Other Interests?

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N1, me too SimonV.

I'd love to visit some of the WW1 and WW2 battlefields.
Some people say we shouldn't dwell on this stuff, but I think the complete opposite.
Every new generation should be educated about this, so that the same never happens again.

I loved playing MOH, but mostly play COD these days.

I watch war films and play the games, but it's nothing like the reality.
In these modern times, we seem so removed from that era.Yet, it is but three generations ago.
My grandfather fought in WW2, and I'm very aware of what that generation did.
I remember that in my English classes at school, we once had to do a talk on something close to us.My talk was about the Grandfathers role in the war2.I brought his medals to school with me, and the rest of the class and my teachers were fascinated.I also brought in my great great grandfathers WW1 medal, which we still have in a cabinet.

When I was younger, I used to ask my father "what did Grandad do in the war?"
My dad usually answers simply "he was a gunner"
So I then asked "so, he must ahve killed some people then, surely?"
My dad usually said "well, you know, he didn't really like to say"

Which probably means yes.

It's easy to think that that generation where different to us, like people were more hard or something then.
But they were just like you and me.I couldn't imagine killing someone in war, yet my grandfather did, because he had to.
I just find it amazing that the whole of europe were killing each other a mere sixty years ago, yet people are so ignorant and disinterested in this fact.

Even later than that, in the 1950's, my other granfather, who's Hungarian, fought against the Russians, in the uprising against the communists.
He's still with us, yet he doesn't talk about it.

However, he did show me a picture of me with his unit holding a mean looking machine gun, lol.
The russians captured, and then hung, one of his brothers.
So he ended up fleeing, and moved to Britain, when the uprising was quashed.

When you look at your own history, it's impossible to not be interested.
In our recent history, the 20th century, unfortunately it's marred by conflict.

I'm interested in all sorts of aspects of history.Military history especially, as it's indelibly a part of our history as a whole, especially 20th century history.

 

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Guess I might as well jump in.

I actually don't have a lot of time for hobbies...especially when I write.

I rarely read for pure pleasure but when I did, it was usually science fiction or mystery novels. Haven't read one in quite a number of years, now.

Used to collect comic books many years ago. Somewhat more recently, I bought comics and read them to the kids. Now that they can read for themselves, that also has gone by the way side.

Being a geek, if I've got free time, I'm surfing the web, talking in IM or studying something. I have been neglecting my Red Hat box lately. Tried to set up a Debian box here at work but it doesn't like my video card.

I spend time with the family. The missus has it in her head to buy a different house and move so we've been spending many weekends looking at a model she likes and wants built. My son Michael is home from up north and we've been spending time with him as well.

I like studying the Bible...I occasionally teach in front of our congregation so I need to do research for it. If I didn't have to earn a living, it would be great to spend hours in study and research.

I'd also like to get back to walking or running. Believe it or not, in a past life, I was in pretty good shape. I spend too much time in front of a computer now.

I can't stand gaming. No offense to those of you who enjoy it, but I can think of plenty of other things to spend my time on.

I love movies but don't get a chance to go often. I'd love to see the Incredibles. Being a former comic book collector, I'm fond of the genre and I like a good spoof.

I went to Seattle/Tacoma weekend before last. I enjoy travelling but again, it's one of those things I don't get to do as often as I like. I especially like to fly. I enjoy the headlong rush down the runway as the plane is taking off.

I just realized while I wrote this that I must be a terribly dull character...especially compared to the rest of you here.

 

!!!!!!! You what? Come off it Trip, in the short time I've known you on the boards you've gone from being a Postie (crashing the van ) to deciding where you want to be and forgeing a career of your own choice as well as being an author in your chosen field! If that isn't an inspiration to everybody round here I don't know what is. Not to mention the family, some of whom have nicked off to Japan for a bit

 

I'll second that Phil. Big up to yourself Trip.

 

yup i say big up to you as well trip, its not easy managing a career change, a family, and authoring your own books, cant say i've tried two of those, but i can only imagine
its hard to find the time sometimes, and even harder to effectivley balance what little there is between all our pursuits, i think you do great mate, and are an inspiration to us all

Keep up the good work
and no offense taken on the gaming comment ya old git!
:P

 

Ok, ok, you win. I'll stop chewing on my piece of humble pie. Actually, I was referring to the fact that I don't skydive or motorbike, or wrestle alligators or anything really exciting. LOL Thanks for the support.

 

You've got kids Trip, and that is far more demanding, dangerous, exciting and tiring than anything else.

 

LOL. I've got three teens...that's even worse.

 

but last i checked you had offloaded them all to uni/foreign countries ;)
im sure your missing them though haha

 

Offloaded one to Japan and one to northern Idaho (which may seem like a foreign country but really is still part of the US). My son Michael is down for the Thanksgiving Holiday (This coming Thursday here) so I'm only down one teen. The remaining one will be returning to our home on February 6, 2005 and we can't wait. Just a little over two more months now.

 

i am into music in a big way.i play keyboard and guitar but dont really get time at the moment.i spend too much time in front of a computer either on the web or playing far cry or hl2.
my other vice is cars.i have owned more cars in the last few years than most will own in a lifetime.currently driving my 2nd escort cabriolet but some nice person has just slashed my roof with a knife .looks like ill be buying autotrader again.

 

Are you trying to ask what I do in my (so called) spare time? When I'm not at work or doing a contract writing gig, I'm probably in front of the computer surfing the web. I s-mod here and mod at another site so there's a fair amount of toggling back and forth between the two sites

I'm testing VMWare Beta 5 RC1 (soon to be RC2) with two VMs; a Red Hat 9 box and a SUSE 9.1 Pro VM. I also use those to study Linux in general and improve my knowledge base.

Of course, there's the usual stuff you do when you are "married with children" such as try to keep up the place, shopping, spending time with the fam. I love to watch movies with the kids (in their teens) and discuss the story, acting and other aspects of the film afterwards with them. I just watched "The Bourne Supremacy" with my daughter the other day.

Spend time at my local congregation...quite small really. I'm part of the leadership council so I have a little bit more work to do there than the average member.

My kids are the musical ones. One son is a percussionist and the other plays sax. My daughter is split down the middle playing both violin and percussion. Personally, I think I'm tone deaf. :P

EDIT: Senior moment. I forgot I'd responded to this thread already. Oh well.

 

Well, where to start...

I like video games especially alot of the older retro stuff, in my collection i have :-

Spectrums, Acorn, C64, Amiga, CD32, Prototype Atari2600, Amstrad, BBC master Series, And few old Pc`s.

Consoles:

Atari Jaguar, Dreamcast, PsTwo, Xbox

I also own a Mini-Moto (blata 4.2hp) which does about 50mph which i bought last year, and im just waiting for the summer to have some more fun.

Music....... well i have no real preference as i spent 10+ years DJ`ing and you tend to lose interest after a while.

Ive also dabbled programming in various languages :- C++, VB, Blitz Basic, Dark Basic and my latest C# which is what im studying at the moment with Computeach.

Stu_C

 

Trip, where in Japan did your family member go to? I've been over there a few times myself, and it can be quite an interesting/intimidating place until you get your head around the language.

Anyway, my spare time is mainly filled with videogames, martial arts, and reading various sci-fi/fantasy novels. At any given time, there are normally a few projects going on in the background - at the moment I'm trying to use a nifty little piece of software called Blitz3D to model my street and turn it into an FPS game. Also, I just recently gave up on trying to write a novel after 5 years of banging my head against it. The next project is going to be building a PC for Loki using only a frayed piece of string and a few bottle caps - our combined budget doesn't go much further than that. Oh yeah, and I watch a fair bit of anime (Japanese cartoons), but that's mainly so my Japanese doesn't get too rusty. For those of you into that kind of thing, go watch FLCL - it's funny.

 

Sakura-chi in Chiba Prefecture. About 40 km east of Tokyo. My 16 year old daughter Jamie was an exchange student there and lived with a host family for 11 month. She got back to the US a little over 2 weeks ago and she quickly blended back into her usual role in the family.

 

Great thread - I will be back later, once i've thought of something I do that doesn't involve a PC

 

Wow...talk about a blast from the past.