my bukkit list, let me show u it

[topaz]

keyne and I found this neat meme recently: the 101 goals in 1001 days project.

The Mission: Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria: Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

It's clever: choosing 101 goals requires you to spread yourself around, and giving yourself 1001 days for the lot encourages you to reach a bit.

I think most of the goals I've listed here are realistic.  Some of them, less so.  But what really excites me is that hardly a single thing on the list is filler.  They're all real goals.  Just about everything here is something that I have yearned to do or to have done at some point in my adult life.

In other words, this is not my "boring things that you feel like you have to have done in order not to be a total loser when you die" list.  This is my "okay, sweetcheeks, you've always wanted to do this, so it's time to stop farting around, get like a Nike ad and JUST DO IT" list.

The recent film The Bucket List has led me to think of this as my "bukkit list," only with less Jack Nicholson.  Then I noticed that 1001 days from now brings me within a few weeks of my 40th birthday.  How awesome is that?  This is how awesome it is: TOO AWESOME.  No way can I pass that up.  That's the theme: things I'm going to do before I turn 40.

So here we are: welcome to Project 40.

1. Take a photography class.
2. Work my way through at least one book on photography.
3. Sell or publish a photograph!
4. Write and publish an article.
5. Take the boys to New York City. (1/2)
6. Design and cook a gourmet dinner for eight.
7. Volunteer for a political campaign.
8. Climb a mountain of at least 5,000 feet.
9. Go on a bicycle trip of at least 3 days.
10. Carry on a conversation entirely in ASL.
11. Sell our house. (Sold!)
12. Work through an electronics kit with the boys.
13. Spend a weekend in London.
14. Learn enough Spanish or French to spend a week in Spain or France.
15. Spend a week in Spain or France.
16. Release a non-alpha software package.
17. Brew my own beer and/or wine.
18. Complete a half-Ironman.
19. Cook at least 100 recipes from The New Best Recipe. (10/100)
20. Make aioli from scratch (no cheating with Hellman's). (aioli!)
21. Watch Buffy.
22. Watch Babylon 5.
23. Do 50 pushups in 5 minutes.
24. Do 50 situps in 5 minutes.
25. Return to karate and earn my yellow belt.
26. Go rock climbing on a 5.10 wall, or maybe even a real rock somewhere!
27. Get CPR certified.
28. Moab!
29. Do Burning Man and/or Firefly.
30. Lose 20 pounds. (And keep it lost!)
31. Attend a multi-day film festival. (Sundance, Nantucket, Provincetown, Ebert's Overlooked, etc.)
32. Spend a week in San Francisco.
33. Eat at The French Laundry.
34. Take one or both kids to see Cirque du Soleil.
35. Build a treehouse.
36. Drive a car at more than 100mph.
37. Visit New Orleans for Mardi Gras.
38. Run Bay to Breakers.
39. Learn to play the harmonica.
40. Spend a weekend in Montreal.
41. Learn to juggle 5 balls.  It's only taken 20 years.
42. Live vegetarian for a month.
43. Keep at least three months' salary in a savings account.
44. Pay off all outstanding unsecured debt. (Selling the house helped with this.)
45. Consolidate all home equity debt. (It kinda helped with this, too.)
46. Build up a fixie.
47. Fix up the folding bike.
48. Build or buy or fix up a recumbent.
49. Learn to play another instrument.
50. Go mountain biking.  On a real mountain.
51. Finish a screenplay.
52. Join a CSA for at least a year.
53. Take a ski vacation away from home.
54. Sort out the boys' college education funds.
55. Help to build a walkway down to the deck for the Maine house.
56. Perform at least two home improvement projects, each more than three hours of work.
57. Learn to mend my own clothes.
58. Learn to knit.  Knit a hat.
59. Learn to like brussels sprouts.
60. Convince each of the boys to like at least three new vegetables.
61. Watch all three Lord of the Rings movies back-to-back.
62. Practice my ham license.  Make at least three contacts with hams I've never met before.
63. Books to finish: Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, Orwell's Homage to Catalonia
64. Ride a motorcycle.
65. Learn how to handle a firearm.
66. Make my own bagels.
67. Make a tiramisu, from scratch.  (Including the ladyfingers.  Not including the cheese.)
68. Learn to play slide guitar.
69. Teach the boys to write computer programs.
70. Learn to unicycle.
71. Edit some of my home movie footage together into a watchable short film.
72. Bring at least two families into Mosaic Commons.
73. Play a song with at least one of the boys accompanying me.
74. Watch all of Ebert's "Great Movies." (105/292)
75. Make a really good Halloween costume from scratch.
76. Make my own sushi at home, at least once!
77. Get good enough at Indian cooking to cook curry at home routinely.
78. Get into a weekly role-playing game campaign.
79. Play and finish Doom 3 and Half-Life 2. (Must get a computer powerful enough to play them.) (1/2)
80. Cook a week's worth of meals on the weekends, at least once a month for a year.
81. Write and/or port a decent application for a handheld computer.  (Palm, iPhone, HP48, whatever.)
82. Compile a family history album, suitable for sending copies to relatives as gifts.
83. Organize our papers and files to the point that we know exactly where any piece of paper should go.
84. Go to a friend's show or performance at least twice a year.
85. Participate in a World Naked Bike Ride.
86. Visit 30 geocaches.
87. Take a ride in a hot-air balloon.
88. Make my own éclairs.
89. Make a decision about getting a "continuation tattoo".
90. Watch 100 movies on Netflix.  (This is the amount to watch in three years in order to make it cost-effective.) (67/100)
91. Make yogurt.
92. Submit 100 of Wikipedia's "requested photographs."
93. Have both kids in bed by 8:30 every night for a week.
94. Visit five states I've never been to.
95. See the Northern Lights.
96. Make a treasure hunt for the kids.
97. Make a treasure hunt for a grownup!
98. Start a 401K & maximize (at least) employer's match. (1/2 -- started, not maxed)
99. Read and distribute 20 books via BookCrossing.
100. Build something on instructables.com or MAKE.
101. Compile CD(s) of all the pictures of the boys so far and send to relatives.

Comments

[fraterrisus]

26. Go rock climbing. (Suggestions for how to quantify this?)

There are around a dozen ways to rate climbing routes. The one you'll run into most in the U.S., especially if you go into a gym, is the YDS system. Most gym routes are rated a 5.x because they're vertical routes.

It's been years since I went climbing, but I was doing 5.9s with some difficulty after only a couple of trips to the gym. If I'm judging the rating correctly, "climb a 5.10 route in a gym" is a reasonable stretch goal for someone who's never been climbing before.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Ahh, knowledge! What sweet sweet love. Thanks for the suggestions -- edited the list. :-)

[jss]

Re: 3, 4 — Define "publish." Does "in this blog" count?

> Take the boys to New York City.
"And leave them there to find their own way home"? (Yes, I know, but still....)

Cool thoughts, measurable goals... Good luck!

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Define "publish." Does "in this blog" count?

Heh. No. :-)

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

# Build up a fixie.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

# Play and finish Doom 3 and Half-Life 2. (Must get a computer powerful enough to play them.)

Serious recommendation: don't bother with Doom 3. It's very pretty. It also completely stops being entertaining after about 20 minutes, which is unfortunate since you then have 20 more hours of gameplay to go through. To be fair, it will be some of the most beautifully rendered excruciating boredom you'll even have.

Quake 4 is based on the same graphics technology and is at least a solid "B+" of a game. Better yet, play BioShock, which is even prettier and awesome.

[penk.livejournal.com]

I played through the entire demo, and it was enjoyable, but without any real development / plot moving ahead, I could see it getting dull.

It's seriously an all-visual game. The epitomy of "Ah, I just watch it for the effects" stuff.

[ayse.livejournal.com]

Eat at The French Laundry.

Can I recommend against? It's pretty overrated. They had a major kitchen upheaval a bit ago and things have changed a lot on the menu. We went up there after Thanksgiving and I would rate it below Chez Panisse for food quality and just about at par with the Ritz for service quality.

Example? One of my courses had some caviar in it. Unfortunately, it was as if the chef had not heard that caviar has lost quality lately, because it was mealy and soft, not popping and crunchy. NOT what I was expecting from a many-star restaurant.

My suggested replacement: eat at Michelin three-starred restaurant.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Interesting! Thanks for the tip. Several of my friends visited it about a year ago and raved. I may wait to hear more. :-)

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Okay, consolidating the rest of my responses:

Make aioli from scratch (no cheating with Hellman's).

Dude. You can do this tonight. As long as you've got a stick blender, it takes 5 minutes and is almost impossible to fuck up. The recipe here (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503EFDC1430F933A05756C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2) is the one I use. (Obviously in day-to-day circumstances I omit the saffron.)

Learn to like brussels sprouts.

Halve them, toss them in olive oil, salt and pepper, and put them in a roasting pan in a 375f oven until they brown. (Stir occasionally so they don't cook unevenly.) If you don't like them after that, you have officially made every honorable effort and shouldn't worry about it ever again.

Eat at The French Laundry.

Per Se is closer. :)

Spend a week in San Francisco.

We have a guest room. :)

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I've tried making aioli in a Cuisinart, which was also supposed to be a no-fail method, and it totally did not come together. I figured that the answer was to make a project out of it.

I'm not sure I get that recipe -- you combine the egg yolk and garlic in the mortar and pestle, then transfer to a bowl and use the hand blender while streaming in the oil?

Re the brussels sprouts - I was inspired by a recent discussion (http://community.livejournal.com/food_porn/4309208.html) in food_porn about getting over hatred of brussels sprouts. Your suggestion is just one of the worthwhile ideas that came up. :-)

We have a guest room. :)

I'M ON TO YOUR NEFARIOUS PLOT, MISTER.

[docorion.livejournal.com]

"Practice my ham license. Make at least three contacts with hams I've never met before".

Well, you've met me before, but if 'practice' is what you're after, you can make a schedule with me some evening, assuming you have a radio. If you don't, I'd be up for a mini-field-day setup of some kind where we bring my HF radio and an antenna of some kind (I have a Buddipole, which is nice and portable) out to some Place of Interest and work folks from it-I recommend perhaps one of the Boston Harbor Islands, because people will want to contact us for the Islands on the Air awards. I can set up for both voice and digital modes, and if your CW is better than mine, we can try some :-)

73, N1TMK

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

What an awesome idea! I have a HT that I have borrowed from agaran but have never really figured out how to operate, so part of it is learning to actually use the equipment. If I get that far I'll make a ham date with you :-)

I can set up for both voice and digital modes, and if your CW is better than mine, we can try some :-)

Ah, see, I meant to put "learn Morse" on the list, but apparently it got overlooked. Maybe I'll put it on as a bonus goal. :-)

[vespid-interest.livejournal.com]

I sort of assume you've seen this site since it's been around a while, but in case not there are some amazing Halloween costumes that Rob Cockerham made, with walkthroughs. Even if these are more elaborate than you want to make the design principles seem worth following.
http://www.cockeyed.com/incredible/costumes.shtml

Regarding eating vegetarian for a month: a sub-step to that should be learning to eat Tofu, if you don't already. I used to hate it but learned to really like it. The key for me at first was ordering the "fried" variety which is crustier than the steamed kind.

Neat idea for a list!

[creidylad.livejournal.com]

When you do bring them to NY, please look us up ahead of time!

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Yes!!

[dbang.livejournal.com]

1001 days is almost 3 years. I can't imagine setting my goals that far ahead -- the things I want today I will not necessarily want in three years.

Watch Babylon 5.

My father just sent me the first 2 seasons on DVD, and plans to send the remaining seasons as I finish them. You are free to borrow them when we are done.

Lose 20 pounds. (And keep it lost!)
Make my own bagels.
Make a tiramisu, from scratch. (Including the ladyfingers. Not including the cheese.)
Make my own éclairs.

Y'know...I think I see a potential problem here :-)

Visit 30 geocaches.

Maybe ours (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=d2e35c1d-8091-4127-a318-7e952a669169) can be one of the 30 :-)

Good luck!

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Most of these goals are things I've wanted to for at least three years. I don't imagine that I'll lose interest all of a sudden (though it's certainly possible that the act of writing down this list will kill my enthusiasm :-)

You are free to borrow them when we are done.

Oh neat! Thank you! My father-in-law sent us the first few episodes on VHS, but the first tape had some creases in it and it was nearly unwatchable after about an hour.

Y'know...I think I see a potential problem here :-)

There's no problem! No problem here, I tell you! Nothing's wrong! Nothing! Bwaaaahahahahahaha!

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

moontoad will be happy to help you with number 10-and she has a camera attached to her computer, now.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Ha, excellent! I do not have a webcam at home, but maybe by the time I've brushed up on my ASL I will have. We'll see :-)

[jostajam.livejournal.com]

Another secret to dealing with brussels sprouts is nutmeg. Anything vaguely cabbagy is improved with nutmeg! Asparagus and greenbeans are also good with nutmeg.

Do you want to learn to knit with actual knitting needles? I can help with that. I have both excess wool and needles as my mother worked as a knitting consultant in a wool shop. Also, the circular knitting looms available at craft stores produce wonderful hats. My younger son managed to knit several inches of each hat we made. Last year we made and gave away four hats.

[dervishspin.livejournal.com]

Your friendly Neighboorhood Camelot Cohousers can probably help you with several of those. For some reason we have a lot of brewers (which is by no means a complaint).

And I am down with #72. Work that number!

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

GREAT list!

[rintrahroars.livejournal.com]

Play a song with at least one of the boys accompanying me.

Accompanying you on guitar, or singing?

I don't have 1001 days before I turn 40, but I think I'm still going to make my own "project 40" list. Thanks for the idea! I hope you accomplish all your goals. If there's anything I can do to help on any of 'em, let me know.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

I don't have 1001 days before I turn 40, but I think I'm still going to make my own "project 40" list. Thanks for the idea!

Hey, I'm well past forty, but I was all over the "101 in 1001" idea — and my list has 147 items so far, so I'm thinking of just calling it my "three-year list" instead :-)

[penk.livejournal.com]

Cripes tim. I read this and go "damn, i'm glad i'm going to live next door to this guy. then we can do all this stuff!" - gleefully inviting myself into your todo list, cuz they're all like "Sounds great! Lets go!"

helpful!

[omegabeth.livejournal.com]

You can make me a treasure hunt!! (At least as long as I can do it during school breaks). Ditto for traveling. And there is a great shooting range up in Manchester! Did I mention NESA has a CPR/FirstAid class coming up? :-)

Re: helpful!

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

God damn you're awesome.

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

I understand the key to aioli (or indeed any mayonnaise-type condiment) is the "drizzling the oil"; we're talking nearly drop by drop...and steadily.

Also, some people just flat out don't like brussel sprouts and there's nothing to be done about it (Stephe's one of them); that said, there's nothing wrong with making an honorable attempt at same.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my problem in the past has probably just been that I am not drizzling slowly enough.

I recognize I may not end up liking brussels sprouts at all. But I've succeeded in learning to like almost everything that I always hated as a child (asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, beets, etc.) Brussels sprouts are one of the few remaining holdouts, so I'm setting my sights on it.

[inahandbasket]

love the concept, I'm stealing it (and tweaking for my own timeline as well).

And I'd be way happy to help you on #17, the Mrs. and I brew beer and are overdue to make a new batch if you want to come by and learn the process.

[cutieperson]

i am all over 58 & 59, and have thoughts on getting your photos out there for 3.
the cheese for 67 is not as hard as you think and quite worth the taste difference.
i bought the raw materials to do 91, but then realized how intensive the first batch is and failed. i would be thrilled to set up a yogurt making date.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Yogurt making date!! Yay!

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

For 34, Kooza (http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/showstickets/kooza/intro/intro.htm) is slated to come to Boston sometime this summer.

[khedron.livejournal.com]

41. Learn to juggle 5 balls. It's only taken 20 years.

I hear you!

This is quite the list! And at first I misread it and thought it was 101 days. =) There's some low-hanging fruit, but really, most of these are significant! I'm totally impressed.

PS. Aren't most of the people you know hams? ;-)

[concrete.livejournal.com]

> 8. Climb a mountain of at least 5,000 feet.
> 9. Go on a bicycle trip of at least 3 days.
> 28. Moab!
> 50. Go mountain biking. On a real mountain.

You realize that we could do this at once? Porcupine Rim is at 6,800ft and others are even higher. I've been to Moab twice and would love to go again - it's a great group ride. Three days would allow us to do all the big and good trails!

46. Build up a fixie.

Do you have a preference, or if I find you a frame with forked dropouts, you're cool with it?

70. Learn to unicycle.

My dad (67 this year) is learning too!

85. Participate in a World Naked Bike Ride.

I'm there!

90. Watch 100 movies on Netflix. (This is the amount to watch in three years in order to make it cost-effective.)

I ended up just making copies of my Netflix movies because I simply don't have the time.

93. Have both kids in bed by 8:30 every night for a week.

make them wrestle an hour every day?

[khedron.livejournal.com]

I ended up just making copies of my Netflix movies because I simply don't have the time.

I call it "time-shifting" the Netflix movies. I erase them once I watch them, but I do try to actually see them properly without engaging in shenanigans. Switching Netflix to sending me blu-ray movies will make this more difficult, of course...


If I had a list like qwrrty's, I might put "buy a new CD every week" on it. Thanks to Amazon's DRM-free MP3s, I'm good for January thus far.

Belated Thought

[harimad.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about how hard this is (achieve a goal every 1.5 weeks, on average), and to what extent one must organize to do these all.[1] I started thinking more about this: one could combine activities (use the vegetarian month to plan a gourmet meal based on recipes in The New Best Recipe), with supervision you could knit a hat before you've really learned how to knit, etc.

Then the thought occurred to me: have you scoped out how long each task might take? Doing so may help you achieve more of them.


[1] One cool thing is achieving only some of these is still good stuff.

Re: Belated Thought

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I didn't make much of an attempt to figure out how long each task was likely to take and how that would affect the whole collection of 101. I decided to give myself almost completely over to heedless enthusiasm. :-) I am counting on being able to combine some tasks, like you suggest.

[szasz.livejournal.com]

If you do attend Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, be sure to look us up; we'll be right down the street. :)

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Hee! Will do. :-)