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.