Childish things…
I finished reading Ninjalicious’ “Access All Areas” over my holiday. It describes the hobby of Urban Exploration (UE). UE is exploring parts of a city that aren’t normally available to the public such as abandoned buildings and sewers. But this includes active building sites and employee only areas of buildings too.
It’s an interesting read but I’m afraid I’m not going to be taking the hobby up. The risks are too (be it an accident or getting caught). However it makes great reference about how to infiltrate these kind of places, how to deal with guards and employees etc. It’s great info for writing and gaming and it’ll sit there beside my copy of “A Guide to Committing Murder” and “Worst Case Scenarios”. There is a lot about the ethics of UE (Urban Exploration), which are also quite insightful.
There are few things in the book that made me start thinking. Many people say “oh yea, I used to that as a kid,” but they wouldn’t think of doing it as adult. Certainly as a kid myself, friends and I explored the mysterious sewers under the castle in Malahide park. Also, if you’re caught in while doing UE, teenagers will be more likely dismissed as being “bored teenagers” but adults will be looked on as very suspicious. We have such a strange view of being adults.
As a sport, something I would love to get into is Parkour (or Urban Freejumping I think it’s called in the states) you know “Jump London” and “Jump Britain” stuff. When I take Alice (my daughter) down to the playground, I see older kids trying to do things that the Parkour guys have turned into an art. But I can’t get over my inhibitions to play around with it and there isn’t any real group in Dublin. It’s another one of those things that you do as a kid but not as adult.
But, there is something I did as a kid (or at least as a teenager) that I do now: Gaming and Roleplaying. I’m on the verge of the big 30, yet I’m still playing and running games, even writing and thinking about them. I won’t be able to make a career out of it but I don’t see any reason to stop, unless it’s because of a lack of people to play games with.