Hobbies Wednesday - what have you done this week? Can be anything from cooking to tabletop rpg to gardening, scuba diving, etc.

I hit the trails on my bike on Sunday. More recently I did some target shooting

Finally start assemble my ebike conversion kit yesterday and ready to test ride it tonight. Hope nothing falling apart 😬

I upgraded lemmy to the newest version. This was a disaster which brought my whole server and all 15 services I host there down. I spent a lot of time trying to fix it but I only got very high load when Lemmy was on and a lot of timeouts and both Lemmy and the rest didn't work. So I turned off Lemmy.

But because I get most of my news from the threadyverse I couldn't just let it be.

So I installed PieFed instead. It took my only half an hour and there is no load on the server because of it, even though I'm subscribed to the same communities as before.

I just had another idea what the problem could be. I'll ping you in the matrix chat.
Sorry to hear, how do you like Piefed?
- I like it, I even can easily understand the code, I made my own theme variation already, etc. But especially it does not hod resources and stays on a load of around 1 which is amazing.
Oh I also made scones after asking ChatGTP for a recipe with the ingredience I had at home. Somehow they ended up very soft and fluffy.

I made a cheesecake with a Rice Krispies Square crust. Highly recommend, way easier than graham cracker.

Nice, I've never thought of an alternative crust. Sounds good.
Oh my glob that sounds delicious!

I've been developing a short story into a longer novel.

What have you been up to?

That's cool, care to share what your story is about?
- Nah, anytime I talk about a story I stop working on it for weeks, haha.
  
  It's like if I talk about it, my brain files it away as already finished.

I train HEMA Historical European Martial Arts.

We trained yesterday,

It's great fun, Sword fighting with actual techniques rather then just swing sticks at your younger brother

Any spear fighters in that group? I have a soft spot for the better range of the pointy stick
- We don't train spears explicitly in my club beyond the 20 minutes it takes to make someone competent to hit them with the pointy end.
  
  The great thing about spears is they're not technical and in the hands of an absolute beginner they're absolutely lethal against almost any other weapon one on one.
  
  The real challenge to training with a spears is teaching someone to stand their ground, advance on an opponent and hold the initiative.
  
  The downfall of a spears is the moment an opponent is passed the pointy end it becomes near useless.
  
  We use spears as an aid to train aggressiveness and the ability to seize the initiative off of an opponent with greater reach or ability.

Made homemade red onion pickles and cucumber pickles, and a batch of peach iced tea this weekend just gone. Haven't eaten the pickles yet, as I like to let them mature a few days, but the iced tea turned out real lovely. (Shame I didn't take a photo of the onions, because I used distilled vinegar this time around, so they took on a really nice pink colour!)

I was just looking up recipes to can peaches and peach syrup for tea or sangria. This will be my first canning attempt. Hoping to learn a little while i wait for my cucumbers to grow to pickle size.
hell yeah for pickled red onions - such an awesome item to have in your fridge at all times and they make most things better. i forgot about my most recent batch for a few months but that's the beauty of pickling lol, they are still delicious even now. super easy too, i recommend anyone reading this who has never tried before to give it a shot - it takes like 10 minutes and most of that is boiling water/vinegar.

have you ever tried lacto-fermenting vegetables? it scratches the same itch pickling does for me, and it gives the veg a flavor that is hard to get otherwise. i like to do hot peppers mostly, but you can chuck anything in there really.
- Exactly. It's easy to do, and yields fantastic results!
  
  I've never done lacto-fermenting before, might have to give that a go

I recorded a little bit of music, cooked a stuffed onion recipe I've had my eye on for a couple of weeks, and went to have lunch with my dad for an early father's day since we're both busy next weekend. It has been very pleasant

Just up and released my first boardgame live playthrough video for the Dune strategy boardgame. It's in german though. Was a lot of work for but i had fun almost all the way through!

For anyone interested: https://youtu.be/oTyyefQrpt0?si=XTcs25a9vxBE1AF2

Transfered some homemade beer into bottles, and started sewing some outfits for a Renaissance faire.

I've been building a breadboard computer based on Ben eaters. I'm however not using his kit as I live in Europe and the taxes/shipping to get it here was kinda crazy.

Neat! Just learned quite a bit from his videos
- Yes, those videos are awesome! You can really learn quite a bit from them

I finished assembling my new 3d printer, and it's printing parts for an enclosure right now.

finally got myself a set of crochet hooks - i've been wanting to learn for a while but i've also been slacking on my current embroidery project so i'm trying to power through that before i start crocheting

gonna try to make some desk chair arm covers since mine are doing that cool thing where the material breaks and peels and is really uncomfortable

Sadly just worked, and got things thrown at my head. I hate it.

Sorry to hear

I got the base coat of primer color on my sculpture.

How big is it?
- About the size of a winged chihuahua.

I am slowly moving towards making a planetarium of my own. Was able to get the dome done using PVC pipes. I'm figuring out the best way to put a screen that'll be somewhat strong, smooth and good enough to project upon. Biggest hurdle is getting a particular fisheye lens that is suitable for the purpose.

Got back on the slack line!

It's fun, ecellent for balance and overall health, great solo, and a setup runs about $60.

I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a hobby!

What is it?
- Essentially a one inch strap between two trees (or strong posts), tightened in a specific way with caribbeaners, so that it holds tension - and you walk on it! Or sit, jump, bounce, etc. it's like a bouncy tight rope (usually closer to the ground) There's a little hurdle to get over while you develop your stabilizing muscles, but very enjoyable once you can stay on the line! (Which takes just a few hours of practice for most)
  
  I recommend YouTube for the knots/tightening. Everything can be bought at REI or on Amazon ( ~60' 1" tubular webbing + 4 standard climbing Caribbeaners)
  
  If you buy some extra webbing, you can run a 'training wheels' line a few feet above your head and use it to keep yourself on the line until you can manage without.
  
  Start low, and practice looking in front of you rather than at your feet. Good luck!

I built a new commuter bike and only had to go to the bike shop for help 3 times. It has a lot of gravel components so I took it to the smoothest mtb trail near me and I now know that under biking is pretty fun, but also super rough and slow. Gonna throw fenders and racks on tonight hopefully

Been training a bit of my drawing skill, mostly because I've been a volunteer drawing teacher at a public school. Classes are once a week and currently it's only 6 "hand picked" kids ages 8-9. After the mid-year recess, I'll probably take a second class on the morning.

My biggest challenge is trying to make all the abstractions of drawing more interesting and straight to the point, so I really can't sit them down to just draw ellipses and cubes to understand. Last week I tried to get them to draw a plushie giraffe using only simple shapes, it was clear they were aching to just draw the whole thing as they saw it.

Tomorrow, I'm planning some posing exercises with stickmen. The only thing I'll force them to do is ensure all stickmen they draw have clearly defined shoulder and hip lines, afterwards asking them to "finish" the drawings. Hopefully that'll keep them engaged.

I've only given 3 classes thus far, but this has been the thing that I've been most looking forward to since I began. I know that, at the very least, all those kids are now well aware that drawing isn't about talent, it's about training correctly. I should probably try a parallel with the training sports players do, since their training is usually 70% basic exercises, 30% short games