What was your dream growing up before life kicked you in the nuts/vag?

Alex_sl said:

Is this why you're considering moving to Orange County? It's not too late!

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This was back when I didn't understand the connection between being rich and having a hot model girlfriend

I have a great deal of military tradition in my family. As a teen I really wanted to be a Navy SEAL. I was a pretty good athlete and I always felt like I had a good temperament for that sort of thing. I actually got into the Divefarer program, which later became the SEAL challenge contract or some such. So I was in basic training with a bunch of other wannabe badasses. A series of minor injuries and I end up washing out of the program. I did eventually end up doing some operational things in the Navy but never did get back on track for this. Then some various things happened and ended up with me running a gaming and comic shop!

Soygen_sl said:

If you ever want to play D&D and Pathfinder, isn't the assumption that you'll be playing with fat white dudes?

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LOL!

I always did what I thought I was supposed to do, because I had no real idea what I wanted. My "dream" was to get married, have kids, a happy family and all that jazz. I took turning 30 to realize that none of that was my dream, it was just stupid societal expectations set on me that I happily went along with.

Now I'm finally getting to live part of my dream, though do have all that other stuff along with it. Make the best of it though because even though I know now I should have never had kids, I still love them and will always have that need to make sure they are happy, safe, etc.

Football. I was good enough. My multiple knee and ankle injuries unfortunately did not allow that.
BUT I do computer shit, which was always my second love.


Yay, post 3000 is about my failures.

I had a distant relative that at one point was the Dean of Law at Notre Dame University, so as a kid I grew up wanting to go to Notre Dame and be a lawyer. Actually found some archived NY Times news articles that my distant relative was involved in a scandal and was forced to resign! Anyway, this never happened. Ended up getting real lazy in school, and took the C's get Degree's right around middle school. Then got into MMO's my Freshman year of highschool and spent way too much time in that to make anything of it.

Now, finally at age 33, I'm into networking, and a new guy just started that's 22... makes me think wtf did I do with the last 10 years of my life?! I'm happy to finally have a career path, but damn do I wish I had done so many things different.

This post is depressing.

Noodleface_sl said:

I wanted to be a computer engineer in 10th grade too, my life plan was to work at Nvidia and design video cards

I guess I didn't land way too far off.

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I talked to NVidia a couple of times in college. Perhaps they chose their campus reps poorly, but they came off as douchey pompous cunts. And this was at information session/meet & greet events, not from a bad interview or something. I put no further effort into working there after.

I got an offer from the NSA, but ended up going private sector job instead. I did get the fun interview with the human lie detector who asks about everything you've ever done that you REALLY don't want to discuss with a law enforcement agency employee. Good times.

And as a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. Seeing where the space program ended up, probably best I didn't go that route. Plus getting shot into space on a tube filled with enough fuel to erase a small city is pretty unsettling.

Do you know that phase in your young childhood where you run around pretending you're a dinosaur or a monster, or you know...whatever?

I probably spent a lot longer in that phase, for a long time I was convinced that I was going to find my way out of the boxed in reality. I would come up with what I thought were original ideas, but really just rehashes of cartoons, and fantasy works, and mesh them to what I thought was cool or sounded best, and for a longer time than was probably reasonable, I was convinced I could find a way out, go "Super Sayian" or become a Planeswalker, some type of godlike thing.

At one point I said artist, or cartoonist, graphic artist, video game maker (probably a cop, doctor, fireman, CIA as well at any given point in time) but in a lot of ways I grew out of that on my own, and I don't know if it was ever what I wanted so much as what I liked enough to emulate at the time, because in my mind I always wanted to punch through the wall, crack the fish tank, find the hole in the universe that lead me oiut.

I don't think I ever really grew out of that feeling, I'm not dissatisfied with what I do for a living right now, but if I could use the developer skill set I've learned and am learning, for something more scientific facing or something contributory, that'd be cool.

Part of me would and will always desire to find an understanding that I can pass on, the likes of which most people search for through faith, without getting tied down with the theology. Just some type of bridge/ evidence if not of something after/other than life, something that fills in certain gaps.

I just wanted to write music. And maybe teach. I went through the wannabe a rockstar phase like a lot of young men do, but gave up on that fairly quickly after being in a few bands and having to make the sausage. That part of it wasn't sexy at all. I gave up on teaching as soon as I got into conservatory and saw what that actually WAS.

But the good news is that I do get to write music whenever I want. I think the kick in the nuts is that I also expected people might want to listen to it, or that it would make me money, or that it would be... you know... good. In print that might sound like self-pity. I assure you it is not. I find nothing pitiable in it.

There just comes a point where you have to decide why you do it. And there comes a point where you have to keep doing it and stop bothering people with it.

Brahma_sl said:

I wanted to design MUD dungeons. I have dozens of graph paper designs still in a trunk of useless shit. I also wanted to be the guy that put the stories together for said dungeons.

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I developed several muds when I was a teen. Good times.

Draegan_sl said:

I developed several kids when I was a teen. Good times.

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Hmmmmm

I wanted to be a Dad, like my Dad was to me. Work hard, come to all the games I could, teach the lil monkies how to play ball.

First real serious girlfriend broke me in half emotionally, I spent years trying to recover and went from a 21 year old with his shit together to where I am now almost a male Mist. (Just not as pathetically depressed) Now sure it is my own damn fault for not getting my shit together sooner but after 20+ years of fuckupery I have a nice engrained habit.

I wish I had a time machine.

Draegan, did your phone autocorrect "muds" to "kids"? Hahahah.

Wanted to work in cryptography. Joined the Navy with a school for it, with the plan to use that experience to get me a step at defense contractors or the government after I got my degree. Lost my school in bootcamp for being colorblind, ended up doing maintenance on cranes/winches for 4 years.