Accomplishments, Failures & Cheating

You may have noticed in the last post that a number of the items on the list have been crossed off, indicating that they have already been accomplished. You could argue that because I hadn't formulated the list officially prior to accomplishing these things that adding them to the list only to immediately cross them off would count as cheating. You'd probably be right, at least to a certain extent.

It could hardly be argued that I really wanted to see the World Series all that bad. But I scored tickets a couple of years ago and it felt like enough of an accomplishment to list.

As for meeting a former president, I'm pretty sure that would be on the list even if I hadn't accomplished it yet (and I may devote a post to that event later--I'll let the image below serve as a teaser).

Seeing Weird Al in concert is without a doubt something I've always wanted to do, and I accomplished it only a few weeks before finalizing the list. I don't feel bad about that one.

Finally, I've only made one attempt so far that I would consider a failure, and that would be in attempting to design and build a musical instrument. This past quarter, I tried to build what was essentially a combination between a giant music box and wind chimes out of steel. I couldn't get the mechanism to work that would strike the chimes. Fail.

The List Itself

Places to visit

1. Petra
2. Tanzania/Kenya/Zanzibar/Kilimanjaro
3. Glen Echo abandoned art deco amusement park, Maryland
4. Mount Doom (Mount Ngauruhoe at Tongariro National Park in New Zealand)
5. New York
6. Tunisia: The Skywalker Homestead
7. Paris
8. Belgium

Creativity

1.  Sell a piece of art to a stranger
2. Design and build a musical instrument
3. Write a novel
4.  Become a published author
5.  Make a (short) film

Skills

1. Repair an appliance
2. Master one “signature” dish & memorize the recipe
3. Take flying lessons
4. Learn how to sing (at least to the point that it’s no longer embarrassing)
5. Become good at chess
6. Brew something
7.  Learn Krav Maga   
8. Learn to speed read

Experiences

1. Fast for three days, drinking only water
2.  Attempt Beau Jo’s 2-man pizza challenge
3. Walk 20 miles
4. Save something from the dump & fix it up
5. Peg the speedometer
6. See the World Series
7. See Weird Al in concert
8. Complete a cross-country road trip. Visit the remaining states I haven’t been to yet
9. Leave a letter to myself in a library book, look for it 20 years later
10. Milk a cow & drink the milk
11. Eat something that I’ve killed myself
12. Break a sheet of plate glass with a ball peen hammer
13. Give all the money I have on me to a panhandler
14.  Hit 88 MPH in a Delorean
15. Meet a former president
16. Eat the following:

• Brains
• Heart
•  Kidneys
• Liver
• Tongue
• Rocky Mountain Oysters
• A Habañero pepper

Identity

1. Cultivate a reputation

Self-improvement

1. Choose a word or phrase and actively seek to never use it again
2. Take a vow & keep it (silence, celibacy, sobriety, etc.)

Movies:

1. Exhaust the Netflix queue (currently sitting at 170 DVDs and 103 streaming--separate post on this later)
2.  See every film that has won the Oscar for Best Picture
3. Watch all 3 Lord of the Rings movies (Extended Edition) in one sitting
4. Watch all 3 original Star Wars movies in one sitting

The Reasons For This Blog (and what to expect)

I've decided to start this blog primarily as an impetus for productivity. Generally, I tend to waste my free time (particularly over school vacations/breaks). I have, on occasion, promised myself that I'd accomplish any number of things over a break, only to fail simply because my goals were not made explicit--nor was there any accountability involved.

I recently have put together a list (a bucket list, life goals, whatever you want to call it) of things I'd like to accomplish at some point in my life. Over the course of the next few months (or years) I want to use this blog to document my progress in attaining these goals. The plan is to have written documentation, photo, video, etc.

Here are the rules:

1. I will upload shortly my current bucket list. It will not be complete, however, as there are portions of the list that are intended to be kept a secret (i.e. accomplishing something without telling anyone).
2. I may add items to the bucket list, though I cannot remove them once they have been added.
3. Some of these goals require the efforts of more than one person. If you're interested in helping me, let me know.
4. There are no time restrictions for accomplishing goals (e.g. knocking out a certain number of goals per month/year).
5. Feel free to take bets on how long I can last before I stop updating this thing.