John's Mostly Pointless Potential Accomplishments List

A normal person would probably call this a bucket list, but I'm not a fan of the term -- or maybe I'm just not a fan of how popular the term became, how stupid many of the lists struck me, or the fact that it became the subject of a Jack Nicholson movie. (Jack sort of lost me after The Shining.) 

So instead of a bucket list I'm going to call this my Mostly Pointless Potential Accomplishments List. "Mostly Pointless" because while I'd like to think that some of these might have value to someone (#4, for example), most are just things that I'd like to do before I depart this world, but which no one, including me, could reasonably argue will actually make much of a difference either in my life or to the world at large. 

As they say in the Air Force, "Aim High."


The List

1. See Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

2. Complete The Periodic Table of Copyright Violations (current state: 30/112).

3. Step foot on all seven continents (current state: 7/7).

4. Take each of Sib4's kids on a trip somewhere they would find cool (current state: 1/4). 

5. Reach the end of Game of Thrones (books or HBO series, I don't much care which).

6. Finish painting the inside of my condo (remaining: trim on three windows, unreachable parts of the bathroom, LR baseboards, hall trim, wonder room). 

7. Achieve a state of being completely debt free, at least for a few minutes. (I'm probably close enough to count it. Oops. Forgot about a loan I took out of my retirement account.)

8. Take a trip with the three sibs. (Costa Rica, December 2015)

9. Have a meal at The French Laundry.

10. Ride in a hot air balloon.

11. Run a 5K (just so I can say I did it -- once).

12. Acquire some ink.

13. Reacquire my motorcycle certification. 

14. See the forthcoming Wonder Woman movie, not because I'm a huge fan of Wonder Woman or think the world particularly needs another superhero movie, but given all the superhero movies we have, and are going to continue to get, I do think there needs to be at least one focused on a female superhero, and given all the money I've spent on superheroes I should probably contribute my $12 toward its success. (Of course, this requires surviving until at least June, 2017.) 

15. See Star Wars, Episode VIII.

16. Achieve at least the median survival period for stage IV colon cancer: thirty months from diagnosis. In my case, that's December 2016.

17. Ride in a bi-plane.