Just for Fun
(hobbies and other distractions)
Over the years, I've been interested in quite a range of things. I love to learn new
things but I have found that unless something has direct applicability to what I'm
concentrating on at the moment, more often than not it eventually gets dropped from my
life. For example, there was a time when I was trying to learn to play keyboard and,
as a result, amassed all sorts of musical equipment and books that I eventually ended
up selling and/or giving away. Truth is, I love to learn
My current pastime is an exception. For the past several years, I have enjoyed learning as much as I can about Japan. I enjoy learning about the Japanese culture and I am currently doing what I can to master the language. Also, much of the entertainment I enjoy on a daily basis (anime, jpop, and karaoke, to name a few) originates either directly or indirectly from Japan. I also enjoy travelling to/in Japan as often as possible.
Besides that, I like to read and write (well... type, actually -- using the computer for nearly all of my daily correspondence has reduced my handwriting to near illegibility). Part of what I write is published in various parts of this web site but much of it still remains locked away in various scraps of paper, notebooks, and computer files. I often think I'm using this web page as an excuse to finish some of the half-baked writings I've done over the years.
Much of this urge to read and write comes from my love of philosophy and religion. I like to speculate about what people think and believe and why. I have come to some pretty odd conclusions after observing more than my share of pretty odd human beings. I like to tell people that I "collect religions" just to see how they react. But I really have spent time interacting with some pretty offbeat religions (more on my philosophy can be found elsewhere on this site.
I also love playing with computers. I especially like creating new programs and thinking about various algorithms for things. I have written many computer programs for my own use that I am in the process of gathering and putting up on the web. None of them, of course, ever made me rich (but one did make me famous).
All this computer and philosophy stuff might make me seem like the kind of guy who seldom sees the light of the sun. But, in fact, I get out often for walks -- sometimes covering distances that cause my friends to just shake their heads (a web page will come of this someday). I also recently purchased a motorcycle, which I admit I do not get to ride as often as I would like.
Besides that, I enjoy humor (who doesn't), especially parody. A long time ago, I wrote and edited a short-lived newsletter called The Bullsheet that was nothing more than a parody of Scientology during the period that I was pulling myself out of that group's influence.
Finally, I should mention that I have been maintaining the reunion pages for several companies at which I once worked. The original such page, the HHB/Racal-Redac Alumni Page was formed after about 80% of the workforce of the HHB staff had been laid off (made redundant, as they say in Britain) and everyone scattered in their seperate directions. Since then, I have received enough thank-you notes from various people who have used the page that I decided to start similar pages for the alumni of several other of my ex-employers.
Of course, my personal life is not standing still, either. However, until certain legal problems are out of the way, I shall not write much of that which has made all the rest of my pastimes pale by comparison. Those who know me personally know of whom I speak.
So, as you can see, I am not bored. There is always more on my "ToDo" list than I have time to do and, on top of that, I decided to re-organize and update my web site. Now that the task is finished, I guess it's time to move onto the next major project...
