I need a hobby for fall and winter, something that prevents me from sitting in front of a television or computer screen for six months…something that results in things that persist and are fun to make. Now, I’m not the kind of guy to take up painting and while there are a ton of cool exercise-related toys, I’ve already got all of those that I need and it doesn’t answer the ‘creativity’ issue. I want to do something creative…not something that is only an excuse to buy more crap.
I went looking for hobbies that are easy to do indoors, would give me a creative outlet and that don’t cost thousands of dollars to pursue. I also wanted to find something that wouldn’t require me to take a ton of classes or that involve dangerous machinery. Thus, no chainsaw ice sculpting, no deepwater sub-zero scuba diving, no Public Square base jumping, no Cuyahoga Valley National Park heliskiing, and so on…
I went a’googling and found the Maker Shed, a joint out in California that has all kinds of awesome geek-out project kits, books and components.
I was really tempted by a book called “Make: Eccentric Cubicle” but decided that a cubicle-sized guillotine wasn’t a great professional message to send to my co-workers. Instead, I picked a book, “Make: Electronics” from the list of books they publish. I received it yesterday and I’m very impressed by it. I suspect there will be a few updates this winter that show silly things I make…like a device that flashes an LED on and off. But really, my main goal after reading the book is to have a refreshed understanding of basic electronics, letting met get a more interesting kit to put together this winter.
Both the Maker Shed and SparkFun have some really cool kits or components that would allow for making wearable electronics that use conductive fabric, create devices that are WiFi enabled so that they can update Twitter or Facebook or whatever, or make other in-house devices that can sense a person entering the room (better than the Clapper!) and so on.
I’m not sure what I’m ultimately going to do, but I’m going to find something that is easy, requires a minimum amount of unbroken time to complete and, when done, is somewhat durable (so no spidery tangles of wires and such).
Exciting! 
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