Actually, I watched part of 1998 Nats and the 1998 Olys. I would have continued watching but there was nothing to keep my heightened interest after Lipinski's parade (it was close by at the time, in Sugar Land) so my interest kind of dropped off for the next 4 years. At the 2002 Oly's my interest went up again, but the difference here was that I had my own laptop computer from high school so my interest took me on the internet to look stuff up, and then I discovered the forums. It went from there.
One could argue that it actually might have had the OPPOSITE effect...i.e. actually watching the 2006 Oly's knowing what to expect and who all the skaters were could have taken away from the interest I would have had if I just disappeared after SLC. Or, it could have added to the interest because I could relate to the build-up of the skaters for the Games, and thus followed stuff like the Today show in Italy and Olympic Ice.
In reality, I think it was a little of both and they canceled each other out.
Hey, hey...at 21, 6 years IS a while. However, I'm reaching the point in my life where time is starting to really fly by. I imagine it only gets worse as you get older?
For me, the sense of time flying by most assuredly gets worse. The last 10 years have seemed like nothing, but when I was in my 20's 4-5 years seemed like forever. Once I was (finally) out of school (college, MS, PHD), the time really started to fly.
Everyone's heard "time flies," but despite having heard that saying hundreds of times, when you experience the phenomenon for yourself, it feels profound.
My apologies for the OT rambling. Back to skating!