Saturday, January 18, 2014

Hobby

When I was a kid I used to have hobbies.  I used to race RC cars in my teens.  I'd save my paper route money and lawn mowing cash and buy $80 motors to make my $250 radio controlled car go faster, beating guys three times my age.  Back then, at the track, everyone was looking at the standings, figuring out championship implications up until the final week of the season.  I took home a lot of trophies.  I also cried on the way home a couple times.  I was one of those inovators, putting a foam tire on my father's drill press, spinning it to put a thin layer of silicone evenly on the tire as it spun around (think "Ghost," just not as sexy).  Used to pull wheelies off the starting line.  I'd change the oil in the shocks every week.  Turn to 2014, and I still have the factory battery in my 2002 Jeep.

But then I got a real job at the movie theater (theatre?), making $3.75 an hour.  Minimum wage.  Which was ok as I was just a kid, but it was quite different from slinging papers from a red wagon or walking behind a lawn mower on a Saturday when I had nothing better to do.  The whole RC car racing thing kind of went to the wayside.

Then there was the whole basketball thing.  Being 6'4", somewhat athletic, I was a darn good YMCA player.  I was a gym rat, dunking, hitting 3's like they were free throws.  But all that left me was with a coupld bad knees.

The one hobby I have, if you consider it a hobby, is lifting weights.  I guess I've spent a lot on weights, having dumbells from 25lbs to 90lbs, but those costs offset having a monthly gym membership.  The good thing about lifting weights is the whole recovery period.  You can/should only lift weights so much a week.  Muscles only grow when you're not using them.

Now I'm 36 with no hobbies.

A co-worker asked me if I do side jobs, like taxes for other people.  For the past three years I did my mentally challenged friend's taxes, for the small price of beer, but since I haven't received any beer for my services I think I'm done with that.  So no, I don't do any side jobs.  Except for maybe my old job, whose accountant, my replacement, recently quit.  Guess she couldn't handle all the debits and credits.  Cake job as long as the funding was available.  And if the funding was available I slept well at night.

And now, 1.5 years in to my 15 year mortgage, I really can't imagine having a hobby that would cost me $80 for a motor or $40 for a battery pack.  Actually, now, 20 years later, they have "brushless" motors and batteries than can blow up your house if you don't charge them correctly.  I've seen videos of RC cars doing flips off the line, let alone wheelies.  And they have performance info sent to cell phones now, way to complex for my liking.

In short, I can't wait for baseball to start again.  Six/seven days a week I know that I have three hours of stuff to do (if you call watching TV something to do).  And assuming the weather cooperates I can watch most of the games outside.

Till then, my hobby will be saving money.  As good as that is, though, it does get tiring.

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