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Please take a close look at orienteering.

This is a perfect sport for a thinking person, where you start individually, run/jog/walk around in the forest for some time trying to visit a number of control points (marked on the map you got at the start), before ending up at the finish line.

The main point is that you have no spectators at all, you move around at your own speed, and while running you have to concentrate a lot on finding the best possible route to the next control. (In very steep uphills I often find that I need to walk a lot "to check the map". :-)

Since a lot of orienteers are geeks, we have software available to organize events, custom RFID tags used to document each control point as you visit it, and lots of software to do post-competition analysis of your run.

I live in Oslo, Norway where I can take part in 'O' events 3-4 times each week, but in the US (if this is where you live) there are active clubs in all the main geek areas (Bay Area, Seattle, Portland etc).

When I visited Seattle in April I contacted the local club and got electronic copies of three maps in the area that have permanent courses on them.

Good luck!

Terje

This has been tested many times, it seems like 10 years, and/or 10K hours of training, is required to gain mastery at any difficult activity, physical or mental.

I.e. this holds for chess as well as programming, karate, running, rock climbing or orienteering (which is about half & half physical & mental).

Terje

I spend my leisure time on orienteering http://orienteering.org/, which is the perfect thinking person's sport.

Heh - when we did our orienteering badge training for BSA, that's exactly how they phrased it; "the thinking man's sport."

We've yet to find a GPS receiver that reads fast enough to beat a good orienteer with a magnetic compass. . .

Been there, Done that.

Before taking a one-year sabbathical (91-92) which I spent in the US, writing networking code, I had a company that sold terminal emulation/file transfer software. I sold enough licenses to make it one of the top 5 bestselling norwegian programs. During the last year the norwegian IRS grabbed 83% of every Krone I invoiced my customers.

At that point I realized that I'd much rather work less and spend more time with my wife & kids, so I closed the company.

I still write/optimize code, but always because I enjoy it, not to make money. (Sometimes I do get paid as well (in addition to my regular salary), but that's not the important part.)

Re. "know this (crypto) technology": I want to know a lot more than just crypto, and the job I have, which is a sort of IT Fire Brigade Chief, means that I get to work on all sorts of interesting technology, including everything that's new, as well as everything that doesn't perform as well as it has to. The Full Disk Encryption requirements I mentioned in my first post were obvious to me at the time, but not to most of the vendors unfortunately.

I spend my leisure time on orienteering http://orienteering.org/, which is the perfect thinking person's sport.

I'm also the Scandinavian coordinator of the Confluence project http://confluence.org/

Check google for my other interests!

Terje

The perfect sport for a geek is orienteering http://www.us.orienteering.org/. You need to think hard while you exercise and therefore you hardly notice the physical workout. That's a different kind of challenge for mental activity, but the typical geek can usually easily cope.

It sounds like you might like orienteering. Check out www.orienteering.org.

I have done some geocaching, and it was not challenging enough. In orienteering, you have only a map and compass (in a serious competition, having a GPS is grounds for disqualification), and have to run around in the woods and find 6-10 flags. Attached to the flags are punches that you use to punch a card (proof that you were there).

People who are serious about orienteering actually run. But being a typical slashdotter, I can't run that far ;)

It is likely that there is an orienteering club near you. If you are in the US, check out www.us.orienteering.org and click on the "clubs" link on the left.

It is also cheap! A compass is under $10 at Wal-Mart. In central Florida, one event is only $6.00 (including a map). Don't forget a bottle of water! And from personal experience, check yourself for ticks when you are done.

It sounds like you might like orienteering. Check out www.orienteering.org.

I have done some geocaching, and it was not challenging enough. In orienteering, you have only a map and compass (in a serious competition, having a GPS is grounds for disqualification), and have to run around in the woods and find 6-10 flags. Attached to the flags are punches that you use to punch a card (proof that you were there).

People who are serious about orienteering actually run. But being a typical slashdotter, I can't run that far ;)

It is likely that there is an orienteering club near you. If you are in the US, check out www.us.orienteering.org and click on the "clubs" link on the left.

It is also cheap! A compass is under $10 at Wal-Mart. In central Florida, one event is only $6.00 (including a map). Don't forget a bottle of water! And from personal experience, check yourself for ticks when you are done.