunting, fishing, gardening, and cooking but not so much as I used to because it's just me now. I went out about a month ago and walked up a couple coveys of quail and took my target .22 pistol out shooting last week but it's not something I'm really passionate about doing anymore.

I used to do a lot of wildlife photography, including underwater photography, plus developing and printing but with the advent of digital photography I began to realize that technology had passed me by. I gave all my photo equipment to my niece, who was interested in "old school" photography for awhile. I thought about replacing it with digital equipment but never did get around to it.

Each summer, I usually build some project in the shop like a chest of drawers, bookcase, or kitchen table but woodworking is not really a passion for me like it was for my Dad, who I inherited the woodshop from (after I paid my siblings their 2/3 share). Most of my time in the shop is devoted to maintaining my vehicles and yard equipment, or the shop itself.

I do a bit of reading but not as much as I used to because my eyes aren't what they used to be. I still get through a non-ficton and a novel about once a week though. This week it was Arrowsmith and Lincoln: The Prairie Years.  I watch a lot of how-to, arborist, machining, and maintenance channels. I also tie a lot of knots. I found Ashley's book on the internet and lots of good knot-tying channels and generally tie knots each evening while watching the news. I play my guitar a couple hours a day and nobody has ever said I'm not good at it so I suppose that I am (of course, nobody is close enough to hear me playing either). I also watch a movie about once a day. Last night, I watched Beau Geste. Today, I watched The History of Future Folk.

I used to do a lot of camping, hiking, rock climbing, skiing (water and snow), boating, canoeing, scuba diving, and a bit of small plane flying but I'm too old now and since catching COVID I don't have the lung capacity for strenuous activity anymore. That's the first time I've been really sick since I had rheumatic fever as a child but it really knocked me for a loop. Sometimes I feel closer to 80 than to 70. That's another reason that I'd just as soon laze around the ole homestead now.

Edited February 4 by Snargfargle

[Volron]

War Thunder, 7 Days to Die, Cepheus Protocol, Sentry, Phoenix Point, Castle of Alchemists.

 

But right now, Palworld. 

Edited February 4 by Volron

[HamptonRoads]

Astronomy and travel.  Looking forward to April when there is going to be a solar eclipse whose path crosses North America. 

[BOBTHEBALL]

4 hours ago, Gillhunter said:

71, and retired here, but still enjoy working part-time. (Working is a lot more fun when you don't have to. LOL) I do woodworking when the weather is bad and fish with the wife when it's good. I enjoy cooking and do most of it now. My wife bakes. The wife enjoys gardening, and I still do all the lawn work and house maintenance. I spend more time than I should on the computer.

 

Studying mostly lol

[desmo_2]

I retired on February 1, so I am trying to come to grips with the reality that I don't have to go to work, anymore.

Until then, I'll do a lot of what I used to do on my days off...walk the dog, play WoWS, and do some internet surfing that would make any ADD'er proud.  I have gotten back on a regular work out routine to trim a little fat and get back to feeling good.

I set myself up pretty good, though.  I have a little lakefront house on a big lake, with a dock and a pontoon boat.  We catch crappie and blue catfish off the dock regularly, and my son loves to bring his family and fish for bass.  I bought 56 acres of woods that is 18 minutes from my driveway, and have some woodland improvement plans, there.  I may set up a little off-grid homestead as a hobby there, as well.

In a month or two I'll probably find a part time job (heck, maybe even full time for a while).

Edited February 5 by desmo_2

[Asym]

Ah......  Being retired is OK but, I'd rather work more than I do. 

Let's see: 

I shoot competitively, sometimes several times a month (practice, practice, practice).  Hunting when possible (weather and COVID...)

I reload for many people whom want to test new ammunition in unique places.... Or, ammunition pre-1900 that involves lead bullets.   The new trend is "one gun to rule them all" for those whom hunt all over the world....  So far, the 375 Ruger is capable of variations.  I even have a .375 gas checked lead bullet for light game...  Alas, they have the money and the time so.........I see a lot of calibers.

I lecture when I am asked on Leadership and Asymmetrical Systems Theory.  I really hate dealing with the University systems anymore.  It's like you have to "be" a copy of the exact "group think" to be allowed to educate young adults in the topics you've spent a lifetime figuring out....  Their loss becomes our loss at some point....  And, we'll all have to "relearn history" to figure out what we already figured out two generations earlier....  Such a waste.

I am writing a novel because of where I live and what my wife does for a living.... I am at that point of physically testing the books premise and that means some serious survival theory testing....  I've got to wait till the fall when the book is set in...  Can't write a story that simply isn't possible.....

Games.   I play a few and that list is getting shorter.  It seems gaming is getting ready for a Toffler wave event, even though they have no idea whom Toffler was.....  Gaming will not be the same after it occurs....  And, they have no idea what to do !  Games like the WG games simply will drop to extremely low populations and make a decision then....  Others will simply close as the new generation of games takes over....

[Ensign Cthulhu]

Other Games for me includes a thing called European War 4: Napoelon, a PVE turn-based thing which has just as many ways to relieve you of your money as WOWS does and a disturbing propensity to crash every now and then and lose everything you ground for. Nor can you transfer the game iteration to a different platform.

Despite that, I still find it a lot of fun for casual play.

Other leisure time is mostly reading. Back in 2002, I came across John Terraine's "To Win A War: 1918, The Year of Victories", and that basically put the lie to everything I'd been taught at school about the First World War. I've probably got more WW1-related books on my shelf right now than any other genre outside of chess, and they range from popular history to professional historians' PhD theses in print form. The more I look, the more I find. Current just-about-to-be-finished reading is Brian Bond's "The Victorian Army and the Staff College, 1854-1914", by which time some books I got from Amazon should be here. 

[Snargfargle]

On 2/5/2024 at 8:59 AM, Asym said:

that means some serious survival theory testing

I got some survival training in the Army and taught wilderness skills when I was TDY'd to a Boy Scout camp one summer (best duty assignment ever). I also took a college wilderness skills course because it could substitute for an athletic credit and for some reason the university didn't think that six years of football practice plus another six years of Army PT was enough exercise. It actually wasn't half bad, though nothing I didn't already know. I caught some kangaroo rats on the three-day "survival" trip but nobody would eat them but me, not even the instructor, who had his wife bring out KFC to where we were camped so the students could "pretend" to eat the animals they caught. Kangaroo rats are every bit as good tasting as squirrels.

[Asym]

1 minute ago, Snargfargle said:

I got some survival training in the Army and taught wilderness skills when I was TDY'd to a Boy Scout camp one summer (best duty assignment ever). I also took a college wilderness skills course because it could substitute for an athletic credit and for some reason the university didn't think that six years of football practice plus another six years of Army PT was enough exercise. It actually wasn't half bad, though nothing I didn't already know. I caught some kangaroo rats on the three-day "survival" trip but nobody would eat them but me, not even the instructor, who had his wife bring out KFC to where we were camped so the students could "pretend" to eat the animals they caught. Kangaroo rats are every bit as good tasting as squirrels.

Yes, I spent a lot of my younger life in the wilderness with Uncle Sam....  At the end of my first Career, I was the Company grade officer on our Boeslager competitive team.  Running 7 minute miles in Combat gear is really hard to master.  And, as a living Historian, the Fur Trade Era to be exact, I have spent quite a bit of time "one blanket" surviving on what those lads actually had and used.  Although, my Friends chafe when I bring my Bethlehem flintlock, which would have been built in the 1790's....  BTW, Sioux trail mix takes quite a while to be able to eat without losing everything.....  Those lads were outright some really 'hard' men....

 

[Snargfargle]

5 hours ago, Asym said:

 Running 7 minute miles in Combat gear is really hard to master.

Those lads were outright some really 'hard' men....

I asked my dad just before I headed off to Basic how hard the running was going to be. He said to not worry, it was a piece of cake. I should have remembered that a couple of years before he was drafted, Dad was competing in the cross-country national championships after winning a gold in the regionals. Even though it wasn't his best event, Dad still ran a 4:12 mile when he was a sophomore. To put that into perspective, that was on a dirt track and the same year Roger Bannister first broke the four-minute mile. Me, I inherited none of Dad's running genes as the folks adopted me when Dad was stationed in Germany. I'm built like your classical middle-aged Bavarian. I could do the three-mile Army PT runs but I never did like them.

Not me, but close.

I've read a lot about the early fur trappers and coureurs des bois, tough men indeed.

 

Edited February 12 by Snargfargle

[Angel_With_A_Shotgun]

I tend to build models and learn how to modify them. Its a hobby I really enjoy, though it does make alot of extra plastic. ^^'

[clammboy]

I am almost always working I have to work two jobs until my girls graduate college in two years.

[Snargfargle]

45 minutes ago, clammboy said:

I am almost always working I have to work two jobs until my girls graduate college in two years.

My brother put his own two girls through college and is now putting his second wife's two girls through college. I only had to put myself through college, which was expensive enough. I hope your kids appreciate the hard work you've done for them.

[Angel_With_A_Shotgun]

Here's one of my builds. These take me a long while as I tend to second guess myself alot on what I'm doing and such. ^^'

[Efros]

I am in my 24th year of teaching HS in the USA. So still plugging away in the classroom trying to get kids to show a modicum of interest in Chemistry and Electronics. I also have a side gig teaching Biochem online. When not doing that or WoWS I am most likely to be on my sofa with my dog nestled up next to me while I am reading or watching some crap on the TV.