[archagon]

I don't know if it's the same as you, but whenever I consider doing some "activity", I immediately fast-forward through it in my mind and think, "OK, so it'll be fun for, like, an hour. Then what?" More than anything, deep down, I feel like I crave the unknown and the unfamiliar; but as I grow older and learn more about the world, the things in my proximity that still have this property have all but disappeared.

For this reason, I've found what I desire in my life — as a fellow "spectator" — is to drastically change my surroundings instead of focusing on specific (and ultimately inconsequential) things to do. Not, "I want to ride a jet ski", but "I want to live on an island", or "I want to take a ship across the ocean". Right now, I've been traveling around Europe for most of a year, and even though I've still been largely living the shut-in life, I appreciate having seen so many new cities, tasted so many new foods, bumbled my way through so many new languages, and gained so much life experience.

The only problem is that you can't really develop a circle of friends when you're moving from place to place every few weeks. I've been thinking that maybe if I could find a nice, tech-minded "shut-in" community in a warm location, I could live like that for a few years. Do some gardening. Raise some chickens. Maybe visit the closest city every few weeks, if I feel like it. I think that would be a pretty good life.

But I guess that's the hardest part: finding that little locus of the unknown in the first place.

[kaitai]

I have found over the last few years that making things -- preferably making beautiful & functional things -- is what makes me happy, more than just "specific (and ultimately inconsequential) things to do".

[archagon]

What sorts of things do you make? My "curse" is that as a programmer, all the beautiful and functional things I know how to make require me to sit in front of a glowing screen all day!

Maybe I should take up woodworking or something.

[kaitai]

Food :) (everyone loves that!) Beer (great way to meet people -- everyone wants to swap beer). Textiles, beadwork, crappy art. I really am thinking of woodworking -- I would like to make a really nice chair. Or a salad bowl.

[archagon]

Actually, I've been really interested in getting into beer! How easy is it to get started? How long did it take you to get good results?

[toddkaufmann]

Beer is very easy. So is wine--actually easier. Lots of people have made them over the past 5000+ years, so how hard can it be?

I had helped a friend a bit with some beer, but it wasn't until a few years later I tried on my own. I started with wine, initially with a book from author of _The Joy of Home Winemaking_ [1]. Apple, blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, elderberry, and also grapes (piesporter, carmenere, barolo, grenache, viognier, etc.). Cabernet / chardonnay are boring choices for boring people; there are so many other choices available.

Good results right away. More extreme experiments, perhaps questionable results, but learned a lot in all of them.

For beer, can't go wrong with _The Complete Joy of Homebrewing_ [2].

I went to my public library and got a dozen books on each subject before going to the bookstore. Besides the techniques and recipes, there tend to be a lot of history and related books on those shelves, so definitely check your library and return for more.

It can seem like a lot of details, but it's not that hard. Easier with a friend. Even easier, you can go to a brew-on-premises place (with a friend). There's probably a homebrew group near you, maybe a meetup; go to your local brewing supply store and check it out--they're knowledgeable and usually pretty friendly too. Relax! have a homebrew.

And don't forget cider, mead, metheglin, cyser, perry, etc.

[1] http://www.joyofwine.net/ [2] http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Homebrewing-Fourth-Editio...

[kaitai]

My first batch of beer was good. One nice way to start is to buy a kit -- all the ingredients and the recipe come nicely packaged. A friend got my husband a beer-brewing kit for cheap a few years ago; it had two big 6+-gallon plastic buckets, the appropriate glassware & plastic piping, a hydrometer, etc. That and a big big pot for boiling water and preparing your wort are all you need. (I figured I needed to contribute to the family beer vault and we have slightly different tastes, so I made a great summer saison for my first beer.)

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/beer-equipment-st... looks like the kit.

Experience: first batch always great. 2nd or 3rd or 4th goes bad because you get overconfident, fail to sanitize something, and something nasty grows. You realize sanitizing is important and have success thereon.