What's up with cjd?

As you all know, I've been a lazy bum recently. I'm always putting stuff off and making excuses as to why contest ratings are taking extra time. Well, now it's time for the truth. My time is not the real issue.

Back when I joined the site, I was crazy passionate about coasters. But gradually over the last two years, I have simply been losing interest. Now it has come to the point where doing coaster-related work is a chore rather than fun, and I simply don't enjoy it anymore. As I re-examined my priorities over the summer, I realized that there were other things that I am now finding more important.

So, this is basically a semi- goodbye letter coming from the me that everyone knows. Unless I find enjoyment in it again, I will no longer be starting any more coaster projects, building in NL, and my work on contests will be limited to 2 per year, in the least busy periods of my work/school schedule. I finally found myself, and the me that I found was not the same coaster fanatic.

My main projects will now be writing my novel, playing poker, and working on the creative design portions of engineering. If one of those creative designs involves coasters, I'll make it and post it, but until then I'm pretty much done.

I'll still be around chatting on the forums, doing a contest or two, and posting other stuff that I find, but the enthusiastic and confident coaster designer is gone. Sorry for doing nothing but making excuses, but this is the real reason why I am always putting my promises on this site off. Sorry that this true explaination is so late in coming. When I started realizing that I was losing interest, I didn't want to admit it since coasters used to be the thing that got me out of bed every morning. But no longer. I have real things to hold onto now, like faith, relationships, and finding my life's purpose, and they have dwarfed coasters as being the significant things in my life.

[hyyyper]

It's a little beyond my understanding, loosing interest in coasters, but i feel you man, if you're not into it, you will only be making it yourself worse, and making us wait longer. I hope you guys (admins and mods) can find someone to host the 'official' contests, cos they are without hestitation, the most fun to do, altough a little less challenging then they used to.

Good luck in your coasterless life, and may you return to the path of enlightnment ASAP

[/sentimental]

I'll still be riding them and thinking up ideas for them, just not physically building or rating them anywhere near as much as I used to... I wouldn't call my life "Coasterless" just yet.

we'll miss you man and we all feel for ya. Thanks for you contribution here at WWS/CC. I hope you still find a light in what coasters have to offer.

No more contests, you'll only delay us half a year. Maybe someone else can organise them who has a deeper interest in coasters than you do. Good luck with the poker and the rest of your life.

[coolbeans326]

No more contests, you'll only delay us half a year.

Ha ha. I think that comes off more disrespectful then it does funny. And while CJ has been slow with the contests, I think should at least be grateful that he does them. I know I don't really want to spend the time doing contests all the time. Occassionally would be fine, but to do the knock out contest like CJ does, I'd call it quits after the first round. I'm just saying I think CJ does deserve more respect then what you give him.

So who will organize all the contests?

[hyyyper]

i will, if the high bosses give me permission to host 'official contests'

[coolbeans326]

^ heh heh, not even in your dreams, sport.[;)]

and i will help hyyyper in the contests. we need the contests for site morral and bonding.

sorry to hear it cjd you were one of the best NL designers arround. we will all miss you coasters.

Hey CJ -- ya know man, eventually you have to decide which is more important to YOU and go with it. No worries man, hopefully we'll still see you around and of course, a contest or two now and then never hurts either.

[Brtnboarder495]

I think a requirement to host a contest would be "able to type in properly in English", none of this "i amz t3h l33t" stuff. It gives the site a bad name and makes it look unprofessional if we have mods creating contests like that.

And the more important requirement would be maturity ...

I have partially lost interest in coasters as well, I've been busy lately and wasn't even able to go to ONE theme park this summer, mainly because I can't drive and my dad dislikes them. I'm guessing that may change next summer but for the time being and seeing as this is an important year in my life I may not be around frequently, at least until Thanksgiving.

Good luck to you, and it is good that you realize there are more important things going on in your life at this time than coasters and forums [:)]

thats really what it comes down to for all of us when you think about it. the real obsession with coasters comes when you can turn it into a job, which has gotten me back into making coasters (just yesterday I found out that Intamin's hq in the US is extremely close to where I live... internship? definately).

glad to hear you've come to reality with yourself and that you've decided to stay at least a little active.

jcf1, gazag, just to clarify... I'm not quitting the site, just reducing my involvement.

My interests tend to come and go as time goes on in cycles. I expect that there will still be some time in the future when I get a sudden burst of inspiration and start building on impulse. That is the new me... I'm an idea guy. From now on, any of the coasters that I do start on will be completely based on showcasing new ideas that I have come up with. But right now I am out of ideas and I can't devote enough energy to finishing the unfinished coasters that I was working on last year. Here's my list of projects, and the final verdict on each one.

"Star Wars": Cancelled. It was a nice idea, but the project was just too big. I don't have the time to finish it, and the initial burst of inspiration has been replaced by endless boring hours in front of a computer screen.

"The Rockler 2": On hold until further notice. Of all the coasters currently unfinished, this was my favorite. This will be first on my priority list if I ever find the spark again.

"Lava Blast": On the chopping block, but not quite dead yet. I really wanted to finish this coaster, but I hit a brick wall after the third element. There is a new element I wanted to put in, but I just didn't have the building skills to do it. Looking at this huge obstacle as well as all the 3ds that has to be done makes me think that this one is probably not going to get finished.

Other "Adrenaline Land" coasters: All cancelled except for the big terrain woodie. These coasters would just take too much uninspired work for me to reasonably finish. The big wood coaster might still get built eventually if I can think up more new elements for it.

"Hyper X": alive. This is the ONLY coaster I have found while scanning through the list of projects that I still have active interest in, simply because it fits my new criteria for designing perfectly. It is all based off of an original idea. Once I have been away from the NL world for a while, and have some time to see if I want to continue building at all, this is likely the first that I will work on.


So, there is still hope. I don't know if this loss of interest is temporary or permanent, but I do feel a great deal of regret that most of my best ideas never got posted. It is a shame, so I really hope that one day I will be able to find joy in NL again. Until then, CJD is just a moderator, not a coaster designer.

And I did say that I was still going to do contests... just that I would have to limit them to the least busy times of the year so that I can devote an appropriate amount of energy to them. Scheduling the NL tournament right in the middle of the spring semester, then finals, then work at CP, was completely stupid on my part, and I won't make that same mistake again.

Jeez, this is way to dramatic. Hold back your tears all you pansies...

*To CJ* Thanks for the past contests.

i have lost interest in building them, too, but i will always love a good ride on a coaster but nl just isn't doing it for me anymore, but at least the forums keep me somewhat in tune with things

that one coaster with the floor glitch, though, that was a great one. thanks for good rides

Originally posted by SFMM homie

Jeez, this is way to dramatic. Hold back your tears all you pansies...

*To CJ* Thanks for the past contests.

hey man, it can be hard realizing you don't actually love something you've liked for so long.

CJd, I think we all get burned out with NL and coasters in general. I gotten seriously burnt out on it on several occasions. Enjoy this break of yours.

Real life rocks!

Yeah I'm doing a lot of different stuff too, and kinda switch between being interested in them. There were periods when I almost completely lost my interest in coasters / wws - maybe its the same with you cjd. Time will tell.

I haven't really left coasters, I've just been idle but I will admit that I haven't touched a vertex all summer. Neon Niter, a project started back around 2003 (before 1.5 was out) is still about 40-60% done. (depends how much 3ds models I want to add to it) I guess I get way too ambitious and then can't get the snowball rolling.

Well, I have done some soul searching and here is my official word. Once the ratings for the match-up contest are done, and the awards given out, I am taking an official break from NoLimits. No vertexes, no contests from me, and none of the grueling deadlines that sucked the fun of the game right out of me. I will see if inspiration comes, and if it does I will come back a better member. If not, I will post all of my unfinished coasters and declare myself finished with NoLimits.

The basic point of this break is to determine if the cause of my interest loss is personal or if it is completely related to pressing deadlines on myself. If I come back to NL, I expect to no longer hold deadlines on designs and ratings, rather doing them as I may and posting progress updates to give everyone a reference point. Thinking about this idea makes me feel much better already, so the chance of my return is pretty good. I expect that this is temporary, and I will probably only be taking a leave of a few months at the most. So, once I buckle down and finish my last gritty time-pressing contest assignment, I will officialy be on sabatical. I'll still post and be around, but no more designs and contests until I'm ready again.

CJD's sabatical begins: Monday, September 18
ends: eventually