Ask HN: What's your favourite hobby and how did it start?

Hmmm. Hard to say exactly which is my favorite: in some cases it's hard to even tease apart what is "just" a hobby and what is a hobby that I'm interested in for other reasons.

But no matter how you slice it, two of my top hobbies are definitely fishing (mostly freshwater fishing, mostly for bass) and bike riding (mostly MTB, some road, some BMX). Both are hobbies I took up when I was very young and have been with me for basically my entire life.

There are "tech" things that could also be considered hobbies, like messing around with discrete electronics, working with Arduino's and other microcontroller platforms, goofing around with Raspberry Pi, etc. But to some extent I have interest in those things simply for their own sake, but also for a career / financial / commercial sake. That is, I have ideas about building things to sell, or at least to learn things that will advance my ability to build other things to sell, etc. So "hobby" I guess, but not "pure hobby" if that makes sense.

How did these things start?

Well...

Fishing - my dad took me fishing as a kid. Both freshwater and saltwater. The bug didn't necessarily "bite" right away, but by the time I was around 11 or 12 I fell into a habit of going fishing a lot with an older friend from school who lived down the road from me, and I just slowly got more and more into it. I had a few pauses or gaps here and there where I didn't fish much, but the pull was always there even when I left other things take precedence and keep me away from the water. I got back into fishing really often in 2019 and have fished relatively regularly since.

Bike Riding - my parents bought me a bike when I was pretty young. 8? 9? I don't really remember. I didn't like it and never rode at all really. A few years later I met a friend who was into BMX riding (same friend from the fishing story, BTW) and begged my parents for a BMX bike. They didn't want to buy me one at first since I never rode the earlier bike, but somehow, by hook or by crook, I managed to convince them to buy me one. I started doing dirt jumps and some flatland freestyle stuff and was hooked. Riding Mountain Bikes came years later when I was in my late 20's or early 30's. A few years after that I bought a road, nominally for "cross training" to support my MTB hobby. But over the last couple of years I've started to see roading biking as something I do for its own sake as well.

Electronics - I was just always into taking stuff apart and tinkering with innards from a young age. Electronics and electricity always fascinated me. I found a good "basic electronics" book in the library at my high-school when I got to that age, and started actually studying some of the theory. For quite a while I thought I would major in electrical engineering in college... different factors led me to major in computer science instead, but I always kept that interest in electronics.

I got into birding earlier this year. I went birding, usually early in the morning, every day for one hundred and sixteen days in a row.

http://bjornwestergard.com/log/2023-04-05-birding.gmi

Pigeon keeping, well, I use to keep them as a kid. Found an injured wood pigeon, broken wing, an old woman next door had a few lofts at her farm that use to belong to her husband - I was allowed to keep it there and managed to splint the wing, after it healed I let it back into the wild. An avid pigeon racer who use to visit her noticed my interest and gave me my first racing pigeons. I started racing them, earned some okay results for a kid my age. Switched to my focus to fancy pigeons later on, mainly tumbler breeds. I stopped keeping them when I moved out of my parents house. Missed them ever since as they brought me a kind of peace. I loved having them around me.

I recently bought a house with a nice garden and I’m in the process of starting again. Fancy pigeons, 2 specific breeds. Planning the loft build as we speak.

Besides that, I love woodworking - which I learned from the same pigeon guy who owned a woodworking company.

Learning Ableton opened me up to a whole world of meeting new people and picking up new skills.

https://www.ableton.com/en/live/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iuRsiKtObw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxY0x1i3XhY

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9oiyAGA6zOTSPR5-ttojODT4...

Getting some teenage engineering pocket operators is also something I'd strongly recommend. They're affordable and fun! Check out this 8 year old building a tune with them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhFIUdICYSA

Building furniture out of wood. I enjoy it a ton, even the boring stuff like sanding isn’t too bad. Sure beats staring at a screen all day (I’m a Software Engineer but left to my own I will be on the computer ALL day).

I find it creative, beautiful, practical, and an opportunity to be outside