9024_1101155700571_1577061085_1881725_2298651_n.jpgBeen southpawing it all my life. The hardest intrument for me is the 5 string, working aroud the drone string on the neck it tough. Started playing when I was 7. So 44 years I have learned to take a few shortcuts. lol.
Awanita from the wild patato clan of the Tsalagi/Cherokee. "When the time comes, know how to only be seen when wanted to be seen".
Awesome. I've only been playing a bit over 3 years.Originally Posted by Awanita
Why do I live in Alaska? Because I can.
Alaska, the Madness! Bloggity Stories of the North Country
"Building Codes, Alaskans don't need no stinking Building Codes." Sourdough
Yes, I have wifi in my outhouse!
We're the only ones in our right mind!
Hobbies....gardening, cooking, baking, hiking, camping...well, actually, I'd rather go to the cottage than tent, but the cottage is pretty rustic, so I feel like that still counts. I occasionally carve wood or soapstone, more often I knit, since I can do that anywhere, wheras pulling out my opinel and a piece of wood anywhere that isn't my garage, backyard or basement tends to upset people, either because oh g-d the big guy has a knife, or because now there are woodshavings in the carpet again. I keep an aquarium, I write the occasional haiku, I play the pennywhistle. I read a whole bunch, I like gaming. oh, and I collect tea figurines. They make me happy.
(This is another thing I have to "explain" because usually people don't know what I really mean when I just say "board games".)
One of mine is board games from ancient civilizations/extinct or other cultures. Learning about them, making them, and playing them...
Not cards or dominos. Not monopoly or trivial pursuit or hungry hippos or any stuff like that. But abstract strategy, and from other past civilizations etc.
It's interesting as heck to me to learn the very different kinds of games in this category, to learn how to play them as they can be very different from each other. And some of the geopolitical or cultural history surrounding a game. Just like there are communities which research and collect paintings and sculptures, there are communities like this for ancient game sets. For example, we all know of King Tut's tomb and the kinds of things found in there, but what you don't hear as much about is the game Senet - Game of Thirty Squares - which is a "journey to the afterlife" -
http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/...Ancient/Senet/
You might say that you get in touch with a civilization or culture to some extent by knowing their art, or things like their arrowheads...I feel that knowing the board games they played does something along these lines. It also just feels interesting to be playing a board game that a culture played a few hundred or thousand years ago, and is unique to that people. (I also love playing a physical board game in person with other people, instead of on a computer or online, as a real social activity.)
But the other half of what I love here is the act of making/recreating a game (and then playing it with someone). My artistic/creative drive is such that I like making a set very artistically interesting, one of a kind handcrafted, with different materials - wood, tile, glass, stone, pottery, painting and woodburning, etc. Things like this lend themselves to artistic creativity...imagine how many different styles of chess sets there are. But handcrafting a set artistically is a main definitive here for what I like about all this.
And, yes, along the way I've inevitably "invented" some games of my own which are pretty cool.
Just in the "chess group" alone there is Siamese chess, Burmese chess, Byzantine chess, Chinese and Japanese chess, Courier chess, etc. And I could tell you where chess "really came from" (it's not a story of singular invention, but instead an evolution over a long time). From the knowledge that I've gained, I'd run into situations where I'd see an old board for something somewhere being used for something else, ask about it, and find out that it's been in their family for such-and-such time and they thought it came from their certain part of the world, when really it migrated there from somewhere else further back in time. I've been to a dozen different kinds of public and college libraries, and my "bible" ended up being this, the most comprehensive and accurate work done on the subject, drawing from the likes of the writings of Marco Polo for example, two volumes bound in one -
http://store.doverpublications.com/0486238555.html
Examples of these kinds of games:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancala
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanorona
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agon_(game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Men%27s_Morris
Of course, I also like anything created by modern-era folks such as myself that is abstract strategy and has a simple eloquence about it - simple and quick to learn, but deceptively...in that once you play it, you find it more involving that you might've thought it to be. An example of something that is NOT this way is tic-tac-toe. The opposite of that.
And Jenga is pretty awesome too - the original, and played by observing all of the actual rules. The number of levels that me and a group of friends once would occasionally reach was in the high 40's. One particular game that I'll always brag about is when it was so high that it never stopped wobbling between turns practically from the movement of the Earth itself - on my turn I had no moves, so I grabbed a lone middle block somewhere and jerked it out in just-such-a-way, the top portion fell into place, and the tower didn't fall. I won a bet on that day. And won the game.
And then there's Golf, the pinnacle of billiards games in my opinion. But now I'm getting into physical dexterity games and getting off my topic...
Last edited by WalkingTree; 06-26-2016 at 01:27 PM.
The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
The realist adjusts the sails.
- William Arthur Ward
Abstract strategy??
That sounds like a lot of work to me.
If you didn't bring jerky what did I just eat?
Heck, just like checkers. Surely you even like checkers...at least a little bit?
Lots to choose from though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draughts
Is good for the brain though, which is also good for the body. Something like Chess, for example...which is different than any ole game in this respect...can even improve your immune system, dexterity, eyesight. Believe it or not. It does things to the brain, and the brain has a hand in everything else having to do with your physical body. And even your general mood and approach to daily life.
And know how "they say" that things like word search and crosswords and trivia and scrabble help the elderly keep a strong mind? Not quite true. But Chess...really does that. What's really required to do this is always be challenged with something new, to learn, and have to think in different ways. As a singular activity for this, and quasi-unique among board games, Chess does this. As long as you're not just going through the motions and occasionally play a challenging opponent.
Consider how calories are important in a wilderness survival situation. Well, your brain uses, and requires, more calories than all other organs or systems in the rest of your body. A significant percentage of the food that you eat is allocated to the brain exclusively. And you better have your head screwed on straight when trying to do things in a wilderness survival situation.
https://www.chess.com/blog/PRINCESTE...-playing-chess
https://www.chess.com/article/view/c...ical-wellbeing
https://www.chess.com/blog/PRINCESTE...garding-health
http://saintlouischessclub.org/blog/...ns-young-heart
Last edited by WalkingTree; 06-26-2016 at 02:06 PM.
The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
The realist adjusts the sails.
- William Arthur Ward
The only odd game I've ever played was one my parents suggestion. Ball in Street.
(edited and added some things to the above post.)
The pessimist complains about the wind;
The optimist expects it to change;
The realist adjusts the sails.
- William Arthur Ward
I'm also a henna artist and fiddler.
Why do I live in Alaska? Because I can.
Alaska, the Madness! Bloggity Stories of the North Country
"Building Codes, Alaskans don't need no stinking Building Codes." Sourdough
Yes, I have wifi in my outhouse!
This thread was started before I started making knives.................and I still kill things.
I play the bagpipes -[retired from competition in 1993~ish], family events like shooting sports, hunting/camping, hiking...I also do leather working and other odd homemade projects. Wanna get into blacksmithing things like knives and small swords when I retire [but that means I have 9-13 years to get to that point LOL].
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government."
~~Declaration of Independence
My thought exactly ?
Amateur radio/electronics, leather working, knife making, building blackpowder rifles and accessories, sleeping, reading, cooking, eating, did I mention sleeping ?
Don't wait...DO IT NOW...or you never will.....just sayin'
Geezer Squad....Charter Member #1
Evoking the 50 year old rule...
First 50 years...worried about the small stuff...second 50 years....Not so much
Member Wahoo Killer knives club....#27
lol you have no idea how much I want to......but my age @ 25 years [pension rules] I fall short in the age department. To meet the requirements, that puts me in the 9-13 year-to-go bracket...meaning I'll be on the department for 34 years total.
suuuuuuuuuuuxxxxxx........
LOL.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government."
~~Declaration of Independence
I think he meant blacksmithing.
Rick, You are correct....
I meant any activity you want to do......
You hear it so many times....When I retire I want to take up:.....
Blacksmithing
Gardening
Golf
Fishing
Hiking
Travel.....(This was something my parents wanted to do....MF passed away at 65 and MM had to travel alone or w/friends....all the while saying after every trip.....I wish your father could have been there.
Or whatever....
I get retiring....retired 3 time my self...(or sorta did)....everyone has their own ways of getting by.....
Geezer Squad....Charter Member #1
Evoking the 50 year old rule...
First 50 years...worried about the small stuff...second 50 years....Not so much
Member Wahoo Killer knives club....#27
Yeah, I'm living that. So are others.
That why I say.......Do it now.....
The other thing is....Do or try what you want, now ....many things seem like the thing to do...but you will find that you really don't want to "take up something" just because other are doing it or looks cool....
Point is,..... Don't wait to find out you don't look good in Yoga pants, now....what makes you think it will be better when you retire.?
Geezer Squad....Charter Member #1
Evoking the 50 year old rule...
First 50 years...worried about the small stuff...second 50 years....Not so much
Member Wahoo Killer knives club....#27
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