Hi There! My name is Tom, and I am a "Onride Stager", guess that's what people call "passion" (WTF is that?!)

Hi there fellow Steemians!

My name is Tom, I am currently 25 and just graduated college, university or whatever you we might call it on an international basis, it's a bachlors degree anyway. :-) And I am just starting off here writing my first online steemblog and exploring this amazing platform. This is all part of a conscious mission that I have to try new things in life, as I believe that life shrinks and expans on the willinges to try new things, and somehow find what you love to produce every single day.

In short, this is life for me;

Step 1: Discovering what your passion is.

Step 2: Realizing it.

This may sound simple, but is actually very difficult for me to comprehend on a practical level as the word "passion" sounds like such an amazing magical thing that you can do every single day without stopping. That would be GREAT if it's out there. That's where step No. 2 kicks- in, the realization part. Since, you can only realize something when you recognize what it is and that is something I still need to define for myself and will probably take a couple of years to find- out. My approach; expose yourself to as many new experiences as possible, stick with those you like and leave the rest.

At the same time, I have no clue that I am doing and where it will lead. All I know is that I don't want a standard 9-5 job (which I tried for a year, gaining a "lite" depression apart from the work experience in the process), so the standaard corperate ladder is not the way I would like to live as long as I don't have to. Especially now that I am still young, I can sleep under the table at my friends place eating crap all- day (ok maybe that's a bit too extreme, but you get the point) to keep my liabilities to a bare minimum and execute on the above.

So, with that being said, I want to share a series of pictures with you guys today and in the coming weeks that covers a rather strange, but insanely fun hobby of mine that is called; "Onride Staging ". As mentioned in the title, I am a true theme park enthusiast (yes I can say with certainty that this is a passion of mine :) ) which basicly means that I like to go to theme parks.

Something that I am not good at, and where school has always (literally, my entire life all the way up to my final thesis report) confirmed that I am terrible at it, is writing. However, at school I always needed to write about sjitty topics, so who knows, combining something that I am really bad at with a passion might result in something decent!

So back to the hobby, "Onride Staging" is something I created myself and I like to call myself an "Onride Stager". What I basically do during these stages (always with friend btw) is stage a scene, doing an everyday thing or something random on a theme park attraction like playing the Mario Kart with your friends on a Nintendo 64;

So how did this almost Themepark obsession start?

It all started fear, deep deep fear when I first got on a Rollercoaster with my dad back when I was five or six years old. I never wanted to do another ride again.

This fear stuck with me for about four years, until peer pressure finally got me to ride a kiddie coaster at Six Flags Holland. Going on this ride did not go very smooth, I was crying, scared to death and really didn't want to go. This all happend when I was actually in the train, and freaked- out after the lap- bars were down. The ride operators probably got scared aswell, as they quickly opened- up the bars again and asked me if I wanted to get- out. YOU BET I WANT TO GET OUT

As I got off the train, shaking, scared while all the other kids were laughing at me. In a moment like that, you really don't care what the people around you say or do, so that did not really bother me.
After a pep- talk from one of the supervisor parents (we were on a field trip), I tried again and this time with the parent next to me holding her hand very tight. And off we went ...

It was probably one of the best things that ever happend to me, as I absolutely LOVED IT. Wow, that feeling of conquering your fears and being fueled with the rush of roller coaster adrenaline. I was hooked. I ended-up riding the coaster 34 times that day.

From that moment on, I wanted to ride the best rollercoasters in the world, and starting point for my love for theme parks.

My theme park timeline - in pictures:

1993 - My very first theme park experience at my homepark in the Efteling! I am the baby on the right, with my mother (blond hair)

1996 - Another day at the Efteling,

1999 - Still scared of Rollercoasters, I would rather ride a Dino with my dad.

2004 - It must have been this year, or maybe 2003 where I conquered the kiddie coaster and was ready to ride this semi- bobsled coaster ride.

2005 - And we're off!

2005 - This was a BIG coaster leap for me, there is nothing like this in Europe! Super intense experience, that I absolutely loved it. Later, I found out that this happens to be the #1 ranked coaster in the world. (Till this day, switching places with Millenium Force at Cedar point from time to time)

2007 - I rode the world's fastest, and tallest rollercoaster - KingDa Ka!

2009 - Continuing with a ride through space
()

2010 - Going to the eastern part of the world

2012 - Another milestone, I actually "trained" my sister to like rollercoasters aswell! She used to be super scared, "no way I am going to ride one of these things"

As you can see, I have quite a few onride photos and these were just a small selection of the total as I had the great idea to buy at least one photo per themepark that I visited.

One day, I saw one post on 9gag of a foto of splash mountian I believe where people where playing chess, I believe it's this one;

And this inspired me to do the same thing, but why not with many different "scenes" on various rides? So much cooler than a standard onride photo!

And that's where my first series of steemit posts will be about; short background story on the scene + the onride photo. As these onride staging pictures like the one at the beginning of this page require quite alot of prepartion with the stuff that we use, and the one moment in the ride that everything has to come together (that's actually what makes it so exciting) there's always a nice background story :)

Thank you very much for your time to read my short story, I can't wait to share more pictures with you guys!