Tag: Music

Health and fitness, Thoughts, Writing

Hobbies I’ve Tried Over The Years

minceandskirlie

Over the years I have tried a LOT of hobbies. Despite being a bit introverted, I really enjoy trying new things and learning new skills. There is quite probably a neurodivergent reason for a lot of this, but getting diagnosed as an adult is a bit of a non-starter round here. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all. I thought it would be interesting to go through a list of as many of them as I could remember, from when I was at school to where I am now as an adult in his mid-forties.

Anyway, many of these haven’t stuck with me, but a few I’ve carried on over the years or picked up again after some long gaps. My main takeaway is never be afraid to try new things, everyone was a beginner sometime and the vast majority of hobby communities and clubs (online and in real life) are very welcoming and encouraging to newcomers.

In no particular order:

  • Football – never progressed past kickabouts with friends really and going to watch a couple of games per season at Pittodrie.
  • Video games – a constant throughout my life, from the spectrum to the PS5. I really can’t imagine never being a gamer.
  • Warhammer – Started with 40k 2nd edition box set in early 90s. Then picked it up again a few years ago and now have a lot of plastic lying around in various painted states.
  • Guitar – another constant since I started at 14. Sometimes I go through spells of not playing much, but always pick up a guitar again eventually. I enjoy the variety it offers, from playing heavy metal bangers, to fingerpicking folk songs on my acoustic, to bluesy jams, and even picking up some jazz recently.
  • ITF Taekwondo – did this for about 6 or 7 years on and off until a bad injury. Still really miss it but don’t think my back would forgive me if I tried martial arts again.
  • WTF Taekwondo – went to a couple of classes at uni but didn’t gel with it
  • Hung Ga Kung Fu – did it for a year or so in between TKD spells
  • Airfix model airplane kits – built a few as a kid and picked up a few recently as an adult
  • Golf – I still have clubs but have always been pretty awful at it
  • Badminton – Played a bit at school, was rubbish at it.
  • Drawing – Made a half hearted effort to improve at this a few years ago. Can only sometimes produce something I’m happy with.
  • Juggling – I was given some juggling boobs as a leaving gift from a previous workplace, so felt obliged to learn.
  • Playing in bands – From the age of 18 to my early 30s this was a big part of my life. Hopefully I can revisit it again someday.
  • Mandolin -Picked it up when I got into some trad music and still enjoy picking away at it regularly.
  • Piano – Have tried learning a few times over the years
  • Photography -Got a nice camera when our eldest was born and really got into it for a while
  • D&D – A few sessions as a kid and then played with a regular group again for the last few years
  • Cycling – Always had a bike, but took it seriously for a while when I got a road bike over a decade ago. Still ride it!
  • Indoor climbing – Tried this before the kids were born as something we could do together. I still go back to try it every few months. I’ve never progressed past the easiest grades.
  • Going to the gym – Was a regular gym user for a while when I had easy access through work.
  • Running – I started this about 20 years ago when someone asked me if I wanted to a 10k for charity. Has been the one exercise I’ve seriously committed to long term and still do today.
  • Hill running – Joined a club for a few years and even ran up some munros with them. Great fun and miss being that fit!
  • Hill walking – Haven’t been out on the hills for a few years now due to injuries but really miss being out there. This is one I’ll definitely get back to some day.
  • Swimming – Took this quite seriously for a few months, trying to improve my technique to maybe see if I could enter a very short triathlon. Could never get much past the barely drowning stage.
  • Birdwatching – Always loved birds since I was a kid and really started getting back into IDing them a few years ago. As simple as just figuring out what was in the garden really.
  • Environmental Science – Been doing this degree for 7 years with the OU in my spare time.
  • Tinkering with electronics – Built a couple of effects pedal kits, have a load of raspberrypi and arduino kits. Haven’t ever done much with them.
  • Programming – I started getting BASIC coding books out of the library as soon as I could read. Kept it up over the years and was even a developer professionally for a while. Hardly touch code now.
  • Web design – Learned HTML, Javascript and PHP in the late 90s and 2000s. Again, was useful in a work setting for a while too but not anymore.
  • Magic The Gathering – Got into this a couple of years ago and now have way to many boxes of cardboard in the house.
  • Fishing – Bought a cheap rod and a load of tackle. Lost most of it to seaweed without catching anything.
  • Archery – After the last olympics I wanted to try something new while getting over my back injury. This fit the bill and I’m still really enjoying going along to our club sessions every week.
  • Racing and flight sims – Yes I do need a racing wheel rig and a HOTAS setup to play my very serious video games. No I’m not any good at them.
  • Singing – Oh god I’m so bad, but I keep trying.
  • Rubiks cube – My daughter got really into these a couple of years ago and so I got her to teach me and we had a few months of trying to beat each other’s times. She won.
  • Linocut printing – Bought a small kit on a total whim and loved the result I was able to get with my very basic drawing skill.
  • Cooking – Don’t do this as seriously as I used to, but this blog started as a foodie site. Sharing recipes and restaurants. For a while I was really proud of how good the food I could make was.
  • Writing prose and poetry – Again, I took this very seriously for a long time. Was part of a local writers group and even got a few pieces published locally. Kind of lost the enthusiasm for it over the pandemic lockdowns.
  • Lockpicking – This is a recent one. I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole and found a kit with some picks and a couple of practice locks for not a lot of money. It’s surprisingly simple!
  • Homebrewing beer – Great if you like your beer extra yeasty flavoured. Did a few batches and realised my time was better spent buying good beer from people who knew what they were doing.
  • Learning French – One day I’ll actually do this properly.
  • Twitch streaming – This was interesting and I do want to go back to it. As someone who has, er, a few hobbies but doesn’t necessarily have anyone that shares my varied interests, it was nice to be able to just turn the stream on and yap for a few hours.
  • Yoga – Did this to try and recover from injury a few years ago and found it really good fun and easy to fit in. Then just stopped after a few months. Should go back to it really.
  • Kayaking – We took a few lessons in a local swimming pool. Which was a bit chaotic. Would be nice to have one to play with in the summer, but never took it any further.
  • Chess – Played a bit in primary school and then spent a couple of months earlier this year addicted to chess.com and the chess side of YouTube. Considered joining a local club, but probably got enough going on just now.
  • Calisthenics – Like yoga, I got really into this as a way of conditioning for injury prevention. Also like yoga I just slowly stopped doing it and should pick it up again.
  • Snorkeling – Tried it on holiday, thought it was the best thing ever. There’s a big difference between doing it in the Mediterranean and doing it in the North Sea.
  • Trad music – Bought a mandolin and went along to some session classes a few years ago. Enjoy helping out at the local folk festival and still pick away at a load of tunes. My mandolin stays handy on a hook on my desk.
  • Boardgames – I’ve bought so many boardgames over the years and never play them.
  • Poker – There was a few years in the late 2000s when everyone was playing poker and it was on TV. Played a lot with friends then realised everyone took it way too seriously and I wasn’t enjoying it.
  • Building drones – Bought a cheap drone and it was fun. Built a small indoor one and it was fun. Started researching parts for a racing / stunt drone and realised it was going to be a horrendously expensive hobby and I didn’t need that in my life. Would still quite like a wee DJI drone to mess about with sometime for videos and photography.
  • Blogging – I took blogging and online writing quite seriously for a few years. Doing this food blog and some more tech orientated pieces on another site. Until, like a lot of my hobbies, I started focusing more on other things and just slowly stopped doing it.

Wow, that’s a lot! I count fifty two different hobbies. Some of those could probably be broken down a bit more if I really wanted to separate them out too. Also I’ve not included things like reading, watching TV, going to the cinema or going to the pub with friends. Things which I guess have taken up huge amounts of time over the years but it’s not like you’re practicing and developing skills for them. It’s just living a normal life. What I’ve listed are all pastimes that you need to consciously improve at and which take a bit of effort.

I’ve enjoyed all these hobbies I’ve tried over the years. Even the ones I’ve not carried through into middle age or just tried a few times and decided they weren’t for me. My one big regret I guess, is that I can’t help but think how much better I could have been at some of my favourite hobbies if I hadn’t been distracted by trying new things all the time. The old jack of all trades, master of none thing.

I like that it’s always been a mix of creative hobbies, exercise, and play. These are all sides of me that I think are equally important, though I often neglect one aspect when focussing on another. For example I have been skipping a lot of opportunities to get outside and be active recently because I got a new guitar and I’m keen to spend time playing that instead. It’s probably better to force myself to be more balanced when I can. Let me know what you think and how many hobbies you’ve tried over the years in the comments below!

Thoughts

What’s in a name?

minceandskirlie

I’ll be honest, I’m starting to really dislike my name. Not Chris, that’s fine. I mean my gamertag, Twitch screen-name and the name I’ve been using for most of my socials in recent years – Folkedoff.

It started simple enough. I think I picked it as a gamertag when I registered a new xbox account in the xbox 360 days. I like folk music, the off is part of my surname, and yes it was a childish play on “fucked off”. That joke got old real fast once I had kids and they got old enough to read my gamertag out loud.

Also for a joke to be funny, people have to get it. No-one gets it. If I jump in a new twitch stream and hit follow or start chatting, people don’t seem to be able to parse “folkedoff”. Not just those who don’t speak English as a first language either; Americans seem to have real problems with it. Admittedly you could argue that they barely speak English as a first language either… (joking obv. after all I’m Scottish and the same could be said for many of us)

Nothing kills a pun like mangling the pronunciation, so it’s painful to hear all the variations of the name people can come up with.

As a gamertag it’s not too bad. It’s fine. But now I’m using it for everything it’s starting to bug me a lot. If it was just Twitch it might be bearable, but now I’ve tried to align my most active public socials like Threads and Instagram with Twitch, along with any Discord memberships the name feels really clunky and uncomfortable. I’m not happy with it.

So what do I do about it? I don’t know really. I guess I have to change it but I don’t know what to change it to?

If my primary focus for a name is to choose something to use for content creation – Twitch, YouTube, and socials then it should be something broad enough to cover all the content I’m creating. On Twitch I keep intending to main music, playing some folk songs and trad tunes, maybe testing out some metal and electro stuff, but it never works out like that and I spend more time streaming sim games like DCS or Flight Simulator, plus a few variety games I pick up on game pass. While folkedoff kind of fit the music theme (assuming you get the joke), it’s clunky for anything else. Then on Threads and Insta I’ll often post pics of projects I’m working on, arty experiments, Warhammer models, wildlife pics, plus all the other thoughts and nonsense that comes into my head. Lastly there’s this blog as well!

I guess I need to take some time to think up some new names and mull them over. There’s a few, including Mince and Skirlie, that I’ve used for other projects in the past that might fit but probably not really. If I switch it up I think it’ll be something new. Full rebrand!

Ideally I want something simple, easy to say, catchy, maybe a bit folky or metal, that will fit with music or gaming. I don’t really want to split things up too much into separate Twitch streams or YouTube channels. Maybe I pick something from nature, a bird name or something like a Scots name for one of my favourite birds or some other object related to my interests. There’s a lot to consider. Let me know if any of you have good ideas for picking names!

Watch this space then for the big rebrand on Twitch and socials once I’ve made up my mind!

Music, Thoughts

Once More Round The Sun

minceandskirlie

It was my birthday last week, another lap of the sun completed. I don’t really put much stock in birthdays any more or get really excited for them (though I did have a great time with family and a lovely meal out with my wife on the day itself). In fact I find myself now spending most of the year struggling to remember exactly how old I am now. Am I really 43? Or is it 42? Once I hit somewhere around my mid twenties I think I mentally felt like this is my age and I’m going to stick with it. Anything above that doesn’t really count. Just no-one told my haggard, ageing, body.

I fell down a synth laden black hole this week. It all started a few weeks ago when I dug out my Korn Volca Beats and was determined to learn how to use it. This magnificent piece of procrastination coinciding with the start of my latest Open University module of course. Then I started liking and following loads of synthy accounts on Threads that just post chill, ambient beats on hardware synths. I was scrolling for hours just checking out loads of cool sounds.

That led me to browsing hardware synths on Amazon for a while until I came to my sense and decided I should just use the toys I already have. Rooting around in my spare room, I dug out my Akai Miniak synth that I bought over a decade ago and also never learned how to use. I managed to switch it on and play around with some of the presets but it really needs some proper time put in to it to get the best out of it I think.

Time I don’t have it turns out! As my procrastination caught up with me after I had a birthday weekend and I suddenly found I had dropped behind schedule a bit on my uni course and needed to get my head down to catch up on some reading and go hug some trees on the first dry day we’ve had at a weekend for a while. I really went out and hugged some trees, as the course had us out measuring the circumference of local trees with a tape measure. Surprisingly, I didn’t see any posts on the local nosy neighbour facebook group for our town wondering why someone was hanging around all the trees taking pictures and measuring them.

That out of the way, I returned to my synth distraction. Which led me to building quite a wishlist on Amazon of some cheap hardware to do some DAWless synth jams. But I think that should wait. For now I have a drum machine, a beastly Akai synth that I just need to learn how to use, and access to Reaper and loads of software synths that I could use to find my feet with first. Yes, that sounds much more sensible. So instead of a new expensive synth that I won’t get round to learning, I received my dopamine hit by ordering a small USB midi keyboard controller instead so I can control software synths on Reaper and figure out what I’m doing.

My big plan is to use the synth stuff as a backing track to do some live jamming with my guitars, but lets see how that works out. If anyone out there has any VST recommendations or even some budget hardware recs, let me know. It would be a good basis of some music streams on Twitch I think if I can get the hang of it. If it works it’ll be pretty satisfying. But first I need to stop procrastinating and get back to some studying!

Music, Thoughts

Beats and Beaks

minceandskirlie

I’ve been busy with uni, work and then a family holiday this month. But I’ve still found time to procrastinate spend on a couple of lapsed hobbies.

10 years ago I picked up a Korg Volca beats just after they were released. A dirt cheap drum machine, with simple workflow, and a sound harking back to the classic modules of the 80s and 90s. I was full of good intentions of incorporating this in some low fi folk compositions. Then never really learned how to use it properly. It still sits on a shelf by my desk, unloved, to this day. However, I picked it up again the other week, when I was probably supposed to be doing something much more important and had a play with it.

https://www.threads.net/@folkedoff/post/CylKp5fL1CG

https://www.threads.net/@folkedoff/post/CynzhKmoace

(One day Threads posts will embed seamlessly into WordPress. Today is not that day. Click the links to hear the results)

Both those basic beats were drummed up (hah!) in just a few minutes. It’s so easy. I really need to spend more time with it. Frustratingly though, I don’t have a way to hook it up to a speaker at the same time as my guitar or my hardware synth (which I also should spend more time with). But if I can solve that problem soon I should start using the Volca more often while writing on the guitar and practicing in general (always was bad at practicing with a metronome).

While on holiday this week I also picked up a hobby I’ve tried starting loads of times over the years. I keep buying sketchbooks, pencils and pens, then carrying them around with me and never use them. Well, this time I spent a couple of nights sitting drawing in the holiday lodge then colouring the sketches with some pens. Mainly to try and impress my daughter really.

Blue tit (Cyanistes Caeruleus)

Goldfinch (Carduelis)

I love birds and wildlife and have always been jealous of people who can draw really detailed pictures of the birds and animals they see. Whenever I’ve tried in the past they always look really wonky. But I’m pretty chuffed with how this blue tit and goldfinch turned out. The blue tit is still a bit strangely proportioned, but the goldfinch is just about right. Think I just need to practice a bit more to get some consistency. I’ve never been a tidy artist and struggle with detail, which also comes across in these.

I might try some different pens next time or maybe even using some acrylic paints for a chance and see if that helps me get the details right.

Anyway I’m pretty happy with how both these bits of activities have turned out. Less happy about how much I’ve procrastinated from what I should have been doing instead, but that’s a whole other blog post!

Thoughts

Maybe I need interaction after all?

minceandskirlie

This is weird. This… Everything. Nothing is normal now. I thought I was doing OK with that but now I’m not so sure.

Last week I beat the lockdown by a day and started self-isolating with my family after I developed a persistent cough. By the middle of the week I was shivery (though had no fever) and felt quite ill, then a few days later I needed two or three naps just to get through the day due to fatigue. Was it COVID-19? Who knows? I might never find out.

I started feeling a little better over the weekend and even had enough energy to record a bit of mandolin for my own contribution to the #COVIDCeilidh hashtag on Twitter:

I told myself I’d try and pick up music and writing again to help me get through this and so far I’ve been pretty good at finding time here and there to pick up my mandolin or a guitar. I’ve loved getting to know pieces of music again that I’ve not played for years and even started working on a few new tunes. But to be honest it’s a thumb in the dyke of my anxiety just now.

The biggest problem I have is working from home. I thought I would really enjoy it, getting to look into my garden all day and watch the birds (and that has been great), go for a run around Stonehaven at lunchtimes, get to see more of the kids. The surprise to me though, as someone who is very much an introvert, is how much I miss the office environment. There’s a constant level of interaction which I find completely lacking now and no amount of Skype texts is making up for it.

For two days now I’ve been sat on my own in our spare room listening to my kids playing and arguing elsewhere in the house while I pick up tickets from my team’s queue, email users and fix problems. All without actually speaking to anyone. Suddenly I feel really distant and it’s hitting my anxiety hard.

Hopefully it passes. This is all new for everyone and I think it will take time for us to adapt. I have an online games session arranged with some friends over the weekend which might help. Plus, now I’m over my illness I should be able to get out running again and that should calm my mind down a lot as well. Failing that I’ll try more music or maybe I’ll start talking to the birds in the garden as though they’re my office colleagues.