Bucket List-Items To Do

Life Goals Not Yet Accomplished and Still Working On

Below is a list of my bucket list goals that I still have not done.  These are what I am working on now.

  • Achieve perfection doing my home teaching for 12 months
  • Anonymously mail money to a stranger
  • Attend a Greek festival
  • Attend a Passover Seder
  • Attend a session of general conference in Salt Lake City
  • Attend a Sunday service at a Pentecostal Christian church service
  • Attend the Shakespearian Festival in Cedar City, Utah
  • Attend the Sundance Film Festival
  • Band a wild bird
  • Bathe in a Japanese Sento 
  • Bathe in 4 rivers that were a part of ancient civilizations
  • Bathe in the Ganges River in India
  • Be a street performer and do some serious busking 
  • Be a substitute school teacher for a day 
  • Be a tour guide or a docent for a museum or historical place
  • Be blind for 24 hours
  • Be homeless for a day or two just to see what it’s like
  • Be in a police lineup
  • Be part of an archeological survey team
  • Do some Gorilla Gardening (no gorillas will be harmed in doing of this goal)
  • Be up on the side of a mountain and watch a huge summer thunder storm with tons of lightning
  • Become a certified Master Gardner
  • Become a notary public
  • Become more fluent speaking Chinese
  • Become proficient speaking Spanish
  • Become more knowledgeable with the constellations in the night sky
  • Begin compiling a collection of pictures of fascinating people.
  • Bench press my body weight
  • Go bowling and get 3 strikes in a row
  • Build a dovecot (a structure that houses  several nesting boxes for Mourning Doves to nest in)
  • Build a musical instrument that works
  • Build a root cellar
  • Build an inukshuk in Arches National Park
  • Build an owl nesting box and place it in the wild
  • Buy a truck with a camper shell and travel the United States
  • Buy a landscape design computer program and learn how to use it.
  • Buy an ice cream maker and use it to make ice cream or sorbet
  • Buy and use a Euro Pass
  • Buy some cool African drums and learn how to make good music with them
  • Buy something from an estate sale
  • Buy something from a pawn shop
  • Camp in the west desert
  • Card wool
  • Carve a totem pole
  • Carve a wood spirit into a living tree, being careful not to kill the tree in the processes.
  • Catch a fish using only the survival skills I’ve learned. No metal hooks, commercial nets allowed
  • Celebrate El Día de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) in Mexico
  • Chase fairy shadows and shadow giants with my grandchildren
  • Climb a mountain that is 14,000 ft or higher
  • Climb all 272 steps to the top of Batu Caves
  • Climb Half Dome in Yosemite National Park with Tom
  • Climb Lone Peak in Alpine, Utah  (elevation: 11,253)
  • Climb Mt. Nebo (elevation: 11,928)
  • Climb Mt. Whitney with my brother Tom
  • Climb to the top of Ensign Peak
  • Climb to the top of Mt. Baldy beneath Mt. Timpanogas
  • Climb Angle’s Landing in Zion’s National Park
  • Climb Tài Shān Mountains in Shandong province, China
  • Close up or de-clutter the home of an elderly person and see what kind of cool stuff they have
  • Complete the 5000 question survey - part 1 (1 – 1,000)
  • Complete the 5000 question survey - part 2 (1,001 – 2,000)
  • Complete the 5000 question survey - part 3 (2,001 – 3,000)
  • Complete the 5000 question survey - part 4 (3,001 – 4,000)
  • Complete the 5000 question survey - part 5 (4,001 – 5,000)
  • Cook a recipe using an old cookbook from the 1800s
  • Cook something in an adobe oven
  • Cook something in a tandari oven
  • Cook something to eat using the wooden burn bowl I made and no other  commercial tools
  • Cover someone’s car in post it notes
  • Create my own bumper sticker
  • Create a family history website
  • Create a family newsletter
  • Create a self portrait of myself
  • Create a seminar teaching people how they can do humanitarian work tapered toward their own interests and talents.
  • Create an energy ball with my hands
  • Create and bury a time capsule
  • Create and run a non-profit humanitarian organization that starts with a base investment fund of at least 1million dollars.
  • Create my own ancient rock artpetrgliphs. Make it good enough that it could fool someone into thinking that it is an original rock art
  • Cross an international border illegally
  • Dedicate a year to learning how to do something very well
  • Develop my personal Chi to the level of mastery that I was when I first learned to do it
  • Die with no regrets
  • Discover a really cool cave
  • Do a cross country bicycle trip from my home in Lindon, Utah to some place in California, preferably to a coastal community
  • Do something that results in a story written in a newspaper, a magazine, a news story on television news, or on the web
  • Do a 3-D puzzle
  • Do the $10 project with a group of teenage kids and have the event written up in a newspaper, a magazine or a blog/website
  • Do the red paperclip challenge
  • Do a night mediation in the desert
  • Do donuts on a frozen lake with my car or truck
  • Do some fly fishing with my son on the Provo River
  • Do the Huayhuash circuit in Peru
  • Do the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas
  • Donate a body part to someone 
  • Do something in line with what Matt Harding did  (visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY )
  • Drink no soft drinks for 2 months
  • Dye cloth using natural plant dyes that I make myself
  • Earn $100,000 in one year
  • Earn money by creating some kind of small business
  • Eat a Sego Lilly bulb
  • Eat fish and chips in England
  • Eat Peking duck
  • Eat something from a specialty food truck
  • Eat street food in Singapore
  • Experience a sweat lodge ceremony
  • Experience an authentic Hawaiian Luau
  • Experience an authentic Indian powwow
  • Experience weightlessness, simulated or otherwise
  • Explore Glacier National Park
  • Explore all the ins and out s of Hong Kong
  • Fill my passport with stamps from many other countries
  • Find a church with a church bell and ring it
  • Find a cotton field and pick some cotton  
  • Find a morel mushroom in the wild
  • Find a “special” bead and make something that incorporates that bead
  • Find an authentic arrow head (not in a store or ordered through the mail)
  • Find my doppelganger somewhere in the world
  • Find my good friend, Allen Troupe from someplace in Nebraska or Iowa
  • Find my good friend James (Jimmy) Richard Burns from Alabama (I think he’s from Alabama)
  • Find the grave site of Carrie Anderson (wife of Knute Anderson) and her deceased baby son Anton.
  • Finish Jim Trent’s oral history
  • Flip a house
  • Float down the Nile River
  • Fly someplace in the world using my frequent flier miles
  • Fly to and land on a body of water with a pontoon airplane
  • Get a concealed weapons permit
  • Get a complete copy of my father’s military records from the government
  • Get culinary skills training and learn how to be a good cook
  • Get a geological feature named after someone I know
  • Get a manicure just to see what it’s like  ⟴
  • Get a motorcycle license
  • Get a professional massage
  • Get a score of 200 in bowling
  • Get a “tan” tattoo
  • Get better at woodworking
  • Get in early to an estate sale where there are still good deals to be found
  • See my name in Wikipedia (I cannot be the one to submit it)
  • Get my picture on the wall of Joe’s Café in Orem, Utah
  • Get my picture taken in one of those photo booths in the Mall
  • Get paid $100 an hour to do something
  • Get someone to choose one of my bucket list goals and dot it for me
  • Get to know an “enlightened” Australian Aborigine
  • Go asteroid hunting in the desert
  • Go back in time
  • Go clam digging
  • Go on an archeological dig
  • Go on a mediation retreat
  • Go to a New England clam bake where clam bakes are done right
  • Go on a road trip completely by myself
  • Go out to Denny’s after midnight and enjoyed a midnight breakfast
  • Go planking (do it someplace interesting)
  • Go to an oxygen bar
  • Go to the top of Masada in Israel
  • Go to a memorable battle field and feel the spirit of what took place there
  • Go fishing, netting, or use a spear gun to get something from the ocean and eat what I get 
  • Go halibut fishing
  • Go ice fishing
  • Go on an Alaskan cruise
  • Go to Anker Watt in Thailand
  • Go to Belize
  • Go to China
  • Go to Easter Island
  • Go to Hawaii with Donna
  • Go to Hell (in California or Michigan) and come back so you can tell people what the experience was like
  • Go to Hong Kong
  • Go to one of those “something anonymous” meetings (like Alcoholics Anonymous), and see what they are like
  • Go see the Kenecott Copper Mine, the world’s largest open pit copper mine
  • Go to the bug markets in China
  • Go Land Sailing
  • Go to Mexico City, Mexico
  • Go to New Orleans with Donna
  • Go to Oliver County North Dakota (or hire someone who lives there) to locate the physical burial site of my grandfather Jacob Vail and his son Clarence Vail (GPS Coordinates for Sanger, Oliver, ND are 47°10′27″N 100°59′43″W)
  • Go to Paria Canyon in Southern Utah
  • Go to San Francisco with Donna
  • Go to Sedona, Arizona and see what all that Jiggy Woo Woo stuff is all about
  • Go to Sedona, Arizona and slide down the natural stone slides near the falls
  • Go to Tibet
  • Go to Yosemite National Park
  • Go up in a hot air balloon
  • Grow a garden plot and give the stuff I grow to the local food bank
  • Grow a pony tail
  • Grow a square melon
  • Grow an avocado tree from the seed of one of Ted Theodore’s avocados and give it to someone to raisey
  • Grow bamboo
  • Handle a cadaver
  • Harvest rice from a rice paddy
  • Have a grandchild (or several) to whom I can be the most awesome grand dad in the world
  • HHave William Nelson Holbrook come for a visit
  • Help at least 1 person discover the wonder of the LDS faith (my 1st mission doesn’t count for this goal)
  • Help someone have the opportunity to do something I did not get to do
  • Hide some kind of “special treasure” up in the mountains and see if anyone finds it
  • Hike into a meteor crater
  • Hike the Grand Canyon rim to rim
  • Hike in a lava tube
  • Hike part of the Pacific Crest trail
  • Hike in Patagonia
  • Hike the Inca Trail
  • Hike the trail of 10 Falls at South Falls Lodge, Oregon
  • Hike to the summit of King’s Peak in Wyoming
  • Hike up to the base camp of Mt. Everest in the Himalayan Mountains
  • Hold a tarantula in my bare hands
  • Hunt for trilobite fossils in the trilobite beds of Utah
  • Invent something really cool and very useful
  • Invest in commodities
  • Join a book reading club
  • Lay on a bed of nails
  • Learn  how to bake “remarkable” bread
  • Learn 20 words in sign language
  • Learn 3 great magic tricks
  • Learn about investing in jade
  • Learn how chocolate is made. . . . from scratch 
  • Make something out of blown glass
  • Learn how to do Tai Chi
  • Learn how to fold an origami crane
  • Learn how to fly fish
  • Learn how to make cheese
  • Learn how to make Indian Nan bread
  • Learn how to make Hong Kong Egg Tarts
  • Learn how to make paper
  • Learn how to play a didgeridoo
  • Learn how to play the saw
  • Learn how to play Amazing Grace on the bagpipes
  • Learn how to play at least 3 songs on the piano
  • Learn how to play my recorder better
  • Learn how to repair a severed power cord and then do it
  • Lear now to swallow a sword
  • Learn how to throw a boomerang
  • Learn to how to use Adobe Photoshop
  • Learn to juggle
  • Learn to play the cello reasonably well
  • Learn to play the Jaw harp
  • Learn to see auras in color
  • Learn to sew on buttons so they stay on for a long time
  • Learn to whistle with my fingers
  • Learn yoga
  • Learn to do Tai Chi and practice it in my secret garden 
  • Let a big hairy spider walk across my arm
  • Listen to the howl of wild wolves in the wild
  • Live in a foreign country for at least 2 months (excluding my 1st mission to the Philippines)
  • Locate a painting or drawing created by my great great grandma Marietta Kendall Leicher
  • Make $500 on a yard sale
  • Make a bucket full of popped popcorn from popcorn I grew myself
  • Make a burn bowl
  • Make a cool funky mobile
  • Make a great soufflé
  • Make a Molotov Cocktail
  • Make a picture book of Donna’s and my adventures together
  • Make a real tamale
  • Make a road trip movie
  • Make a video that I can post on YouTube and have more than 500 people view it
  • Make a video that I can post on YouTube and have more than 1,000 people view it
  • Make an arrow head or spear head using the napping technique
  • Make an igloo
  • Make hand prints on a cave wall like the ancient one did
  • Make my own gourmet mustards
  • Make my own Italian ice
  • Make my own smoked salt
  • Make a seafood paella with someone who knows how to make the real thing
  • Make some gold and/or silver acorns using the same design as the silver acorn I carry around
  • Make something on a loom
  • Make something out of molten metal
  • Make Sweet Onion Balsamic Vinegar Jam
  • Milk a cow by hand
  • Moon someone 
  • Organize an investment club
  • Outrun a lava flow
  • Own a 1 ounce gold Kuggarand
  • Own a dulcimer
  • Own a set of Egyptian Conopic jars
  • Pawn something
  • Pay for someone’s groceries without them knowing it
  • Pay to have someone come in and clean our house as a surprise for Donna
  • Photograph a live tornado
  • Photograph something on the endangered species list
  • Pick a travel idea from the Travel magazine which we get from AAA travel service and go do it
  • Plank somewhere weird and/or cool
  • Plant rice in a rice paddy
  • Play bingo in a bingo hall
  • Publish a collection of ancestral biographies along with photographs of each individual.
  • Publish an E-Book
  • Put in a contact lens in at least one of my eyes
  • Put a piece of gum on the gum wall in Seattle
  • Rappel down a cliff Aussie style
  • Read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  • Read Dante’s Inferno
  • Read Legend of Sleepy Hollow
  • Read the Popovu (the Mayan Book of Creation)
  • Receive a standing ovation for something I did or said
  • Record Donna’s personal history
  • Recreate a childhood photo with the real adult people
  • Release 99 red balloons into the air
  • Release a book into the social wilderness  (http://www.bookcrossing.com)
  • Remove stitches from a sutured wound (on me) by myself
  • Rent a home for the summer in an awesome place and enjoy the local culture
  • Restock my tool kit with the tools that my kids have run off with
  • Retire at 62 (unless I’m having such a fun time with my work that I want to work longer)
  • Ride a dune buggy
  • Ride a gondola in Italy
  • Ride a horse
  • Ride a horse at a full gallop
  • Ride a zip line
  • Ride in a glass bottom boat
  • Ride in a private jet
  • Ride in a Rickshaw
  • Ride the subways of New York City
  • Run one more marathon before I hang up my running shoes
  • Sail somewhere on a yacht
  • Scuba dive or snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef
  • See a cranberry bog during harvest time
  • See a killer whale in its natural habitat
  • See a play at the Tuacan theater in St. George, Utah
  • See a kangaroo in its natural habitat
  • See a Kuala bear in its natural habitat
  • See a real avalanche actually take place
  • See an armadillo in its natural habitat
  • See an authentic Indian (Hindu Indian) wedding
  • See and dip in at least one of the 3 great rivers of China
  • See and maybe even do a fire walk
  • See Big Ben
  • See glow worms in their natural habitat
  • See hail the size of a nickel or bigger
  • See the ancient tortoises that live on the Galapagos Islands
  • See the angle oak in South Carolina
  • See the animal mass in the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic church in Mankato, Minnesota
  • See the Aurora Borealis
  • See the autumn colors of the northeastern United States
  • See the Blue Hole of Belize 
  • See the Dead Sea Scrolls
  • See the Florida Everglades
  • See the living bridges of Meghalaya in north-eastern India
  • See a moon rainbow at Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River
  • See the pyramids of Egypt
  • See the Lion King Musical in Las Vegas
  • See the Monarch butterfly mass migration
  • See the “Moving Rocks” in Death Valley
  • See the Rosetta Stone
  • See the Sistine Chapel
  • See the stars at night in the Atacama Desert
  • See the Statue of Liberty up close and in real life
  • See the sun rise on the East coast and set on the West coast of the United States the same day.
  • See the Terracotta Warriors of China
  • See Niagara Falls
  • Publish 5 family history publications either as hard copy or an e-book
  • Sell something on E-Bay or Craig’s List
  • Serve another mission for the Church with Donna
  • Shave my head
  • Shear the wool off a sheep or a goat
  • Shoot a black powder pistol ⟴
  • Shoot a black powder rifle  ⟴
  • Shoot a cross bow  ⟴
  • Shoot a flare gun
  • Shoot a machine gun  ⟴
  • Shower with a strobe light going on in the bathroom outside the shower (Jesse’s idea)
  • Slide down a fireman’s pole
  • Sing a duet with my son
  • Sit in a hot tub while it’s snowing around me
  • Sit in the seat of one of those dunking booths
  • Sit on the ocean beach and let the tide come in around my body while I’m seated on the shore
  • Sleep a night in a tipi
  • Sleep in one of those sleeper cars in a train
  • Sleep overnight out someplace in the open bed of my truck
  • Sleep on a rooftop   ⟴
  • Sleep overnight in a boat that is floating on a lake, anchored in the ocean or in a harbor
  • Sleep the night on to top of one of the peaks at Point of the Mountain 
  • Sleep the night out over the water in one of those over the sea bungalows
  • Snorkel or scuba dive in Molokini crater in Hawaii   
  • Speak at a TED conference and present a world changing idea  ⟴
  • Speak in front of a large audience of no less that 1,000 people
  • Spend 3 months getting my body in optimal shape ⟴ 
  • Spend a New Years Eve doing something really cool and exciting
  • Spend a night in jail
  • Spend a day as a street beggar
  • Spend a week completely by myself and see what would happen to my psyche and may sanity
  • Spend the night by myself at the Palace in Mesa Verde during a full moon
  • Spend time in a sensory deprivation tank
  • Spend time in the quietest room in the world (Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, MN)
  • Spin wool into yarn using a spinning wheel
  • Spot a bear in Yellowstone National Park or at Yosemite National  Park
  • Spot a wolf at Yellowstone National Park or at Yosemite National Park
  • Spray a real fire hose
  • Stand on a corner holding a sign that says, “I have a job, I have money. I just wanted to wish  you a happy day.”
  • Stand up and paddle on a paddle board, preferably in Dana Point Harbor
  • Start a small business providing landscape design plans for new homes
  • Start a small business that will allow me to earn enough money to finance my retirement adventures and finance my humanitarian efforts.  ⟴
  • Start a wishing tree
  • Stay on an island by myself for a predetermined amount of time 
  • Stay the night in a Yurt  ⟴
  • Stay the night in an underwater hotel
  • Stay the night on the top of a desert mesa
  • Stay up all night and watch the sun rise ⟴ 
  • Step in the petrified tracks of a dinosaur
  • Stretch every day for a month
  • Surprise Donna with a nice picnic
  • Swim with the manatees in the Three Sisters Springs in Citrus County, Florida
  • Take a photograph and see it published somewhere
  • Take a cool picture for each letter of the alphabet
  • Take a photograph that I’ve taken and add it to Google Earth   ⟴
  • Take a trip somewhere on a motor cycle
  • Take classes to learn how to teach English as a second language
  • Take Donna to Bourbon Street in the French Quarters of New Orleans
  • Take part in a Bayanihan (all the neighbors get together to lift and move someone’s nipa hut to a new location without disassembling the hut)
  • Take part in a bird census count
  • Take part in a food fight
  • Take part in a protest or demonstration for a cause I believe in
  • Take part in an autopsy
  • Take part in my own funeral (Just being there in a coffin doesn’t count)
  • Talk to a celebrity
  • Teach a bird to say a word
  • Teach a college or university class
  • Teach English to someone in another country
  • Teach early morning seminary
  • Travel a distance of 200+ miles without using my own (or someone I know) vehicle
  • Throw a bowling ball down the side of a mountain or off a cliff  ⟴
  • Throw a grenade
  • Throw a paper airplane from a building at least 20 stories high
  • Throw laundry soap into a fountain and not get caught
  • Toilet paper someone’s house without getting caught   ⟴
  • Touch a cadaver
  • Touch a real human brain
  • Travel down the Mississippi River on a river boat
  • Travel in a caravan (not a Dodge Caravan, but in a desert caravan through the desert)
  • Travel in a foreign country where the population generally does not speak English
  • Travel through the Bermuda Triangle and feel the “power” that can sink ships
  • Travel through the Panama Canal
  • Travel throughout India
  • Travel to Norway and visit the farm(s) of my ancestors
  • Use acupuncture to treat an ailment
  • Use one of those public toilets made out of one way glass, no one can see inside but you can everything going on outside
  • View the stars from an observatory high on the top of the mountains away from light pollution
  • Visit a chocolate factory
  • Visit a food factory
  • Visit a lighthouse
  • Visit a monastery
  • Visit an Indian temple in India where they worship rats
  • Visit any country in Africa
  • Visit at least one of the 3 Great Mesas on the Hopi Indian Reservation
  • Visit aboriginal sacred spots in Australia
  • Visit Aluru (Ayers) Rock in Australia
  • Visit Catatumbo’s everlasting storms (Venezuela)
  • Visit Cuba
  • Visit Death Valley, preferably during an awesome spring bloom
  • Visit Dubai
  • Visit Grenada’s underwater museum
  • Visit Hong Kong
  • Visit Indonesia
  • Visit Lincoln City, Oregon
  • Visit Madagascar
  • Visit New Zealand
  • Visit Pearl Harbor
  • Visit Petra, Jordan
  • Visit Pompeii
  • Visit Promontory Point where the East—West railroads met
  • Visit Qatar
  • Visit Stonehenge
  • Visit Thailand
  • Visit the Amazon River and surrounding area
  • Visit the Amish and learn about their world
  • Visit the Forbidden City
  • Visit Antony Gormley’s Another  Place statues on Crosby Beach in Liverpool, England
  • Visit the Cheers pub in Boston and eat something there
  • Visit the embassy (located in the US) of a foreign country
  • Visit the Galapagos Islands
  • Visit the Gobi desert
  • Visit the United Nations
  • Visit the Grand Canyon
  • Visit the Hershey Chocolate factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania
  • Visit the Holy Land
  • Visit the Maldives Islands before they completely disappear
  • Visit the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Visit the moors of Ireland
  • Visit the Seychelles Islands before they are gone
  • Visit the Viet Name Memorial in Washington, D.C.
  • Visit Viet Nam
  • Volunteer my time at a free clinic
  • Walk across a foreign country from coast to coast
  • Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge
  • Walk through a big sunflower field
  • Walk on the Great Wall of  China
  • Walk or drive into a dust devil
  • Walk part of the Appalachian Trail
  • Watch a meteor shower somewhere where there is little or no light pollution ⟴
  • Walk across a natural stone arch (bridge) in southern Utah
  • Walk through the  bamboo groves of Hana, Hawaii
  • Watch a sumo wrestling match
  • Watch turtles hatch on a beach and help them get back into the ocean before being eaten by predators
  • Weigh 195 lbs again.  ⟴
  • Win a significant award
  • Witness a flash flood in the desert  ⟴
  • Witness a mudslide
  • Witness a sinkhole
  • Work doing something where I get tips
  • Work in a bakery
  • Work in a bookstore
  • Work in a chocolate shop making awesome chocolate candies
  • Wrap a snake around my neck
  • Write a children’s story book  ⟴  
  • Write a humanitarian column for a newspaper
  • Write and illustrate an ABC children’s book with photographs I’ve taken
  • Write for my grandchildren a book of all the Teedy Weedy adventures I used to tell my children.
  • Write something for the editorial page of a newspaper or magazine and get it published.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Steve, I came across your blog and this is an incredible list you've got!! I'm impressed that you started this list from when you're a kid.. So awesome.. all the best with it! :)

    Best, Ray
    http://twitter.com/raytanys
    http://adre.am

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing this list! I still have so much more to go through on the "things you've done" :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Came across your blog. I'm starting my own and have no whee near as much stuff on my list. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete