My Bucket List

Travel

Europe

• Visit Paris and London via chunnel train
• Kiss the blarney stone
• See the canals of Amsterdam
• See the Acropolis in Greece
• Go to the Colosseum and Pompeii
• Giant’s Causeway in Ireland
• See Haghia Sofia and Ephesus
• Take a black taxi tour of “The Troubles” area in Belfast
• Walk the Berlin Wall and under the Brandenburg Gate

North America

• Experience Burning Man
• Wine tasting in California
• Visit Times Square
• Visit all 50 States (28/50)
• Go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans
• See Beale Street and where MLK Jr. was shot in Memphis
• See Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon
• Walk the San Antonio Riverwalk
• See the Alamo and other Missions in San Antonio
• See Dealey Plaza where JFK was killed
• Soak in the Tobacan Hot Springs in Costa Rica
• See Hamilton Pool Park in Austin, TX
• See the cherry blossoms bloom in Washington, D.C.
• Visit the Newport Mansions in Rhode Island
• Walk the Freedom Trail in Boston
• Lincoln Home National Historic Site

South America

• See Iguazu Falls
• Go to Carnival in Rio de Janeiro
• See the Galapagos Islands
• See Easter Island

Africa

• Go on safari
• See Victoria Falls
• Walk through Jemaa El-Fna in Marrakech

Asia

• Have a Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel in Singapore
• Great wall of China
• Float in the Dead Sea
• Gamble in Macau
• Go to the top of Victoria Peak in Hong Kong
• Taj Mahal
• Go to the Holi Festival in India
• Angkor Wat
• Sea of Stars, Vaadhoo Island, Maldives

Australia-Pacific

• Visit the outback
• See a kangaroo and koala in the wild
• Glowworm Caves, Waitomo, New Zealand

Antarctica

Other Travel Related

• Visit Every Country
• Live Abroad (In Morocco)
• Teach Abroad (In Morocco)
• Travel internationally with my parents
• Panama and Suez Canals
• Circumnavigate the globe
• Spend Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s abroad
• Fly first class
• Do a road trip across America (Houston, TX to Milwaukee, WI)
• See the Northern Lights
• Travel to Canada and drink legally before the age of 21 (Winnipeg)
• See the Warner Bros. Studio Lot
• See Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris

Adventure & Exploration

• Swim with stingrays and sharks (Shark Ray Alley off San Pedro Island, Belize)
• Parasail and jet ski (Nha Trang, Vietnam)
• Hike Appalachian Trail
• Chichen Itza and Tikal
• Hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
• Go to Petra
• Trek into the Sahara Desert (from Morocco)
• Stay in the infamous Chunking Mansions in Hong Kong
• Trek into the Gobi Desert
• Explore Death Valley
• Socotra Island
• Hike down the Grand Canyon
• Attend La Tomatina
• Run with the bulls in Pamplona
• Pamukkale Hot Springs in Turkey
• Swim in every ocean (Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Southern, Arctic)
• Visit a volcano (Poás and Arenal – Costa Rica)
• Ziplining and cave tubing (Belize)
• Go on a dog-sledding expedition
• Grutas de Cacahuamilpan, Mexico
• Go horseback riding
• fly a plane
• Go storm/tornado chasing
• Explore a cave
• Walk a suspension bridge (Carrick a-Rede rope bridge)

Mountain climbing:

• Mt. Whitney
• Mt. Mckinley
• Mt. Kiliamanjaro
• Visit Base Camp for Mt. Everest

Scuba dive:

• Red Sea
• Off an Island (Koh Samui, Thailand)
• Nha Trang, Vietnam
• Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Rivers:

• Nile
• Amazon
• Congo
• Colorado
• Huangpu
• Mekong
• Mississippi (I lived on the banks of this river)

Fitness

• Get six pack abs
• Bench 300 pounds
• Weigh over 200 pounds with mostly muscle mass
• Run a marathon
• Finish a triathlon
• Learn to surf (Cahuita, Costa Rica)
• Learn to ski (Bozeman, Montana)
• Learn to scuba dive (Koh Samui, Thailand)
• Go whitewater rafting (River Pacuare, Costa Rica)
• Run a 5 minute mile
• Try Crossfit (did it for several weeks, didn’t like it)

Intellectual

• Write a non-fiction book (Spend Less, Travel More)
• Write a novel (currently unpublished)
• Get a Bachelor’s Degree
• Get a Master’s Degree

Read complete works of:

• William Shakespeare (37/37 Plays)
• Plato (5/35 Dialogues)
• Ernest Hemingway (3/9 Books)
• Fyodor Dostoevsky (4/18 Books)
• Mark Twain (3/30 Books)
• John Steinbeck (28/28 Books)
• F. Scott Fitzgerald (3/15 Books)
• William Faulkner (15/20 Books)
• Malcolm Gladwell (5/5 Books)
• Leo Tolstoy (2/29 Books)
• Sylvia Plath (4/15 Books)
• Toni Morrison (3/16 Books)
• Charles Dickens (3/30 Books)

See Films of:

• Stanley Kubrick (12/13)
• Ingmar Bergman (22/58)
• Charlie Chaplin (7/82)
• Alfred Hitchcock (11/42)
• Marx Brothers (9/16)
• Wes Anderson (8/8)
• Martin Scorsese (10/40)
• Joel and Ethan Coen (13/22)

Music:

• Become familiar with the Great composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Vivaldi
• Hear Beethoven’s fourth, fifth and ninth symphonies live
• Hear Vivaldi’s Four Seasons live
• See Dinosaur Jr. live in concert (Did it twice)
• Go to Austin City Limits
• Learn to play piano

Music Albums (Studio only, not live albums)

• Lou Reed (18/24)
• Velvet Underground (6/6)

Listen to

Beethoven:

• Symphonies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
• Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor “Fur Elise”
• Missa Solemnis
• See Fidelio

Mozart

• Symphonies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41
• See Don Giovanni
• See The Marriage of Figaro
• See Cosi Fan Tutte
• See The Magic Flute
• Clarinet Concerto in A Major
• Requiem

Bach

• Brandenburg Concertos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
• Toccata and Fugue
• The Well-Tempered Clavier

Brahms

• Symphonies 1, 2, 3, 4
• Academic Festival Overture
• Tragic Overture

Vivaldi

• Four Seasons

Tchaikovsky

Museums:
(I’m just adding them as I go)

• Minneapolis Institute of Arts
• Walker Art Center
• Weisman Art Museum
• Museum of Russian Art (Minneapolis, MN)
• The Bakken (Minneapolis, MN)
• Art Institute of Chicago
• North Dakota Museum of Art
• Myra Museum – Grand Forks Historical Society
• The Louvre
• Musée d’Orsay
• George Pompidou Center
• British Museum
• The National Gallery, London
• Tate Modern
• Tate Gallery
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
• National Air and Space Museum
• National Museum of American Art
• National Museum of Natural History
• National Portrait Gallery
• Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Newseum
• Spy Museum
• Siriraj Medical Museum
• NASA (Houston, TX)
• Dallas Museum of Art
• Sixth Floor Museum
• LBJ Presidential Library

Become Fluent in:

• English
• French (I’m at an advanced level)
• Spanish
• Italian
• Arabic

Other

• Eat at a restaurant featured in Man vs. Food (Matt’s Bar & Grill, Minneapolis)
  
• Learn Krav Maga
• Be an extra in a movie (I’ve come close once already)
• Make a living entirely from writing
• Dive in a submarine
• Fly in a blimp or balloon
• Learn Everything
• Be a contestant on Jeopardy (came close, I got to the 2nd round of the audition)
• See the Aurora Borealis
• Learn to Salsa dance
• Reach 90,000 followers on Twitter
• Give a motivational speech to a large audience
• Have $1,000,000 in my bank account
• Spend the night in a haunted house (I lived in one)
• Get published in National Geographic or similar publication
• Write a post that goes viral (6 Ways to Travel Endlessly)
• Get married (to my amazing wife, Rosie)
• Have a kid (my little boy, Desmond)
• Ride in a Tuk-Tuk
• Watch a live Muslim prayer service (Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul)
• Have my photo taken at platform 9 3/4
• Go to a drive-in movie (Sioux Falls, South Dakota)
• Go to Disney World and Universal Studios
• Teach someone to read and write (I’m a writing tutor)
• Own a house (currently being rented to someone in Minneapolis, MN)
• Have a street named after me
• Set a world record
• Get something patented
• Do a kind deed without expecting anything in return
• Make a difference in someone’s life (many times through teaching)
• Witness a solar eclipse
• See the stars on a clear night (Sahara Desert, Morocco)
• Be the best man at a wedding
• Receive a fan letter or email
• Volunteer (American Refugee Committee & Minnesota International Center)
• Own a cat and a dog
• Have my fortune told (in Cambodia by a French speaking mystic)
• Memorize a poem (Buffalo Bill’s Defunct, et. al.)

Ride:

• Camel
• Elephant
• Ostrich
• Horse
• Hydrofoil
• Helicopter
• Motorbike
• Tuk-Tuk

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