31. Your favourite hobbies and ways to spend down time?

As a single bear I have some more down time the typical person my age might so while I have a few staples that I always turn to for fun on a more regular basis, I occasionally like to mix things up a little too.

One of the things I do more frequently includes my blog time, my time spent here and reading or responding to other blogs.  About 3 years ago prior to the creation of this blog I share with Carlyn I doubt very much if I had spent more than 15 minutes looking at any blog.  Now whether it is time spent here writing our blog or reading old blog posts, or time spent searching for other blogs that have fun, appealing or interesting topics or themes, I devote a lot more free time than I ever have in the past to  blogs.

Some of the websites that I like to visit on a regular basis include the Scout.com website for sports chat with a chat community I've been part of for over a decade now.  The Emma-Watson.net website where I met most of my online friends over the last 4 and a half years including Carlyn.  I enjoy ESPN.com for daily sports news and for playing fantasy sports games.  I also play fantasy sports challenges at Yahoo Sports with many of the people I've met over the years on the Scout.com website.  I have had some problems with my computer for the last year or so which makes it so that I can't access my Itunes account any longer.  Now I often rely on audiolizer as a place to go to and listen to music on line.

I spend an insanely criminal amount of time at baseball-reference.com as my twin brother and I think up various statistics games, something we've been doing since early childhood, even before computers.  We used to use baseball cards to play our games and the computer was a godsend to us, making it much easier to access baseball statistics for free.  Our games are often not completed, but we still enjoy them.  Clifford does not own a computer so he has to go to the library or use baseball reference books to play the games.  They generally take months to play, which requires a lot of patience and is also why we don't always complete them before we begin a new one.

About five or six years ago I went out a lot more on my downtime either to hang out with friends or to party at a club.  These days I am much more of a homebody but on occasion I will go out to a bar with a few friends.  It's usually to celebrate something special though when I go out now, i.e. someone's birthday or work promotion.

I actually don't watch very much t.v..  When I do it tends to be sports or the Food Network.  I like the reality cooking games.  Chopped, Beat Bobby Flay, Iron Chef America and Cut Throat Kitchen are my favourites.  If I'm not watching Food Network or sports then I'm most likely watching one of those Real Life Murder Mystery shows or some nature/science show on the Public Broadcast Station.

I am a very streaky reader as I've mentioned before.  There are months where almost none of my down time is spent reading and months where a good portion of my down time is spent reading.  I love reading outdoors and with my Kindle I don't have to worry about wind blowing the pages (which annoys the heck out of me) on a nice Summer Day.  I tend to read a lot more often in Summer and Autumn than I do in Winter and Spring.  In the Spring time I have bad allergies and am not out doors as often as I am in the Summer or Autumn when I'm not effected so much by allergies.

When I wish to mix things up I will go on a hike in one of the many local parks and sometimes if I feel especially adventurous I might venture to a near by State or National park.  I feel like I should learn more about different animals and birds so I can better identify the animals and birds I stumble across on those hikes.  Playing sports is also something I used to spend a ton of down time doing but now I only do to change things up a bit.  When I get the opportunity I enjoy shooting hoops, playing a little baseball or going for a walk/run.

Most of the time I work one day of the weekend and do not often have two days off consecutively. When I do get two days in a row off I try to visit my mom, Robert and his wife Shirley who all live an hour and a  half's drive West of me in Upstate New York.  Actually as I write this I am visiting mom for her birthday.  Which happens to be today ( May 29th) *shouts* HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!  I know this post is on the 31st of May --- blogger's scheduled posts feature is a blessing!

When I visit Mom we like to play Scrabble, get a tour of her flower gardens and either go to a movie or out to dinner.  Mom will actually be visiting with me near Albany in a couple of weeks.

So as you can see, I do have quite a bit of down time which when I don't have to clean the house or do laundry or dishes allows me a lot of freedom of movement.  I know the topic specifies "favourite" ways to spend down time, but to do anything that I consider fun or relaxing is my favourite thing to do at the time, which is why I included as much stuff as I did.  Most of them are typical things and none of them require any special skill set.  Perhaps as I get older I'll find a hobby that sets me apart and makes me more interesting like Alligator Wrestling, Sky Diving or Baking.  =)