Any hobby that you totally failed at?

For me, so far, it is juggling. I have tried several times over the years. I’m a drummer. Once a really good drummer. I have no issue with timing or hand coordination. What I do have issues with is depth perception. Always have. Could never play any position but catcher because I had problems telling where the ball is or where it would land. I’m thinking that might be my issue with juggling. I’m a running juggler always having to chase after the balls.

Any hobby that you failed at?

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Trick kiting by far, I’ve done it for years but can’t get beyond maybe a fade, some half-axles and some other very simple tricks, it’s by far the hardest thing for me to learn.
high-level freestyle looks something like this

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Painting. I want so badly to make nice paintings then I try and I have to burn the unholy machinations before their malfeasance can spread amongst the masses. Also finer woodworking but I lack the right tools.

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I’m a firm believer that anyone can make good art, you just have to find your strengths and inspiration while not getting too hung up on technical skill. Don’t get discouraged!

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Fishing - have yet to catch anything larger than my lure, have lost several lures. But they say a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work. Something will eventually hit, still lots ahead of me to learn and a whole rest of the year and different temperatures to play with. And when nothing bites, you break out the yoyo :slight_smile:

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yoyoing

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I’ve always had this dream about constructing an Egyptian Pyramid.

I didn’t want to do it the old fashioned way…

But my plan is a total disaster.

I want to start the Pyramid with the Top rock.

But I have yet to figure out how to suspend the pointy top rock so I can start stacking the rocks below🙀

50+ years and can’t get it going.

Also for years I looked at being a part time Doctor as a hobby. But I don’t have the patience for 10 years of Medical School. So I decided to fast track by doing a 1 year Online course from M.Y.O.W.N. institute. I signed up for the Coroner degree. I figured that way I could technically ‘be’ a Doctor. But being a Coroner is way cool because you can’t technically kill anybody because the patients are already dead.

Sadly, the class has no reading material. They rely on providing a series of useful images to create a storyline. So, so far the only thing I have learned in the last 12 months is that dead people are usually seen in the lying position and seldom move much.

Those are my fails, so far.

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this was really
cool… the breaks were fitting

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Unfortunately I can not sit down with you to show you that you are capable of creating nice paintings. I’ve taught people to draw and paint before but most of the time it was just me bringing out what was already inside them.

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Oh I wish. Maybe one day it’ll click but not at the moment. I can draw well. I’m well trained as a graphic designer. It’s just the paint itself drives me crazy! I’ll have to just sit and force myself to learn.

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What kind of paint have you tried using and what were you painting on?

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Same.

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When I was 6, back in 1965, my parents signed me up for painting lessons. The lady gave group lessons in the basement of our small town courthouse. She was an excellent artist, but a horrible teacher. My first day she gave me two brushes, a pallet of paint, put a close up picture of a blue jay sitting in a tree in front of me, and expected me to paint it without any instruction. “Just draw it” I remember her saying. It was a horrible experience that turned me against painting. When I talk to friends that also took lessons they all have the same story. You would paint a little, and she would come over and “fix it” by doing most of the painting her self.

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Harmonica…

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Yeah, I have met a lot of people who were turned off of art by their school art teacher. Whenever I teach people I have them look at the thing they want to draw or paint as just a series of shapes and once you get the basic shapes lightly sketched in details can be added and the pencil lines can start being darker.

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Me too! I never failed though. I had no patience to follow a book. I watched some tutorials and picked things up but had no interest in learning newb things like She’ll Be Comin Round the Mountain. I listened to a lot of blues from the 40s and 50s and then just made up bits and pieces of my own songs. Then I got into yoyos. I can still remember how to play the original stuff I made up.

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Basically anything artistic, music, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography. I do play a mean stereo and I can create in the woodshop though. Go figure!

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painting… but not like artistic painting, interior wall painting. i am a complete mortal disaster.

in college i lived in a massive 2-floor 3-bedroom old farmhouse conversion apartment. i owed a couple-few months rent and the landlord said i could pay back rent if i painted the apartment - the entire thing - just whitewash it (it’s a college place). he’d supply everything - tarps, paint, brushes, rollers - just DON’T get paint on the hardwood floors - even the baseboards were fine because it was a white wash - just not the floors. i also didn’t have to worry about the bathrooms or kitchen.

so i started at the top floor and worked my way down… it was the end of the year, school
was out so i had an empty apartment. the top floor and onto the stairs was mostly rug, so the tarp would overall stay in place…

i had music BLARING all hours of the day to get this done, 8-10 hours at a time, wiping up paint off the carpet as i went. while painting the stairs i had this massive tarp draped top to bottom, i’d have the bucket and brush or roller and tray a couple steps up so
i could get the walls or insanely tall ceilings.

in one (two) of my ‘ultimate genius’ moves i stepped onto the tarp too close to the bucket on the step above, pulling said tarp taught, and flipped the (nearly full gallon) bucket of paint on me, and all over the tarp (did this with a tray too). this will make a pair of pants, a shoe, and a tarp heavy (and messy). fortunately i was supplied other tarps, and i did have other pants to continue along with the job.

after FINALLY completing the staircase, i worked on the lower floor hall, and the owner came to check on me and the progress (he was a rather prominent attorney in the city, nice guy though). he was looking around and i hear “duuuuuude, i thought i said no paint on the hardwood!!” i went and looked and the paint had made little splatters when i rolled or whatever… no
idea… eff!!! so now i have to clean that. fortunately with the latex paint, i could get it to come
up
easy, BUT, i had to look for it - everywhere i already painted that had hardwood… and anything that may have leaked though the tarp.

i also mention that i’ll probably need more paint, which he was EXTREMELY surprised about. and when i explained to him the story of my ‘stairs incident’, then showed him
the tarp (that he’d been wondering why it had been laying in the front yard), he immediately lamented aloud “well that tarp is ruined!”… i did sheepishly reassure him that everything was contained to the tarp… which, as an attorney… i’m sure he bought.

after assessing the situation, he told me “this is likely going to cost me more than what you owe me in rent…” which didn’t make
me feel any better about my talent, hours of work… or the debt still hanging over my head. he told me to just ‘finish what you’re working on, and don’t get anymore paint on my hardwood’. which fortunately was just the downstairs hallway. but, i still had to figure out where all the other paint on the hardwood was.

i had some friends offer to help throughout, but it was my debt, and i felt i should pay it. however, i did accept some help on the last run of hardwood scrub lol…

i am still a pretty lousy painter, but i’ve improved over the years… but, i’m
not the guy you want to
invite over for beers and to help
you paint… i’ll
just take the beers

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RC airplanes. That hobby cost me a lot of money very quickly. Crashing a plane you spent hundreds on and many hours building makes dinging a yoyo seem like nothing. Then I watched a buddy almost lose a couple fingers to the prop of a pretty big plane, he accidentally hit the throttle on his remote when he bent over to do something to his plane. I was out after that.

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Dude, I’ve been there! I feel ya! I once got some extra hours to paint a few evenings. It was a few rooms in Shawnee, PA in a house called Green Jeans because Mr. Green Jeans from the Captain Kangaroo show lived there a long time ago. I had zero experience painting. I taped and tarped but dripped all over, stepped in the paint tray ( I then had to paint wearing only one sneaker), it was a mess. It took me forever. I’ve watched professional painters…it is a true craft and ART the way they move and know exactly how much paint to get on a brush and the way they cut in around edges. It kinda fascinates me! It takes years of experience.

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