Strummin' Along

They say hobbies are important for your health. They help to reduce stress, clear the mind, and can prevent murderous rampages. I'm making a profession out of my favorite, animation/filmmaking, so that can no longer be considered a hobby for me as it now comes with deadlines and reviews and the occasional need to throw out weeks of work to start over again. It's a lot of fun and that can help keep stress levels below that of say, a surgeon so I could never look at my career with a glass-half-empty point of view. It's something I love to do and even the worst it can get couldn't be as bad as say, estate planning so I won't ever get bored with it. And every new job/assignment is actually new and different from the last.

So I have had to look away from animation for hobbies but then I always had a few of them anyway. I like to play video games, watch movies/tv, read, draw/sketch (different from animate), and take random photographs including stupid self-portraits of me being immature. I've also recently picked up an old one that I started nearly ten years ago, the ukulele. I grew up in a musical family and had a talent for music but I no longer have a trumpet and a tuba would be too heavy and awkward to carry around so I'm strummin' on a ukulele I picked up in Hawaii. So I have permanently cemented my reputation in place and I will never be taken seriously again. I may have out grown Toy's R Us, but that doesn't mean that I'm not still a Toy's R Us kid.

Oh that's right, I've one more hobby. One of my favorites too. Nerf wars.