Another potential first time

What could you try for the first time?

The last time I answered this prompt I talked about skydiving. Well, I still haven’t tried it, but it’s still on my list.

I think this time I’ll throw out rock climbing.

I’m not particularly interested in rock climbing, not the way I am about skydiving (one is, technically, much easier than the other) but I still would like to try it.

I’ve seen plenty of posts on social media of people doing indoor climbing, and I learned that they now have a sort of “treadmill” device where someone can essentially rock climb as much as they want without leaving the safety of five feet off the ground. I think, if I got the chance, I would very much like to try climbing on that device.

What Olympic sports I like

Daily writing prompt
What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most?

My family used to watch the Olympics, both Summer and Winter, a lot when I was younger. As a kid I wasn’t all the interested and it was just kind of something that was on. We would naturally hope that the athletes from the USA would do well, but I never cared much.

As an adult, I still don’t care much, but I have a much deeper understanding and respect for the athletes. The things they do for training, the lifestyles they have to lead, just to be able to perform at the “Olympic” level is fascinating and also a little sad sometimes. So, for the events/sports that I do end up watching, I can appreciate the action better and actually feel somewhat invested. That being said, I don’t typically watch a lot of the Summer games (and there are a LOT of events for the Summer Olympics.) I much more prefer watching the Winter games, especially the ice related ones.

I did a little bit of skateboarding and snowboarding (briefly) as a kid, so I naturally gravitate towards those events for the Olympics, but I’ve grown to enjoy most of the ice-based sports for the Winter games, which means I watch a substantial portion of the events as compared to the Summer games. The Summer games I enjoy, outside of the skateboarding and BMX events (which go hand in hand for me as part of the “extreme sports” grouping I grew up with), are typically the martial arts ones. On occasion I do enjoy seeing the archery and fencing events, but they aren’t top of the list.

A final note on all of this, though, is that despite me saying I enjoy these events I’m not a big sports guy to begin with, so it should go without saying that I don’t follow the teams or individual athletes and have no vested interest in their practice, progress, and success. I just watch whenever I feel like it (when the games are on, of course.)

Loss of interest in a hobby

Daily writing prompt
Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrown or lost interest in over time?

Thankfully the prompt is automatically at the top of the post or else I would feel the need to start with “Nobody panic, I’m not losing interest in a CURRENT hobby.”

Now, to be honest, I don’t have an exact answer because I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things, but yes there are definitely activities I’ve grown out of over the years. As a kid, I used to love riding my bike all over the place, playing with LEGOs for hours, probably some other things that kids typically lose interest in as they get older. Moving the clock forward to college, there used to be more alcohol in my life. More parties with friends. Not anymore, though, because I had a great (negative) role model about alcohol and I came to realize that I didn’t like the way it made me feel. All of those things are activities or hobbies I outgrew or lost interest in, although I really should consider getting a bicycle again and just riding the bike trail that loops around my city.

Funny enough, there is one hobby that I “outgrew” that ended up coming back. Pokémon cards. Unfortunately, when you’re a kid you don’t have a disposable income, so I couldn’t feed that cardboard crack addiction of buying booster packs. I didn’t come back to the game until more than 20 years later when my niece and nephews started to get into it. I don’t actively buy packs for that game these days, so I guess I still sort of outgrew it, however I do collect and play Magic: The Gathering instead so I would say I came back to the hobby eventually. Just in a different way.

It’s interesting how life changes like that.