When You Were A Little Kid, What Did You Want To Be When You Grew Up? How'd That Work

[Tycho]

I had many things I wanted to be. Here's the list and progress report:

A Fighter Pilot - not a prayer. With my medical history, they wouldn't let me in any military service. And it's not like I didn't try - and my father was even an officer in the US Navy. He did arrange my start with private flight instruction and I started learning on a Cesna. I mean to continue and complete my pilot's license.

A Super-Ninja! - I trained in a black belt program for many years and plan to return to it when I'm cleared by my doctor. I did competition fighting, too. I'm not a "super-ninja" (whatever that is) but I learned to defend myself, take someone else down and restrain them, and I trained with multiple weapons and completed a bootcamp - largely to prove to myself that the military which wouldn't take me, underestimated my abilities and insulted me.

A police man - I went to Police Academy. September 11th changed the job description for what I'd planned to do on the force, and now the budget woes in my city have continued to do so.

A rock star! - in July I bought my first real six-string. "Bought it at the 5(hundred)-and dime. Played it 'til my fingers bled. Was the Summer of 2-oh-nine!" That being said, I still can't play one complete song, but I'm coming along on Nickelback covers I've been learning (Saving Me, Animals, Burn It To The Ground). I can also make obscene gestures with my tongue and fingers split into a "v form," just like Gene Simmons!

A Pro Baseball Player - In November, I got my chance to actually take the field and bat with the San Diego Padres in PETCO Park, with my name on the batting lineup posted on the scoreboard and announced throughout the [empty] ballpark. Yeah, it was only practice, but I hit hit [on the ground] out to the centerfield fence! But I've played all my life from starting Little League at the T-ball level when I was 8, through high school, collge (rec sports leauge level, not NCAA) and softball teams since. When I recover from a recent surgery for a hernia, I plan to play next Spring. 2nd base almost always.

An Astronaut - FAIL - I want to go into space, discover new life, and new civilizations, and boldy kill things that man has never killed before. This has not been working out for me. I haven't gotten on any real spaceships lately and my only friends are from THIS planet. However, I think being a diplomat to the aliens would be something I could do as well. It would be exciting talking to a very different civilization / race. It's way too late for me to be able to be in the Air Force and transfer to NASA Command though, and our space shuttles don't have laser cannons or proton torpedoes, phasers or disruptor banks, or even tractor beams. Plus there's no sound in space so they don't emit any cool "Ben Burt style" sound effects. All in all our space program is still disappointing to me. I wished things move along a bit faster.

A Secret Agent - I'd love to become an international assassin, working behind the scenes for the CIA. I should drive a tricked out Lamborghini or Ferrari with hidden rocket launchers and machine guns, which I can also drive by remote control. And I want to meet famous world leaders and have sex with exotic women everywhere - and maybe they'll all look like Eva Mendez or Jessica Alba - but also be secret agents for foreign countries. Then the girls will have divided loyalties and I'll tempt them into defecting to the United States and helping the CIA! I'll also kill people and blow up places and things all in the name of world peace, but I'll do a lot of good and free people and lead revolutions, eventually being popularly installed as the supreme leader of my own little nation! I haven't really made an progress on this one here, but I certainly pursue the exotic women. They actually are secretive, too! For example, it's a secret concerning what I'm doing wrong and why I'm not getting anywhere with them! :crosseyed:

An Outlaw from the Old West - I'd really have wanted to ride with Billy the Kid or Wyatt Earp. If I had, I'd be about 140 years old now Also, I'd be learning that even the most poorly-maintained police car could probably keep up with me on my horse. Since I haven't even begun learning how to build a time machine, I don't think this one is going to happen for me. I could go out into the desert and find someone and shoot them - but there's no one I'd want to kill here. I'm more of the kind of guy who would enjoy a fight, but if he was defending someone. I could go to Afghanistan though...

A bounty hunter - since I brought up the whole bounty hunter thing. Yeah, I could always find my way into Afghanistan or Pakistan, free from any military orders, procure weapons on the black market while I'm there, and go have some fun trying to do what so far both Bush and Obama haven't been able to do. The conspiracy theorist in me suggests this is because they never intended to do it. Bin Laden was a CIA agent, and perhaps he still is. If I caught up with him, I'd attempt a live-capture actually. I'd love to interview him before I made up my mind whether I wanted the reward for his capture as "dead or alive."

There are more things I'd wanted to be. But right now I want to take a break. So what did YOU want to be?

[bigbarada]

Let's see, going back as early as I can remember:

1. Journalist/Reporter - not a broadcast journalist, since I've never liked public speaking, just a writer for a newspaper. I've always been interested in writing, ever since I was very young, and wanted to do that as a career. Currently, I write the occasional article for Matt's two websites and I edit his blog on a weekly basis. So, in a way, I guess you could say that I'm an internet journalist.

2. Novelist - As I got older and more interested in stuff like Star Wars and Star Trek, then I started to think that maybe I could write my own big sci-fi or fantasy story some day. As of right now, I've never had any of my writing published outside of the internet. So this is a big fail for me at this point.

3. Military man - I've wanted to serve in one branch of the military or another as long as I can remember. I think I wanted to be a Marine first, then I watched Top Gun in the theaters and I wanted to be a fighter pilot in the Navy or Air Force. But that was shot down pretty quickly since I wore glasses and you need 20/20 vision. So by high school, I wanted to be a tank driver. I ended up joining the Army as a radio mechanic and did that for over 10 years.

4. Comic Strip Artist - I always loved newspaper strips like Peanuts and Garfield as a kid and I tried making my own cast of cartoon characters several times.

5. Comic Book Artist/Writer - I remember being in Junior High School when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic first came out and I was in 9th grade when the cartoon premiered. So that, along with Fish Police, was a big influence in getting me to try drawing my own anthropomorphic cartoon characters. My main character was a mutated platypus named Rommel Platt (this was before I learned the meaning of the word "originality"). However, by my senior year in high school and my first tour in the Army, I had gravitated more towards the mainstream comic book heroes like Spider-Men, X-Men, etc. and it was about 1993 that I created my Stump character (who I originally designed for an art contest that Erik Larson was running in Savage Dragon #2 - I just liked the character too much to send him in). I got about five comic book pages for Stump done over ten years later, but it's never really progressed much farther than that:
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So, this one is probably a fail as well.

6. Anything involving computers. I liked computers so much as a kid that I would build my own toy computers out of shoeboxes. I've always been interested in anything technical and today most of my income is from doing work on the computer. So I guess this one is a win.

7. Scientist - In 4th grade, I wanted to be a botanist (and I actually knew what the word "botanist" meant). Then it was a marine-biologist, then just a regular biologist, then at some point an astronomer. By high school, I wanted to work in robotics. Once I joined the Army, any dreams of being a scientist pretty much got forgotten.

8. Policeman - I considered it as a kid and again when I got out of the Army, but it's not something I think about a lot now.

9. Veterinarian - In many ways, I get along with animals better than I do with people. The only reason I gave up on this idea was the thought of how much college was going to cost.

10. Computer-Aided Draftsmen - I took a drafting class in 9th grade and seriously considered this job for a few months. Then I actually designed a house and realized, "this is boring."

11. Missionary - my dad was a Baptist preacher, but I never wanted to do that (that same fear of public speaking). So I thought that missionary work might be something good to get into. I've actually gone on a few mission trips with my church to an orphanage in Mexico; but that's about it.

[LusiferSam]

Astronomer: I've always been interested in the stars. As a little I learned as many of the constellations as I could and knew most of the legends behind them. I learned about the planets and about their moons. By 2nd grade I knew about astronomy than my teachers. It wasn't until college that I had a teacher that knew more than I did.

Currently that dream is still alive and well. The final out come is still undecided. I do X-Ray astronomy rather than the optical astronomy I thought about as a kid. As that's major difference. Also in high school and as an under grad I shied away from black holes, as it's sexy, popular topic. Yet here I'm am working on them.

Other interests as a real little kid I remember were; Superhero, Astronaut, Paleontologist and Story teller. Superhero was a no go, no super powers. Astronaut was hurt be the fact I get motion sick real easy. Paleontologist was quick replaced by astronomer. And story teller is just an odd job to begin with.

[JimJamBonds]

I wanted to take over the third base duties from Paul Molitor (when he retired of course) for the Milwaukee Brewers. I played baseball until I was 15, in high school I instead ran track in the spring (lettered all four years). I did however end my career like Ted Williams did. In my final at bat I hit a 3 run homer.

[Mad Slanted Powers]

As a kid in the 70's, I really liked football and thought I'd be a star QB in the NFL. By the 80's, I began to think maybe I'd prefer to be a linebacker instead since I didn't think I had that great of an arm, and would rather be dishing out the punishment. However, I never played any organized football. By the time I got to junior high, I had decided I wanted to run instead of play football.

Once I started to get good in running track and cross country, I then had aspirations to be Olympic and World Champion in distance events, perhaps even the marathon. I did pretty well for my classification in high school, and got to compete in NAIA nationals in college, but was far from being tops in the nation, let alone the world. I seem to run less and less every year after college.

As far as a more traditional career, I never really thought about it as a kid. Like LusiferSam, I did have some fascination with astronomy, but didn't really pursue it much beyond some stargazing.

In 9th grade, we took an aptitude test that was to help determine what careers we might be suited for. That was the first time I seriously thought about what I wanted to do. At that point, I thought that I would become a high school math teacher, just like my cross country coach. I figured I might take over for him when he retired. However, I never went into the education program in college, and instead considered following the path of my college roommate and become a community college math instructor. So, I went to grad school, but realized I wasn't cut out for teaching when I had to teach as graduate teaching assistant.

So, I guess what I want to be when I grow up is retired. Won't have to punch a clock anymore or work for anyone but myself. I can travel, spend time on my hobbies, and do things to stay fit.

[LTBasker]

1. Police Officer - A gun, a badge, a (usually) cool uniform, a sweet car, and most importantly, AUTHORITAH; who wouldn't want to be one? This was never much of a serious desire, though, as I knew I wouldn't want to deal with the really annoying people. Of course, it seems like a pretty lax job around here, on an average late night you can find the street cops gathered inside Whataburger.

2. Air Force (Fighter) Pilot - Due to being from a family in which all, or the majority, of members have had glasses since childhood, my decent vision was quite the oddity, Fascinated with this, and encouraged from that viewpoint (pardon the pun) whenever I brought it up, I was highly interested in being a fighter pilot for a long time. Especially after developing favoritism to planes such as the F-117 Stealth "Fighter," and the simplistically beautiful A-10 Warthog. This was never much of a realistic dream, though, due to the fact that I still have yet to be on a plane - and my fear of doing such a thing grows every few years. Plus, with the Air Force having the most rigorous basic training, I figure I would probably die quite quickly if I tried.

3. Professional Baseball Player - I had no interest in baseball for most of the first years of my life, and I have NO idea why I was signed up for teeball, but I do know that I was quickly enamored with the sport. I played little league each year after that, until we were almost out of peewee. Throughout the years of baseball, I was pretty much with the same group of kids even though half the team, and the head-coach was constantly changing. The assistant coach, however, was there every year and kept most of the kids grouped together.

The first year of peewee I was assigned to a different team, but they were pretty much a group of bullies and I nearly quit then, but my mom made a call to that coach and I was accepted to my previous group at the last minute. We took 3rd Place in our region. The following year it was supposed to be the same team (with a new name), and I was told that despite try-outs being held, I was already guaranteed a slot on the team. However, at the second practice/try-outs, the coach decided to cut me. He couldn't even tell me himself, instead, he relayed it through my mom, but I wasn't given any reason as to why. I joined a different team through another school friend which was actually a year ahead of peewee (forget what it was called), but it was a horrible experience. Granted, the people weren't that bad, but the entire ordeal had alienated the game for me and I haven't played since the end of that season. Actually, I may have quit a few games before the end of the season, I don't recall entirely.

I miss it terribly, but I don't think I'll ever play again.

4. Movie Vehicle Designer - In the 3rd grade, a new kid that had an amazing artistic talent befriended me through a mutual fascination with designing weird things. His advanced talent allowed him to design some awesome creatures and characters, while my mere scratches but overactive imagination created awesome vehicles for them. Ever since then I've been in love with the idea of designing vehicles for movies and shows, but have never done anything to hone the skill to a potentially professional level.

5. 3D Graphics Artist - In the eve of this decade I was hooked to Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, and even got into level making and 3do (3D model) making for the game on a site called Massassi. I never actually made a level due to getting easily distracted with coming up with far too many models to use in a level. Eventually I moved on from the game, and from making models for it, but dreamed of getting 3DSMax in order to further hone my 3D graphics skills. This never came to light, and I've tried to respark my interest with free 3D modelling programs such as Wings, Blender and Google SketchUp, but with frustrations of tutorials not going right, I can't keep myself focused on it. They've been catching digital dust on my harddrive for 1-3 years now, depending on the program.

6. Toy Designer- With my avid toy collecting habits, and becoming increasingly analytical towards them in the last half decade, I've tossed around the idea of pursuing that for a career. I think I have a ton of great ideas of them, especially Star Wars-wise, but I doubt anything will ever come of it. Although, I've noticed a couple of my ideas that I've publicly posted be very close to a couple things to come out recently. >_>

7. Graphics artist - Leaving 3D behind, I though I had a knack for graphic designs and thought about pursuing it. However, when I have actually sought out second opinions on my work, I usually get pretty poor responses. I doubt I'll ever attempt to get to a professional level of graphic design, so it will simply stay in the leisurely realm. Interestingly, my father - who I've never met - is apparently a graphics artist.

8. Writer - This has been the most recent career desire/possibility. My sister, an english major, frequently tells me that my writing is incredibly articulate, unique, and talented - especially given my lack of formal education. I haven't had much positive feedback on my attempts at honing my writing even further aside from her, so I'm still not very sure about it. I do enjoy it, but I don't write often enough to really think it could be made into a career. If I did, though, I think I'd be most interested in writing for a satirical column in a magazine or paper; nothing big-name, but a steady writing job.

I'm also interested in writing comics, TV shows and movies, in which I have several extensive ideas for, but I just can't seem to bring myself in actually attempting to write them out. At times, I've felt as though I could actually write out an entire book, but can't find an inspiring topic. For now, I've been regularly writing reviews for the series "Batman: Brave and the Bold" for the website The World's Finest. I'm also considering making a blog with regularly updated articles, but have been indecisive about it.

That's pretty much it.

[JimJamBonds]

A rock star! - in July I bought my first real six-string. "Bought it at the 5(hundred)-and dime. Played it 'til my fingers bled. Was the Summer of 2-oh-nine!" That being said, I still can't play one complete song, but I'm coming along on Nickelback covers I've been learning (Saving Me, Animals, Burn It To The Ground). I can also make obscene gestures with my tongue and fingers split into a "v form," just like Gene Simmons!

How are you at power chords and giving the metal horns???

[Mad Slanted Powers]

In college, I was kind of wishing I could play an instrument. Being in college in the Pacific Northwest during the whole grunge scene, having friends that formed a band, and going to shows were all good times. I bought a guitar in 1997, but never really learned to play. One of these days maybe I'll take it into the music store and see if they can adjust it. The action on it just didn't seem to be right for me. It got too difficult to make clear notes sometimes.

[Tycho]

How are you at power chords and giving the metal horns???

I need power chords on "Iron Man" (played on the A-String) and "Burn It To The Ground" (played on the D-string) and "Animals" (also played on the D-string).

I really need to stop rebelling against my music teacher and insisting I learn to play this or that song (I really want Papa Roach's "Last Resort" added to my repetoire next). He wants me learning chords, power chords, scales, octaves, and to quickly perfect my tuning since I like those Nickelback songs in dropped-C or dropped-D. And since he's teaching me to play with a band, I need to work with my partner and also quickly help Ashley adjust her guitar since we're both annoying, precocious students for him - choosing hard songs and the like - She makes up for it by cooking treats for him and wearing low-cut blouses. That's totally unfair since I can't possibly compete with that!

I practice throwing out the metal horns whenever I get the opportunity though - like when I'm at church. How's that for my performance?

BigBarada: Inspite of my last statement above, we have some other things in common - and with you too LtBasker:

I've written a book that has won writing contests and is now in it's final editing process. So I definitely DO want to be a published author and I'm working to make that happen sooner than later. I'd also like my books to be turned into movies and I'll work on the sets from casting calls, to music selections and costume designs, to being an on-location consultant. I also have a strong interest and appreciation for the military, and my novels reflect that.

Another interesting thing is I love animals and have rescued my fair share of them - from lost pets to traffic accident victims. In fact, my pets have always been rescued animals now that I come to think about it. And I was the one who rescued them. Huh. I never thought about that until now. But the list includes a snake even, besides 3 cats and a dog.

I also wanted to write Star Wars novels and comics. For the comics, I went so far as to submit to Dark Horse and they actually loved my stuff. I fostered some personal friendships with folks in the business that way, too.

And Basker I submitted to Hasbro the plans for a complete toyline based on Heir To The Empire with not only figures and a suggestion about including the comics, but vehicles like the Skispray Blastboat and Chariot LAV, too.

Glad to see we have a lot of baseball fans here, too!

[Qui-Long Gone]

bigB...nice artwork!


Film Maker: too lazy to move to LA and pursue said career...


Disney Animator: digital video killed the 2D star, and too lazy to move to LA to pursue said career....

One of those jungle boat "adventure" guides at Disneyland/world: kept the dry humor, but too lazy to move to LA...

Actor: meh, went to graduate school to study theatre, so sort of has worked out, but too lazy to move to LA...and Jack Black stole my fame...

Teacher: working on becoming college prof...and Indiana Jones!

Jedi: "these aren't the dreams your looking for"

Comedian: too many inhibitions to pursue said career, but still working on funny bone...

Comic Book artists: could never come up with original idea worth doing...

Preacher: realized God needed preachers not Jedi-comedian-Disney animators....

Famous: at first, too lazy to move to LA...now, too smart to move to LA (no offense to my West Coast forum brothas and sisters!)

Athlete or Godzilla: got over one of those around 2nd grade when I realized my body was not capable of awesomeness and got over the other when I was in high school because I found it cruel to stomp Japan into the ground just because I was nuked!