What I’ve been doing every weekend (grins) I enjoy working on my home.. still in the drywalling stage.. next the mudding/taping.. yet a bit of plumbing to glue.. then I can do the fun painting.. and woodwork stuff .. and I have amazing wall paper that will tie the whole area together.. so far of the 5 rooms in the lower level.. two are almost done.. I then plan on using all the extra pieces of drywall to finish off my 24×36′ garage.. I have a cool wood/tool shop.. so with all my extra wood from my home.. I’ll get creative and build another shed (grins).. oh.. were you talking about “play”?? I’d be kayaking or traveling like I already do.. I also quilt.. stamp collect and enjoy landscaping..

~The Lil Otter

My other favorite pass-time is “Sporting Clays”. Many people have heard of shooting skeet or shooting trap with a shotgun. Well, sporting clays is also a shotgun sport but it’s a bit more involved. A clays course is laid out kinda like a golf course. You walk to different “stations”. You stand at a specific place in a sort of stantion so that you can only swing your shotgun thru a limited arc. When you shout “Pull” one or two round clays will be thrown out by a machine. You, of course, try to shoot them and break them.
Each station will present you with a different look at the “birds”. They may be going away from you, coming toward you, going side-to-side, straight up, bouncing along the ground, etc.
On a course where you are presented with 50 clays to shoot, therefore a perfect score being 50, I will usually shoot around 20. I am ecstatic to break 30. I’m satisfied if it’s above 15. The absolute best I’ve ever seen on our home course was someone getting 40. That was pretty much unheard of. So that gives you an idea of how difficult it is. And, of course, it’s just like golf courses…. some clays courses are set up to be much more difficult than others.

Only reason I don’t do more of this any more is that my main shooting partner, the guy who got me into sporting clays, moved way up north and we just can’t get together any more to shoot. So my shotgun has been parked for quite a while.

Before geocaching….WAS there a time before geocaching?…..

In addition to working a bazillion hours, I spend my non-geocaching time (even before there was a geocaching time) with retired racing greyhounds. I have volunteered at the adoption kennels, meet & greets, dog fairs, and attend greyhound “conferences” around the country. Now, through geocaching, I have begun fostering greyhounds — getting them used to homes before they go to their permanent homes.

And let’s see — putter around in my yard and work on my house (new, fabulous, mondo deck coming soon!)

I’m also really involved in my community’s Relay For Life. I participate as a team captain and have just recently joined the committe — we’re organizing a health fair!

And about a million little hobbies here and there too — still trying to teach myself to play the guitar. My ADD tends to sway my attention from most things though (somehow, geocaching seems to not be affected.)

Ummm, I write — a lot. Not that you can tell by my scary posts, but one of my college degrees is in writing (I write good! hee hee!) Mostly prose, usually fiction, but sometimes I have a poem bubble out.

Oh, and! I’m in graduate school (forever!) I’m getting my master’s degree in Safety! That’s pretty cool!

During the nice times of year — usually May through October, I spend as many weekends as possible in Northern WI where my family has a cabin on a lake. Can’t wait to find all the caches in that area!!!!

mmmmm, I think that might be it….

Cool thread!
Bec

Well, considering my hobby is a night time activity, geocaching doesn’t interfere too much. However, I admit it’s tough to pull an all day geocache adventure then try to pull an all-night observing session through the telescope.

One of my daytime activities is public outreach. When asked,I gladly volunteer my time, telescope and knowledge to go into the classrooms and present hands-on activities that teach astronomy to the kids in a fun, interactive way.

Mostly,I’m just a stay-at-home mom trying to raise a 5 year old while trying to keep the house (and my mind) in some dignified fashion. However, what I do doesn’t seem to be enough as my husband stongly suggests I find the time to learn a new hobby: cooking! Yeah, like that’ll happen!

Kat
AstroD-Team

[This message has been edited by AstroD-Team (edited 05-25-2004).]

Ahhh… I can’t say I really remember life before geocaching. Maybee it was gynecology or genealogy, I can’t keep those two straight. I recall collecting a lot of music and video tapes; 8-track and Beta. Drank a lot of beer and caught some fish. I have a bunch of photographic gear collecting dust; a couple of Argus C3’s, A graphlex, a Twin lens reflex. I did the train thing. Did the electronics thing too; built a TV, an oscilloscope, a VTVM, a couple of Stereo sets and repaired TV’s for a while. Solid state electronics put the kabash on that. Did I mention hunting Bench Marks from NGS maps? It is all a bit foggy in my mind, but it’s comming back to me.
tb

You mean there’s something besides Geocaching and Kids? Really? I know there’s house work, but that’s for before or after geocaching or when it’s raining very hard.

Before I learned about geocaching, my main spring/summer/fall focus was on getting in my 60 rounds of golf per year. Now that I have discovered geocaching, I may not get to a golf course too much more than a dozen times this year, and if my son-in-law wouldn’t twist my arm, I could probably live without golf altogether.