20 Years Later

Mike Dwyer

Mike Dwyer is a former writer and contributor at Ordinary Times.

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3 Responses

  1. Damon says:

    Hmm Passions?

    Travel (particularlly foreign)
    Hiking
    Photography
    Food. I love cooking, entertaining, playing with recipies, and comparing notes with other people, and of course, eating. I’m sorta a foodie but in the unpretentious ways.

    I’ve been fortunate to be able to combine several of the above topics together at times.Report

    • Reformed Republican in reply to Damon says:

      This has gotten me to consider my own passions.

      I really enjoy travel, but the past few years (bad marriage) made it impossible, and left my finances in bad shape. In the next year or two, I think I will be in a much better position to get out more and hopefully make my son a part of it.

      Guitar is one. I have been playing about a year and a half, and making steady progress. I am nowhere near wear I want to be, but I keep moving forward. There is not much time at home where my hands are otherwise unoccupied that they are not playing. I think I will end up getting lessons before too long, to really push me forward. I would like to get to the point where I am writing my own songs.

      Actually, music in general is a passion of mine. It is rare that I do not have music in the background of whatever I am doing. When I was younger, I used to compose with sequencing software on my computer and my Roland JV-1080. It is something I would like to get back to.

      Boardgaming is something I enjoy. I have not been able to do it as much as I would like lately. Most of my group seems to have gotten too busy for us to get together regularly. The fellowship with friends is as big a part of it as the games themselves.

      There are some other things that I would like to do, but dedicating time to additional hobbies takes time away from the ones I currently do. I have some story ideas I would like to get written down. I also came up with an idea for a board game that I would like to pursue. Maybe in the future I will change gears to make them happen.Report

  2. Cascadian says:

    My two passions are my daughter and the mountains. I started skiing when I was five. I can still remember the misery of waiting all summer for the snows to come again. In college I grew tired of skiing and the stinted experiences of the ski resort. I started climbing. First it was a little crag outside of Aspen, then some of the Fourteeners until I was ready to head to Mecca…. Yosemite. For ten years, I spent May and October living in Yosemite making El Cap my home, climbing increasingly difficult and committing routes up that austere piece of stone. Eventually, I set my sights on the Himalaya and the technical mountains, particularly the Trango Tower.

    At the same time I was supposed to go to the Trango, my partner decided it was time to have children. I was quite ambivalent about being a father. We had an agreement that Kids mum was ok being a single parent and that I was free to continue my wanderings in the hills. I continued with my preparations.

    The first time I saw Kid, my life was turned upside down. It felt like dropping ten hits of acid. I went completely crazy. All climbing stopped immediately and it was about two years before I’d let the Kid out of my sight. We moved away from the mountains to Seattle (that counts as away from the mountains to me) where we could be close to zoos, museums, and other kid oriented activities.

    The Kid really is a mini-me. She started skiing when she was two. By the time she seven she was ready to play in the mountains for real with me. When she was eight she finished most of the double blacks at Whistler and developed an interest in racing. Now we spend a hundred plus days shredding the slopes. She’s still too young to take back country but we’re looking forward to the day that she’s able to manage a shovel and an avi beacon and I can head back to the real hills.

    The mountains are my home. I breath easier here. My thoughts are more relaxed and less panicked. It’s been wonderful to move back into the mountains, able to look out from my window and see the surrounding peaks, to have trails and hikes steps from my front door. I’ll never go back.Report