What are the top 10 things you want to do before you die, I’m still working on my list and am trying to steal a few good ideas…I have a few which will probably end up being my top 50…Skydive solo, eat left handed for a year(I’m right-handed), become published, go to Ireland, read the whole Bible, learn to make sushi, be on TV, have something named after me and stay a few days in a monastary…to name a few…
Have my hair in dreadlocks
Go to the Rio carnival
Swim with dolphins
Learn to speak Spanish
Learn to water ski
Put $1M on Red 17 in Las Vegas
Can’t think of anymore. Most of the things I’ve wanted to see or do I’ve seen or done.
[ul][]Sky dive[]Learn Spanish[]Get married. Have kids?[]Own a Ferrari 512 BB[]Do 300 km/h on a motorcycle[]Travel around Europe (and maybe beyond?) on a motorcycle[]Learn Italian[]Travel to: Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, Canada, all South American countries, a whole lot of African countries[*]Drive a Land Rover across the Serengetti[/ul]Oh, and “earn 10 million bucks to finance all this”. 
What is it with wanting to learn Spanish? 
That’s certainly on my list, too (real Spanish, too. Not my dirty-kitchen Spanish that I wouldn’t dare speak in front of my future in-laws).
Adopt a kid or two.
Learn how to drive stick shift.
Get a degree in Cultural Anthropology.
Live in New Orleans for a while.
Bike trip through France’s wine country
Go to Easter Island
Travel throughout South America
Be a teacher of food history for a while.
Ride on Concorde
Go up in a hot air balloon
Go into space
See the aurora borealis
See a total eclipse of the sun
Write a book
Get published in a scientific journal
Invent something
Lecture at Harvard
Sail around the world
Get a doctorate
That’s all I have lined up so far
I speak Spanish. So there.
[ul]
[li]Get done with a novell, finally, get published and end up at the top of the US Best Seller List[/li][li]Buy a house in a warmer climate and spend winters there[/li][li]Get married. Have kids.[/li][li]Buying all the furniture that I admire and can’t afford[/li][li]Getting rid of my arthritis (as if!) and finally losing some wight.[/li][li]There are a number of women I’d like to share my bed with. They’d make a list of their own.[/li][li]Owning a small combined hotell/restaurant in the south of France and NOT having to make any money out of it.[/li][li]Having a big sailing boat and leasurly cruising the Caribbean[/li][li]Visit Buenos Aires, New Orleans, New York.[/li][li]Selling a screenplay to a Hollywood studio and having ‘final cut’ option.[/li][/ul]
- Learn another language
- Dance like a hippy
- Run a B&B along a hiking trail in the Alps
- Make love to someone you are in love with
- Write a poem
- See a panhandler, open your wallet and give him the entire contents, no questions asked
- Make a sculpture out of clay
- Build something with your own hands
- Walk barefoot on a beach at night
- Write a long letter to a friend you haven’t spoken to in years
• Outlive my Mom (because one should, out of politeness)
• Go to Paris with my best friend
. . . Umm, that’s about it, actually. I already did—or tried to do—all the other things I’ve wanted to.
- Get out of this subdivision and city.
- Buy a small piece of property in Copiah County Mississippi with a little shotgun house, front porch, rocking chair, and porch swing.
- Open a little coffee shop on Backstreet that is not run for the purpose of profit. Sell newspapers, magazines, etc. Offer good conversation and excellent service.
- Buy a '75 Chevy Truck and restore it to mint condition.
- Own a minor league baseball park.
- Own vacation homes in Gulf Shores Ala, Key West, Savannah Ga.
- Get a Liberal Arts Degree.
- Donate millions to various charities.
- Spend a day with John Wooden.
- Have a vegetable garden.
- Go Hot-Air balooning
- Go skydiving
- Go to Japan
- Have the ultimate sex party
- Get into low Earth orbit
- Buy an island
- Take a tour of the Middle East and sneak my way into Mecca
- Get a degree in English
- Own a vineyard for fun, not for profit
- Have at least one true paranormal encounter
- Go to Thailand and Ankgor Wat (maybe this year, I hope!)
- Go to Jerusalem and Petra
- Go to Croatia
- Finish my doctorate
- Find a decent teaching job overseas (pretty flexible about where, but somewhere in Europe would be ideal)
- Have kids. (Preferably ones with a father, but I am beginning to despair of this.)
- Go on a serious hiking trip, maybe on the Appalachian trail or something
- Learn to speak another language really well, preferably the one spoken wherever I manage to get a job
- Get to be a very, very good teacher, the sort students remember when they’re older
- Learn how to make pierogi
Learn to do something, anything, really well.
Raise or be a positive influence in the life of a child.
Take some time off to travel and grow (as a person, not agribusiness).
Go someplace spiritual, like Macchu Pichu, Stonehenge, etc.
Complete a difficult physical feat, like a triathalon, marathon, etc.
Get an advanced degree or be published.
Volunteer in a manner more than casual.
Skydive, scuba, bungee, something to poop your pants.
Love somebody.
Leave the world a better or cleaner place than when you arrived.
- Step onto all 7 continents.
- Publish a book.
- Go into space.
- Meet my grandchildren.
- Own a ‘getaway’ place where renters pay a lot of the mortgage.
- Go on a long bike trip.
- Do something that makes a permanent change for the better for society.
- Stick around until they have a good idea of how many ‘Earth-like planets’ there are in the galaxy, and have better numbers for the equations that predict how much life, sentient life, and highly communicative life is out there.
- Fly in a vintage WWI fighter or light bomber.
- Sell a script.
This list is not sorted.
*find a Clovis point in the Sierras
*own a used bookstore called “Browsers Welcome”
*pet a sea otter
*own a 1969 Land Rover 88 and a 1965 tri-power GTO
*surf a long rolling head-high wave at sunset at a deserted point break
*spend one season attending every game of the Oakland A’s (Although I reserve the right to rescind this wish if there is a strike this year. It has taken me since 1994 to actually enjoy the game again and here they go:(.)
*find a first edition copy of The Hobbit and/or Lord of the Rings at a yard sale
*hike the full length of the Pacific Crest trail
*celebrate 50 years with Mrs. Gaffer
*see my boys become men I respect
- Write a novel . . . heck, write several novels.
- Stop working in dead-end boring office jobs
- Own a condo, instead of trying to find a new apartment every year.
- Go back to school.
- Teach English in Canada.
- Learn Japanese
- Have kids. (or maybe just kid, I’m not ambitious)
- Have more cats. (adopt, I mean)
- Have a room in my dwelling that can be referred to as a library. :drool:
- Be happy.
- You mean I have to stop at ten? darn.
My top 10 list of things I’d like to accomplish (in random order) includes:
- Run a marathon / become fit
- Learn another language (Japanese and/or Spanish preferred)
- Write a book
- Become financially independent
- Master at least one musical instrument
- Make a difference
Still trying to figure out what the last 4 items are
Grim
My list is getting shorter as I keep doing things on it.
- Go hang gliding (did that and wrecked while practicing taking off and landing at about 10 feet off the ground. It was fun though a bit painful with all the bruises.)
- Change my carreer to something artistic permanently. (Like earning money dancing, playing music, painting, etc… not managing the artists…how boring) (I used to teach but that isn’t exactly the same)
- Write my life story (It is basically finished at around page 300. I keep adding to the center part of the story since I stopped writing anything that happened after I turned 25)
- Have a carreer where royalties will free up my time so I could roam around the world.
- Buy a seaworthy sailboat and get a few friends and travel the world by it. (Really would love to do that.)
- Finish learning a few foreign languages.
- Get an advanced degree
- Study under a french pastry chef
- Fall in love with that one special person (or more if the circumstances turn out right. A triple would be nice sometimes.)
- Find the few teachers throughout elementary to high school who belittled me and made me feel bad about myself and rationally tell them off without getting hotheaded.
Dairy Mary
[list=1]
[li]Sing in a cabaret style performance for a paying audience.[/li][li]Write a novel that I let someone read. (Even Mr. tlw hasn’t read any of my stories.)[/li][li]Dance with Mr. tlw atop the Eiffel Tower[/li][li]Visit Alaska[/li][li]Go back for my doctorate [/li][li]Get my private pilot’s license and own a plane of my own[/li][li]Learn to play chess[/li][li]See the sunrise on one continent and the sunset on another on the same day[/li][li]Make a souffle that doesn’t fall :o[/li][li]Run another NYC Marathon - maybe after I’m 50 :D[/li][/list=1]
- Write a novel
- PhD
- Travel in space (preferably interplanetary)
- Nobel prize (hey, I can dream. :))
- Become fluent in a second language.
- Learn to relax better in social situations.
- I seem to be running out of things to do.
- Don’t. (Die that is)