Alternative Timesinks

There are two hobbies that I would embark upon, if I wasn't a gamer.  Actually, there are probably more than two, but these are the two that I currently have on my mind.  Well dammit, now that I'm thinking about it, I have more than these two on my mind.  Like bicycling.  Stop it, brain!

I was thinking about these other two hobbies this morning due to the weather.  That probably seems odd, doesn't it?  Well it'll make sense here in a moment.  Y'see, the weather here has been incredibly nice over the last three days or so. We're talking temperatures in the low 70's and sunshine all day long.  For mid-March in Pennsylvania, that's fantastic.  This has naturally got me thinking about gardening, which is the other hobby I actively pursue in addition to gaming.  (No one can say that my tastes are not broad and varying.)

Since I've been thinking about gardening, yet it's only March, I start thinking back to when I was in high school and also had this odd concept known as "free time".  During March and April, before it was viable to actually plant things outdoors, I would actually germinate seeds inside beforehand on my own.  It was always flowers that I would work with, and never vegetables because I never liked vegetables.  Besides, I was planting these things around the house, not in a bonafide "garden".  It's not exactly common practice to have pumpkins growing outside your picture window, now is it?  Heh.

Moving on, thinking about this brought my mind around to the first hobby I have considered pursuing on multiple occasions:  Hydroponics.  I did a little bit of hydroponics in high school in my horticulture and floriculture classes.  If you're unaware, hydroponics is simply growing plants in water without soil.  Think of it like this:  You have a six foot long PVC pipe about six inches in diameter.  You drill 3-4 inch holes in the pipe every several inches, just big enough to fit a "starter pot".  Then, you run water through the pipe -- you'd need something like an aquarium pump and a reservoir, naturally -- which would provide anything you'd plant in that starter pot with just about everything they need to grow.  Put fluorescent lighting over it and you've got yourself some hydroponics.

It would probably be quite inexpensive to build something like that myself, but naturally there's the whole "free time" concept coming into play again.  Plus, I'd need a good place to set it up.

And since suddenly I have work to do, I'll leave this post here.