Starting doing something you’ve never done before? Getting back into something you used to do? Is it fun and exciting? Is it challenging?
I recently starting to learn roller skating (quad skating). It is so thrilling! I can’t do a lot yet, I can barely stop, can’t skate backwards, and definitely no transitions. I can skate forward, scissor, scooter push, and I am getting tight with turns.
I take classes on the weekends, which are an hour, and then I skate 3 more hours in the regular session.
I am inching my way through the fundamentals, and I am not falling as often as I did just a week ago. I am wearing a helmet, because I care about my head, but I have become comfortable enough to take it off since it is not required, just wrist guards.
I own my own skates, Riedell R3s with Sonar Caymans (indoors), and Sketchers 4 Wheelers (outdoors), which I modified by replacing the plastic plates and trucks with Sure-Grip Super X. Now they are not so scary.
ALSO! I just got my first skate board! I walked into a local skate shop I had no idea existed until someone mentioned it, and only went in to see what offerings they had for roller skates so I would not have to order online. They got wheels and bearings, plus tools and protective gear, which is all I need and expected.
I walked out with an 8.5 Real deck (recycled), Ventura trucks, Slime Balls 78a wheels, Bones Reds bearings, and black tape. Assembly was free in-house and the dude got it together under 10.
I have yet to ride it, but I learned there is a skate park near me, so I have a lot to look forward to!
Edit: fixed details
Trying different teas. Some from China, some from the UK and some from India.
Neato! Care to share any favorites? I am slowly switching away from coffee and enjoying tea more. It is just so much easier, especially with an electric kettle.
I personally started drinking pu-erh, and I like it so much more than regular black tea, but not as much as earl grey.
Thus far, my favorites are Paris and Hot Cinnamon Spice, both from Harney & Sons.
Lovely. I adore anything with cinnamon. I will see if I can track those down!
Ooh, you might find teabox.com interesting for Indian tea. It’s an Indian tea estate which sells tea online directly - and cuts out the middleman. Simply divine.
Playing board games. I am designing some myself and so I bought some games that where similar that I hadn’t played yet and that kinda got me into a rabbit hole and now I am just into any kind of board game with interesting themes (Spirit Island is one that I will get today and look forward to trying out)
That sounds like a lot of fun. Boardgames have been our family’s obsession for a long time. What are some games you are working on? if you don’t mind being asked.
A card game and a table top roleplaying game
I’m new here. Is there a Lemmy server for the board gaming community?
I’ve been getting really into DIY stuff lately, mostly electronics. As someone with a lot of sensory issues, mechanical keyboards are fantastic since you can tune them so much to your own preferences, and as a retro tech freak (and staunch believer in repair rather than replace), learning the basics of soldering and general electronics modding has been great (and custom Gameboy stuff is right up my alley). I’m even thinking about learning PCB design stuff and some general low level computing stuff I didn’t learn before. Unfortunately, I haven’t really been able to afford much in this regard lately since I’m disabled and I have been having nerve/joint issues lately, but friends did help me get parts for a slightly more ergonomic keyboard (Alice layout instead of standard) so I can use the computer more comfortably (and I guess I’ll have to make getting a nice split keyboard a long term goal), and I’m planning on doing some visual stuff to make it look nice and distinctly mine (it’s layered acrylic, so adding pressed flowers and stuff below the top layer).
That is awesome! I have been meaning to get into electronics. I got soldering irons. Solder. Mats. I even bought some starter kits off aliexpress just for the practice. I have a fuzz pedal I need to put together. Ask me how much progress I have made (please don’t).
You have a great outlook on electronics. I also believe that things should be repaired or repurposed. I hate waste, I hate that things most things are made of trash quality to not even be worth preservation.
I hope you manage to build a keyboard that suits your needs perfectly!
Thanks! The awesome communities around a lot of this stuff really helped me get into these things too. I got lucky enough to get a decent soldering station recently too (gift from family) so hopefully I also start to make a bit of progress. Honestly, having things break that I know logically have to be simple to fix was what got me most interested; why should we throw a set of speakers or a kitchen appliance into a landfill just because there’s damage to a single wire? And it really hasn’t been too intimidating so far.
And this whole shift to the fediverse has made me super interested in running my own server locally, both for storage purposes (I need too much storage space >.>) and for the sake of having the ability to host whatever I want locally - but I haven’t really played around with that yet since it costs a decent bit of money even buying used server stuff from China.
Start up costs are no joke. I have some used hardware from over the years so I am lucky in that way, but getting good quality storage that won’t fail on you is the pricey part.
Also, these old computers are not the fastest, but at still far ahead from an overpriced raspberry pi. Put that silicon to work!
Super cool gift with the soldering station. I think there is a point in everyone’s lives were they have enough to survive without buying another thing, but most people will never really stop purchasing beyond their needs. Me included I guess.
I hope you build your server!
Thank you! I’ll probably repurpose an old PC to reduce costs when I do because I have a little bit of hand me down stuff, but it’s not enough to really run a server that hosts anything important on so I’ll probably have to supplement (and yeah, the storage thing).
Still, it is good to practice learning how to set up a server, that way you know what you really need when you make a major purchase, and you can do it right the first time instead of fussing with it every other day, or worse doing multiple reinstalls.
My main hobby since February has been learning how to program. I decided to start with python since it seemed to be the best way to focus on programming and not fighting the syntax. I’ve been following the 100 days of code course on Udemy and I love it. Right now I’m working on a project to scrape the bill board top 100 chart for a given day, then use the Spotify API to create a playlist from the scraped data.
That is a dope project. Really well defined. I think you already have a good programmers mindset just by being able to define a problem and solution at all, and so well.
Good luck on completing the course!
Wow thank you so much that totally made my day
No problem! You are doing great. Please share what you make when you make it!
I’ve started running, I got some proper running shoes and have started running a 5K loop around my house to try and slow down my weight gain. I’m only 2 days in and my legs are very sore, but it’s good for my health, both mental and physical
Hell yeah! Running is something anyone can start doing, but there is a lot of technique to keep cognizant of like foot strikes and pacing.
I hope you keep at it and get to the fitness you want!
Don’t run everyday though. I don’t know your history but I would recpmmend starting with 3 days a qeek or so and add distance or days if your body is okay with it. In any case you should have at least one rest day a week.
Good job anyway!
Thanks, yeah i basically have no athletic history so yeah, starting off with 3 days a week running 5k, then maybe after a couple weeks once my body has adjusted, bumping that to 4 days a week.
Wow, no athletic history and you start running 5k right off the bat? I am jealous.
don’t be. Turns out this was too much strain on my body and I’ve injured my foot. When they say you should ease into it, they really mean it
I got back into day hikes. I’ll bring back bicycle riding as well. The tires are all aired up and it’s ready to go.
Damn. I miss hiking. Everything is like at least 40 minutes away just to get to an elevated trail.
I recently fixed up my bike, new tape, new shifters, put new life into it. Haven’t really rode it because cars suck and I need to take it to a trail.
Don’t learn to ride at the skatepark, go to big smooth parking lot. Top floor of a parking garage is usually empty and nice and buttery concrete.
Also, DONT PUSH MONGO!Thank you for the advice! I definitely plan to watch a lot of youtube videos before taking it out to the street. I am so not ready for a skate park, I just love the discovery of one near me.
I will be on the lookout for smooth asphalt. The roads were I live are awful.
I shall not push mongo!
Went back to speedcubing, seeing that new 3.13s 3x3 WR amazed me
This was a couple years ago, but my doctor told me I should walk but that didn’t sound very interesting, so I picked up longboarding. I always felt too uncoordinated to do stuff like this, but I’ve really taken joy in it.
Yes! Getting on wheels is life changing!
It is so liberating, no way to explain it but to get good at it.
It is a very uniquely liberating feeling
I recently learned to enjoy dry wines. Still don’t enjoy California wine though, to me it tastes like cheap vodka, pure alcohol. I spent a couple days planting grapes for a vineyard owner in my area. In 3 years those grapes will be ready to be made into wine. I can’t wait to go there and try some wine that might have come from grapes I planted.
I have started to set up a homeserver, since I wanted a NAS and a bit extra… Currently running TrueNAS Scale baremetal. I have a HomeAssistant Docker setup on a Pi and am feeding that data into an Influx DB on the NAS (hosted as a container from TrueNas).
I also host Jellyfin and Nextcloud from the NAS. Now I want to open my nextcloud instance to family and friends and there’s ssoooooo much debate over what the best way is (tailscale, reverse proxy, vpn service, etc.)
All of which is a) probably too much hassle for non-technically savvy people to implement on their own on their devices and b) is probably really complicated or not viable with my current setup.
I will probably wipe the server, set up VMs with proxmox and have dedicated VMs for the NAS software, a docker host, etc.
Now I just need to figure out how I can backup the data from the containerized InfluxDB and re-feed it into the new instance once I set it up. Because somehow I can’t touch those files even as root. sigh it’s a fun hobby.
I’m into cooking, fermenting and hot chili peppers. I like experimenting to see how it comes out. I currently have lemons and yellow fatallii peppers fermenting and want to try a type of marmalade with them seasoned with saffron. I’m also working on a fermented cherry based barbecue sauce.
That all sounds incredibly delicious. I love fermented foods and everything spiced.
Cherry barbecue sauce is next level.
Relatively recent hobbies include:
Fishing
German language
Watercolour painting
Sketching
Bicycle riding
Spear fishing and snorkelling
I’ll take up paper making in time, and am interested in manufacturing my own machinery.
Previous hobbies have included:
Surfing
Self hosting
3d printing
Diy house repairs and maintenance
Pipe smoking
Tobacco growing and blending
Wine collecting and tasting
Hell yeah! You live an interesting life. Hobbies are all about life long learning.
Paper making is cool, because of the wide range of material that can be used, plus everything recycles.
That will be so rewarding when you are sketching and water coloring on the paper you made!
Yes, and to make that cotton paper, I’ll be manufacturing a Hollander Beater to turn the cotton into pulp. That one I’m quite excited for.
Had to look up what a Hollander Beater, and it is mesmerizing! This is an incredible project. I have seen videos on bespoke papermaking, but it has been awhile with the details.
It is awesome that you are making all the tooling yourself. That is inspiring.
How about a Pipe Smoking group? [email protected]
I’ve started playing table football regularly. Not just casual playing, but realy training. I get help by players who are playing in the national league. It’s actually a lot more tactics and techniques you can learn than I would have imagined before starting. But ever since I started I just couldn’t stop. Been playing every week for over half a year. The nice thing is that you get a lot better realy fast. Each time I leave I have the feeling that I realy learned something and got a lot better and that is just so rewarding.
That is cool. I think it is extremely difficult. Everytime I have tried I end up just flailing with the poles, and sometimes launching the ball outside the table.
The amount of finesse just to place decently is a lot more than what can be done with infrequen casual play.
Plus, the field is small and the ball moves fast, so learning to track the ball and players is a lot to parse.
Hope you one day get to join the league!
I’m moving to a swedish speaking area in few weeks so I started learning swedish on duolingo a bit over two months ago. I’ve had studied swedish in school since it’s our other official language, but I was never interested in it and went with the lowest grades usually.
68 day duolingo streak, reading swedish wews and swedish communities on reddit/lemmy/mastodon as well as watching childrens’ shows in swedish on netflix has done wonders restoring my long forgotten swedish skills.
Basically a free hobby, unless you count netflix subscription, but I had it anyway before starting.
That is awesome! There is nothing more rewarding than learning a new language. It is even more rewarding to relearn a language you had dismissed and reach new levels of understanding and fluency. I hope you are conversational by the time you move!
Thanks!
I doubt I’ll be conversational by the time I move because that is what I lack in my language immersion at the moment, but I’m sure I’ll soon be after I move since I’ll be needing to use it constantly :)
Nothing more motivating than having no recourse but to use the language of the population you are in. Happy immersion!
Thanks a lot! You’re very kind.
