Hobbies?

Camping and hiking (just bought a pretty rugged overland-style trailer)
Reading (a mix of fiction and nonfiction)
I’m a horrible but enthusiastic guitar player
I’m just beginning to get into wood working (haven’t yet purchased a table saw but will do so soon)
I enjoy going to the gym

I've got some odd hobbies!

I am one of the worlds' heirloom tomato experts - am an avid gardener, tomato breeder, seed sharer, saver and collector, author - and educator (lots of gardening workshops and Zooms)

Hiking - here in western NC there is no shortage - my wife and I with our three dogs are often out there in the woods

Kayaking

Music - I think we have music going in our house nearly 24 hours a day - mainly jazz, some alternative rock (esp post rock), classical, ambient

Watching or listening to Red Sox, Bruins, Patriots, Celtics - as well as Duke basketball

Reading, movies, long TV series

Astronomy and weather buff - love seeing what the Webb telescope is finding.

Yes, I am retired (worked for 25 years in Big Pharma, got a PhD in organic chemistry)

My main 4 hobbies are baseball, legos, music, and classic TV.

I actually have a hobby room (for now) where you walk down there and it feels like you're at Fenway Park as the wall are painted Fenway green. The scoreboard reflects the happiest Fenway moment of our lives, the Series clincher in 2013 against the Cardinals. Their are plaques commemorating the 9 championships, and banners and plaques celebrating the 6 Patriots superbowl championships along with various nods to the Celtics, Bruins, Hartford Whalers, and UConn Huskies men's and women's championships. The walls are covered with mostly Sox photos as the stairway leading down is adorned with photos of Sox players and non-Sox and non-Patriots championship teams.

On the shelves are Red Sox and Patriots related items like small model Fenway Parks, but mostly it consists of legos.

I have 8 banquet tables set up with legos containing all the kiddie town lego sets I grew up with in the 1970s and 80s along with the adult oriented modular sets that come out each year since 2007. Not a lot of space left in the room and I love building legos but because of cost and space I limit myself to the one new modular set each year.

I'm an avid baseball car collector, a baseball historian for all 30 teams, collecting almost all eras as I value historic collection for teams over actual card dollar values. I dont buy to sell. My cards are there to tell a story that goes beyond the stats with the focus on winning teams in franchise history although if there is a lot of losing or in between it tells that story too.

I'm branching off into other card collecting as i want to commemorate the six Patriots championships, and want to lightly capture the Celtics and Whalers, Bruins, and have some UConn Huskies cards.

But now I'm also going over to non sports cards capturing my other hobbies.

I love music, from Elvis to Metallica, and I loved the 1967 - 1993 era, am a huge classic/hard rock fan. I grew up in the 80s hair bands era while loving 1970s rock the most. Somewhere along the line I have some soft spots for some soft rock, became a Motown fan, enjoyed some of the disco era and 80s pop, and have become a fan of the blues, particularly modern blues as it feels closer to the spirit of 70s guitar rock than some of the stuff that's more modern.

I also am collecting cards of the TV shows and movies that I loved from the past. And whether there are cards or not i love my 70s and 80s sitcoms and the cop and detective shows from that era and a lot of movies from those eras and have always been a sucker for time travel theme movies.

I have an extensive library but it's mostly Red Sox themes books, mainly historical or biographical along with each Bill James baseball abstract which shaped and confirmed the way I see baseball.

And I even keep scrapbooks of a bunch of newspaoer articles and commemorative magazines dedicated to winning Sox teams and Patriots, Huskies, and Celtics, and have a video collection for anything Red Sox related and the commemorative videos of my other winners, and was pissed off when NESN didnt put out a 2018 commemorative video of the Sox.

I also collect autographs from having gone to numerous baseball themed events. I'm not one who goes to buy and sell autographs. I just enjoy the experience of meeting the player, executive. Etc. My favorite autographs were from Bob Feller who showed me where he served on a naval ship during WWII, an autograph of Roger Clemens from his New Britain Red Sox days, an autograph I didnt even realize I had for several years, and my first ever when a very young Oakland outfielder took the time to write a very gracious and kind inscription to me along with his autograph at the very first game I ever went to at Fenway, a guy named Rickey Henderson.

My dream room has existed thanks to the 2004 Red Sox who made the championship dream room a reality and focused the theme on winning, which was something I dreamt about as a kid but never really experienced. The 1995 UConn lady Huskies started it, followed by the 1999 UConn men's Huskies, and then Brady and Vinatieri gave it legs in Super Bowl 36, but when the 2004 Sox did what they did, the dream was becoming a reality and each succeeding championship of the 20 year golden age made it all the more special.