Those with younger siblings / kids /pupils

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mr.Slow
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Now see my wife has no problem with me hitting the track and lord knows it costs enough to do that. It's the whole gaming thing. She figures I'm too old for it and I'm inclined to agree. I may need to halve the time behind the wheel of the Miata in exchange for a console and wheel setup. :lol:
 
My little brother has no interest in racing games or formula 1! :( he prefers mine craft and skylanders. I've always played racing games mostly nfs until it got terrible. I've barely driven a real car, 16 yo, but I feel I can get good peripheral senses playing in the cockpit cam. I recently got a g27 and tried a few times using the clutch but it slows me down having to use the right foot to accelerate and brake, but I do feel it will help in the real world...
 
I can't get my little brother or little sister to race me in GT, my brother is 5 and gets far too angry at losing anything to stand playing a video game, my sister would rather play Re-Volt with me on my Dreamcast, fair deal.
 
I have friends who aren't car guys. The few times they came over my house, we played GT a few times (they're mostly FPS guys). They will always some how spin out on the straights. I mean.... :odd:
I tried teaching 'em how to drive, but it never works.

Also I had my parents race me a few times. The few times they raced with me, my Mom was always better than my Dad. Which is weird, because of all the stereotypes. :lol:
 
I have been teaching my 5 yr old daughter to play, she has a Cappuccino and Prius (both in pink) and we drive HSR mainly. She can't reach the pedals so she steers while I sit next to her working the pedals. Its actually pretty fun, and I feel like a driving assist as braking helps correct her understeer/oversteer so she can stay on track. She got much better after only a few days/sessions.
 
To the guys who wanted to be fighter pilots why not do what I did and retrain as an airline pilot?!! I bailed out of a moderately successful IT career (lower management in 2002 making £45000) and went off to a 15 month full time pilot training course at the ripe old age of 34. Qualified and initially went back to IT as a contractor for over a year before I got offered a job with a leading UK regional airline. Financially and emotionally painful thing to do because I had a 2 year old daughter, wife and nice house in Surrey and the IT contracting was paying over £100k gross and I had to leave the family and go to Glasgow on a starting salary of £23000!! I had friends who said I was insane but I was loving flying and will never forget what a buzz it was to be lined up in a £20m turboprop at the end of the runway and pushing the throttles forward to the stops to start my first take-off roll.

I've been with the same company since 2007 and in the past year moved on to the superb Embraer jet. I'm now earning a bit more than I did in 2002 but with no allowance for inflation or the fact that obviously my mortgage is higher than it was because I dumped my course fees on the mortgage. I can honestly say that there hasn't been a single day of the last 7 years when I wished that I was back in the old IT office (and I worked for one of the world's top blue chip companies with great pension and perks). The truth is that I used to go in and sit in that office day after day and feel my life was rotting away in front of mindless emails and project plans. Now I sip coffee at 37000 feet looking through a 180 degree panoramic window watching the sun rise over London or the Alps. No way would I go back - I still love it!! I do miss the fact I had loads of spare cash in my IT days though for holidays and eating out etc but we do OK and my wife works and pulls in a reasonable wage.

Anyway sorry for digressing so much but what I really wanted to say is that it's never too late to reinvent yourself and do what you want to do. I used to fly with a guy who was a TV repairman for 23 years, got his first airline job at 43 and is now a senior training Captain!! If I could give some advice to the younger kids too it's not to play safe - shoot for your dreams while you're young and don't do an accountancy degree because you are thinking of the money. Do what your heart tells you to do whether that's being a fighter pilot, a ballerina, a photographer or an artist. You get one life and 40 years is a long time to be stuck in an office wishing you were in a cockpit...

As for my Daughter just turned 9 - she loves driving the Land Rover Evoque on some of the snow courses and can place first in arcade mode in races so she's pretty good on easy level using my wheel.

Sorry for the long post - now get your Ray-bans on guys!!

Birdseed007
 
Good for you. 👍 I'd also adore each and every moment of watching sky from the sky.

It's probably nothing wrong to say 'go for your life', etc, but for many things in our lives, gone is gone. Some good things are just not equally available/possible for everyone in the world. (picking one between a high pay boring job and a spiritual but practically sustainable job could be one of the 'good things', I suppose)

Harsh reality is, I'm well over the age for gambling and can't afford any significant loss in changing career. Being sick of this man-eat-man world, my next goal is to be a humble farmer, living mostly with plants. Not an easy task to raise a family by that, mind you. I can't do that until my son is on his own.
 
My 5 year old is a straight up gamer. Has close to 100% in both Lego Games (DC2 98% and Marvel 99%.) All on his own, if you know the games then you will know how impressive that is. I can brag for my son haha!!

He is now in the middle of the Lego Movie game and is in kindergarden. Of course he has to "earn" his playing time. But he always loves to race with me on GT6. We usually run the High Speed Ring as I try to "suggest" lower PP cars although he is always drawn to the exotics.

But the little guy is fast! I dont get it, speaking of dreams I better not let him ever watch Grandma's Boy! Or its gonna be "Adios Terd Nuggets!"
 
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One thing I find annoying with my younger brother is that he really likes crashing instead of actual racing.... He likes to be the instigator. Cuts the final chicane at Spa on the last lap, starts driving backwards, etc... Recently he's resorted to COD, and doesn't play GT as much but he's still a good driver. As I am a very clean driver my self, people online probably think I'm an adult. Which I'm not :p Its fun being a teenager and then going online and racing better than most adults... Something is amusing about it :lol:
 
Sick Lenny
I have been teaching my 5 yr old daughter to play, she has a Cappuccino and Prius (both in pink) and we drive HSR mainly. She can't reach the pedals so she steers while I sit next to her working the pedals. Its actually pretty fun, and I feel like a driving assist as braking helps correct her understeer/oversteer so she can stay on track. She got much better after only a few days/sessions.
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I use the playstation box and put the pedals on top of it. That way my 5 yo can reach them.
 
My little bro refuses to race on any track other than ssr7 and any car that maxes out lower than 400km/h.
 
My daughter (who is 7) likes to take the karts out and drive around. The kart and suit have to be matching in pink before she touches the track. Like me, she refuses to use the ds3.

She can stick to the race line pretty well. Absolutely refuses to use the brakes going into a turn but she does let off the gas before she gets to the apex and then eases back onto the accelerator.

She does a couple of practice laps before shes ready to go out and take on the ai. Highest she finished was 3rd. Good enough to make me proud and just sit back and watch. :)
 
Lawndart
Get as much school as you can! I've build some of the best games every... And after 20 years and a recognized industry leader? I still get crap for not having a collage degree... What? Yep... My first game, a game that later became a #1 world wide seller (when Kaz was still making cartoon games btw)... at 19... That was my collage! Nope... 'Equivalent exp' caps at director level... You need the degrees.

All that crap they fill your head about 'making it big'? Its BS... You need to keep doing it over and over... Had I stayed in school I could transition industries by choice... Not so much without that stupid paper...

Get as much education as you can!!! And don't let money be a deciding factor, money comes and goes your whole life...

Whoa! Yes! I've done my good deed for the day ;) wow, totally off topic...
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You are absolutely right regarding the Director cap and industry shift. I've been a web developer since 1994. 20 years. I have been at the director level for a while and see no chance of going higher unless I join a small startup or do my own startup. Also I'm pretty much locked into the large media site space more or less. I could go do web development anywhere else but the money is better in Media.
 
Nico_Ble99
Ok, I'm a boy myself (14 years old) and I can say this about me:
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Hey, I just wanted to say you got great written english for being 14 years old considering you're not from a english native speaking country. :)
 
simpleskin
You are absolutely right regarding the Director cap and industry shift. I've been a web developer since 1994. 20 years. I have been at the director level for a while and see no chance of going higher unless I join a small startup or do my own startup. Also I'm pretty much locked into the large media site space more or less. I could go do web development anywhere else but the money is better in Media.
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I'm 2 weeks from deciding to retire from games (its a bit impossible as I have contracts... But a shift in focus) and move back to Austin and open a race shop... I'll just rent my racecars and do an 'arrive and drive' business.

It's only relevant to this topic to prove a point... Change is the only certainty... Be sure you can adapt.
 
My youngest brother, Sean, laughs his head off when he pit manuevers me at every corner.

Luckily, he's not as fast as me, so I can still catch up, just so he can do it again :lol:.
 
My avatar is from my six year old driving the M4 as a dune buggy at Willow Springs. "Laps? Don't care, I want to have fun!" Sadly, PD removed this, so now he's playing Minecraft again.
 
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gambleboyen
My avatar is from my six year old driving the M4 as a dune buggy at Willow Springs. "Laps? Don't care, I want to have fun!" Sadly, PD removed this, so now he's playing Minecraft again.
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Twins, almost 4 years old. I work the pedals, they do the steering. My daughter is really good but she gets bored quickly and starts crashing intentionaly. My son is distracted by everything - scenery, gauges, other cars. But sometimes he does put together a clean lap.
Later this year I'll adjust the gaming rig so they can reach the pedals.
 
I've had three birthday parties that had little people ranging from 11 - 15 yrs old, during which I booted up a version of GT (3, 4, 5) and let the kids have a go with the wheel and pedals.
It's amazing how they all take to it.

"My turn next! Me now!"

From taking a Lupo around the Ring to beating up a Miata around Tsukuba, it's several hours of fun and yelling and jeering, and screaming . . . and of course high-fives, too.

A wheel and pedal set-up that can take their somewhat smaller frames can help, though some of the older kids do well with a controller, too.

Eventually after they all drift away (or are dragged away by the Birthday boy) there will be one or two kids left driving who won't budge . . . the real petrol-heads. :lol:
 
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