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# Hobbies are amazing
- URL: https://connortumbleson.com/2025/07/07/hobbies-are-amazing/
- Published: 2025-07-07T02:30:19.000Z
- Updated: 2025-07-07T12:59:54.000Z
- Description: Hobbies are amazing and they can come and go.
- Author: Connor Tumbleson
- Tags: Personal

![](https://connortumbleson.com/content/images/2025/07/photo-1614524319580-0e187ada2eff-1.jpeg)

Photo by [James Michael Vallado](https://unsplash.com/@jamesval?ref=connortumbleson.com) / [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcampaign=api-credit)

A few months ago Alyson and I took up a new temporary hobby and knocked out 5 different road run 5k's ([Part 1](https://connortumbleson.com/2025/03/31/joining-the-5k-races-in-tampa/) & [Part 2](https://connortumbleson.com/2025/04/21/the-races-rejoined-part-2/)) in a few weeks time. As summer struck the amount of races declined, but we found some cool ones to register in October a few months away. I started thinking that most of my hobbies come and go and don't really often share free time with another hobby. I tend to go all in on a hobby until exhaustion and swap to another and rinse and repeat.

What I mean is a couple months ago any free hobby moment was working on the Cicada 3301 puzzles which led to a [Part 3](https://connortumbleson.com/2024/06/03/the-cicada-3301-mystery-puzzle-3-solve-part-3/) and [Part 4](https://connortumbleson.com/2024/12/23/the-cicada-3301-mystery-puzzle-3-solve-part-4/) blog posts and a build out of a public [GitHub repository](https://github.com/iBotPeaches/cicada%5F3301?ref=connortumbleson.com). I had an urge to work on Cicada research again, but coworkers pulled my focus to a new active treasure hunt that is unsolved (as of this post).

![](https://connortumbleson.com/content/images/2025/07/treasure-inside.jpg)

There's Treasure Inside book

This new treasure hunt required purchasing a book which reminded me of [A Treasure's Trove](https://connortumbleson.com/2019/09/09/the-collapse-of-a-treasure-hunt/), which was the same idea - real treasures hidden in real life with clues in the book. However I ordered this book on April 23 and haven't even read a single page yet which just shows how many other hobbies are competing for this.

If we look purely at nerdy "coding" hobbies I'm presently balancing:

- Apktool - Java reverse engineering tools.
- Cicada 3301 - A repository collecting and documenting the puzzle.
- Leaf - Halo Infinite stat sites that just passed 100 million games logged.
- Ingress - Random tools for my team.
- OpenAI/PHP - Library for using OpenAI in PHP.
- pi-stats - A long-term storage for logging all my DNS traffic project.

Basically a set of random hobby programming projects that my focus takes turns moving between and those are the purely technical coding ones. Leaf for example gets focus when a Halo update comes out and Apktool tends to follow the AOSP release cycle in terms of when I focus it the most.

![](https://connortumbleson.com/content/images/2025/07/random-pipe-at-park.jpg)

A cool pipe I saw at a park.

If we look in the outdoor world those hobbies would expand even further to:

- Kayaking to the little islands around Florida.
- Running to stay in shape and compete in races.
- Exploring trails or parks to see nature.
- Playing Ingress anywhere and everywhere.
- Rollerblading at a place that feels like its stuck in the 90s.

Basically exploring Florida's natural attractions is always a fun hobby unless its blistering hot with no shade. Like building my fold-able kayak to kayak around some mangroves in a shady area is a tough hobby to beat.

![](https://connortumbleson.com/content/images/2025/07/oru-kayak.jpg)

The built kayak before kayaking.

Yet I can ignore all of that and head into mega nerd mode with even more hobbies at home with activities like:

- Busting out the old GameCube to play Zelda Windwaker.
- Playing Halo 2 on the original Xbox with [Insignia](https://connortumbleson.com/2024/03/18/halo2-insignia/).
- Playing anything on the gaming computer like Overwatch, Gears of War or Halo.
- Working on my [Homelab](https://connortumbleson.com/2023/03/27/homelab-software-2023/) or weather station or WiFi defense.

I can share hobby time from a digital world to a physical world with hobbies in both and that is exciting, but honestly not as exciting as date night.