Circumstance, really. Some things just stuck with me.

Went for a walk. Liked it. Walks got longer and longer while the equipment got better and better. Ended up with trekking.

“Hey, this card game looks pretty cool. Can you explain me the rules of it?” The bane of my wallet, Magic the Gathering, entered my life.

After oven pizza #2947294 “This tastes like shit. What am I doing to myself?” Learned to love cooking.

Knitting: My mom gave me a knitting book when I was little and I just kind of never stopped. I knit/craft on and off now.

Video Games: I guess I was just raised around them. My mom and grandma had a Nintendo, and my grandma had a Sega Genesis (she really like sonic). They were just always there in some capacity.

Birdwatching: I bought a bird feeder to give my cat some “cat TV” and now I’m just heavily invested in them for some reason. Merlin Bird ID is my pokedex ❤️

I have a flower garden because I like taking pictures of flowers and bees and butterflies and shit.

I have a camera because I wanted to have original photos of textures and objects to practice CV and photogrammetry techniques on. (I still haven’t really done that much of this, lol.)

I think the CS stuff generally was from a Stanford course on YouTube?

I didn’t wanna be fat in university so I started BJJ. Then I didn’t wanna be weak in BJJ so I started lifting weights. Then I wanted to make weight so I started eating better.

Kind of a slippery slope to health 🤷‍♂️.

“How is that made?” I now bake my own bread, jerky, pickles, jam, brew beer, 3d print, etc

By trying a lot of other shit I found out I wasn’t wasn’t into

I existed in the vicinity of computers.

TTRPGs: first system playing in college, I’ve been playing and running games for various groups over the last ~13 years.

Video games: played so much Donkey Kong Country with my dad as a little kid. Never truly stopped ever since.

3d modeling/animation: It’s my job, and I use it for personal reasons.

Cooking: Learned along side cooking with my parents and watching food network before it was overrun with competition cooking.

I was at a lull in my life and needed a passion when my girlfriend’s brother gifted her scuba diving lessons for her birthday as he was instructor. Scuba always looked cool so I signed myself up and eventually saved up enough to buy my own equipment. It eventually dawns on me that the oceans are quite a ways from Ohio. Now the price of traveling is a factor so camping is a way to keep the costs down. This soon leads to me taking up backpacking. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than scuba. Diving is incredible but you spend a lot of dough to be underwater for an hour or less. While backpacking you are immersed 24/7 and it’s practically free once you have the gear. In fact I could argue I save money because I’d spend money at home just keeping occupied. Gas money to Pennsylvania is the biggest expense. Fast forward 25 years and carrying a pack is getting harder. By this time I’ve run into a lot of fly anglers along the trail and knew when it came time to hang up my pack I’d give fly fishing a try. Trout seem to live in the prettiest places and the sport attracts the nicest people.

So that’s how I became a fly fisherman. A long rambling point that I hope comes across to others seeking a passion is to just try something that looks fun. There’s no reason you can’t drop it if it’s not for you. Doing things exposes you to other things. The important thing is to not do anything

My hobby is music, and I found it by being exposed to it at an early age. We had a record player at home and lots of musical instruments. My older siblings had piano lessons and taught me when they got home. They also bought cassette albums every now and then until we had a pretty large collection, then it became CDs.

Liked someone who did the hobby and wanted to get closer to them

My grandma being an artist.

Guitar: as a kid I just thought it’d be awesome to shred. Now I mostly play acoustic fingerstyle, but shred some. Interest has ebbed and flowed over the years, but been playing forever.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: I wanted a challenge and to get good at something new. It’s hard, but I like it and just keep coming back. Been doing it for a couple years and am a blue belt.

Hiking: did it as a kid, now I do it with my wife who pushes me to hike more than I would otherwise which is good

Tech stuff: coding, piracy, stuff like that. Dad was in IT and taught me to look for solutions with tech. Never stopped. I’m not a fantastic coder, but use it for work and also to solve personal challenges, enter piracy.

3d printing: heard about it from a friend and started looking into it. Got hooked.

Laser etching/cutting: next logical step fron 3d peinting. Started researching. Got hooked.

Homebrewing: got hooked on craft beers as opposed to crap big brews. It’s expensive as hell so I started researching. Got hooked.

Moral of the story: careful what you research. You may get hooked.