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Some people have asked me if I have created a ‘Bucket List’. For those of you who don’t know what a Bucket List is, it is a list of things you want to do before you ‘kick the bucket’. Some may think this is a bit morbid, but I think every one should think about the things they want to do, or accomplish, before they die. I think if you think about your goals, and commit them to paper, you will have a better chance of developing a plan to accomplish those things. I have never had a desire to jump from a perfectly good airplane, or leap from a bridge with a bunch of rubber bands tied to my legs, but there are some things I would like to do and a few people I would like to meet.

I’m sure this list will change, but without further delay, here’s the lists:

Things I would like to do or accomplish:

•  See Dancing With the Stars and meet the dancers -Done

  OK, I have an inner love for ballroom dance, in fact I’ve got a raging desire to Samba. No, not really, but I’d love to meet Edyta, Julienne, Karina, Cheryl, Kym and the other dancers (all right, not so much the male dancers, but I would like to meet Tom Bergeron).  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Edyta or Tom Bergerone, but we had a nice time with Cheryl Burke and Gilles Marini. To bad our evening had to get cut short so I could go to the emergency room. Maybe we’ll make it back to LA for that dinner with Gilles and Cheryl.
  Pictures from the trip
  Pictures of us on JohnJay and Rich’s Web Site

• See some of my children graduate from college

  I wasn’t able to finish my degree until I was well into my 40’s. As I tell all my children, it is a lot easier to go to school when you are 18 than when you are twice that age, with a family, children, job and other responsibilities to take care of. I truly think that on-going education is imprtant, not only for financial success, but also for long term health.

• Learn another language

  I took 2 years of German in high school. There are only a few phrases I can still remember (Where is Monica? In the boat. Where’s Peter going? To the lake. Two beers please. Where’s the hospital? etc.) I lived in Belgium and Portugal for three years each. In Belgium, I picked up enough French to get by (two beers please, where’s the toilet), and took Portuguese a bit more seriously (two beers please, two coffees please, etc.). When I went back to Portugal, it took me a while to get back into the language, but eventually I was able to carry on simple conversations again. Today, I can remember a few words and phrases, but there is no way that I could carry on a conversation. In college, they wouldn’t give me any language credit for the 6 years I had lived oversees, so I had to take a second language. The only one’s they offered were Spanish and American Sign Language. I took ASL, which has actually helped me out. Now Sue and I can ‘talk’ to each other through the window between Master Control and Production Control.

• Go Shooting

  I think I was 6 when my grandpa taught me to shoot a gun. I’ve loved to shoot ever since that day. The problem that I have is that I don’t have anywhere close to go, nor do I have the time to go. When I lived in Arizona, I would shoot a few hundred rounds a week. I probably couldn’t afford it, but I reloaded to keep the costs down, and I really enjoyed it. A few of us would go to a close shooting range and practice Handgun Silhouette. For those of you unfamiliar, it involves shooting at targets at 50, 100, 150 and 200 yards with a pistol and iron sites. I think I would actually like to try my hand at sporting clays or some other form of shotgunning. Some tactical pistol shooting would also be fun to try.

• Do some Hunting

  A natural progression of my love of shooting would be my love of hunting. I don’t need to go on an African safari to hunt exotic species, but there are a few things I would like to hunt. When I was in Arizona, I came very close to going javelina hunting, but had to go to on a field training exercise during the season. I’d still like to hunt javelina or boar. I’d also really like to try bear hunting or moose hunting, but I’d probably have to go to Canada for that. Minnesota has a moose season, but you have to have four people in the party, and only one person can actually shoot the moose. Once you’ve been on one hunting party you are done for life. The last thing I would like to do is take a trophy whitetail deer. I’d like to try a few more, but I’m trying to be realistic, there is no way I’ll be able to hunt big horn sheep or elk any time soon, especially while I’m on chemo. I’d really like to try my hand at hunting with a pistol, but I’d have to get a hunting pistol and spend some time practicing with it.

• Go Camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area

  I’d like to make at least one more trip to the BWCA. We have plans on going for our opening weekend trip on Memorial Day this year. It looks like we have an overnight motor permit, so that should be a lot of fun. Jon won’t be back from boot camp / advanced training, so he won’t be able to go this year again.

• Visit the Smithsonian Institute

  The last time I went to the Smithsonian Institute was in 1976 or 77. I know we didn’t see everything, but I’d like to have a few days to go through as much as possible.

• Go to the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas

  The NAB is the premiere showing of new technology in broadcasting and video production. I’ve wanted to go since I started working in television, but I haven’t had the opportunity. I’d really like to see it, and see the new technology they are showing.

• Home projects

  I’ve needed to fix our garage walls since I moved into this house. For those who haven’t seen it, the garage walls are made of cinder blocks, with no steel reinforcement. The walls are about 15′ high, 13′ of which is below grade. Through the years of frost / thaw cycles, the walls have bowed in and buckled. It appears the last few years have been the worse. I started down the process of getting it fixed, I had a concrete contractor give me an estimate for pouring new walls. When I went to get a building permit, I discovered two things: you need to get a civil engineer design walls over 10′ high and walls that are more than 4′ below grade, and the garage was sitting in the street right-of-way. Yeah, that’s right. The entire garage had been built in the street right of way. I had to get the street vacated so that I could get a building permit. I got a civil engineer in to give me an estimate for drawing up the plans, his estimate was for $5,000 to draw up the plans. While he was here taking measurements, he said the walls would have to be thicker than the concrete contractor thought, the foundation would nee to be replaced, and the floor would also need replacement. None of that was in the contractor’s estimate. I could just see the cost sky-rocketing during the engineer’s visit, so I haven’t done anything else with the project.

• • The Garage
  • The Downstairs Bathroom
  • The Utility Closet

People I’d like to meet:

• The Good Morning America Team

  I was at home recovering from my Whipple Surgery when Robin Roberts announced that she had breast cancer. They were the first ones that I saw that reported on Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture (also while I was recuperating from the Whipple). I really like how they work together, and I’d really like to tour the ABC studios.

• Chip Foos

  I’m not a ‘car guy’, but I really appreciate a job well done. I used to watch ‘Overhaulin’ quite a lot, and I was always amazed at how Chip Foos would take a sheet of paper, and a bunch of markers, and create a photo-realistic rendering of a car design.

• Sandra Bullock

  She seems like a nice person, plus I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time.