My Bucket List

Inspired by John Goddard’s "Life List" and the Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman movie Bucket List, I decided to compile my own bucket list.

I first heard about John Goddard from a motivational tape set my parents gave me when I was a kid (Unlocking Your Potential, by Bob Moawad). Years passed and I forgot Goddard’s name, but I remembered his list and his achievements. The earliest list I remember writing was shortly after graduating college, scribbling it on a sheet of paper, just like Goddard did more than fifty years earlier. That list only had about 30 goals on it, a far cry from Goddard’s 127. A few years later, in 1998, I wrote another goals list, this one on computer, breaking the long-term goals into yearly, five-year, ten-, twenty-, and thirty-year goals. In 2003 I started a task list on a spreadsheet -- an itemized breakdown of goals I wanted to accomplish, mostly a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of books I wanted to study. In 2009, after reading (part of) John Maxwell’s Put Your Dream to the Test, I wrote a short essay to one of his exercises “What would I do if I had no limitations?” My answer fell into three general areas: to explore, to learn, to build. (I posted that essay on my Facebook page.)

In late 2012, after watching the DVD Bucket List with my wife, I wrote a first draft of my bucket list. That draft was a mental compilation, synthesis, and weeding of my previous lists. I modified it slightly over the next 15 months before deciding to go public and turn it into a blog.

Here it is.

To explore:

Visit all 50 US states

Visit all 13 Canadian provinces and territories

Visit 50 countries (and set foot on all seven continents)

Hike The Mountaineers’ 100 Classic Hikes in Washington

Sketch the Lunar 100

Sketch all 109 Messier objects

To learn:

Earn Bachelor of Science in Mathematics

Fluency in German

Fluency in Spanish

Fluency in Korean (wife’s native language)

Read Goethe’s Faust (in German)

Read German Bible

Read English Bible (NIV) – completed

Read Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Macropaedia

Read complete works of Shakespeare

Earn Distinguished Toastmaster

Earn A+ certification

Earn AutoCAD Professional certification

Earn Blender certification

Learn Python programming language

Learn C/C++/C# programming languages

Earn pilot’s license

Earn amateur radio license

Pencil drawings of all 780 illustrations in Gray’s Anatomy

To build:

Write The Drive science fiction novel

Write sequels to The Drive (possible title: Singularity series)

Design and build dream home

Dismantle and rebuild automobile engine

Build fuel cell

Build radio telescope

Numbers:

20 pull ups

100 push ups

200 crunches

Bicycle 24,000 miles (cumulative)

Run marathon

Complete Ironman triathlon

Publish one million words (yes, blog posts count toward total)

Deliver 1000 speeches

Draw 1000 species

Draw 1000 portraits

Prepare 1000 recipes

Miscellaneous:

Marry – achieved

Celebrate birthday on Moon

See return of Halley’s Comet (February 2061)