Live Forever, Or Die Trying
Topic: Goals
This is a guaranteed success. If I die, I'll have died trying.

So far so good.

That pretty much concludes my goals from childhood. My adult goals are simple: survive another day.

Invent Time Travel
Topic: Goals
This goes right along with my super power of choice.

I didn't just want to be able to travel through time, though. I wanted to be the one that invented it. That way, nobody could get it but people I wanted to get it... namely, nobody but me.

Okay. This was more of a dream than a goal. But I wanted it. I still do.

Play a Role in a Movie or Television Show
Topic: Goals
Nope. Not yet. I have not been filmed in an entertainment capacity, with lines, dialogue, pratfalls, or even a walk-on part.

But most of us haven't.

Which is okay, I guess. I'd like to have done that, but it's not like I'm the only one on my street that hasn't.

It seems kind of trivial now, what with some of the things I have done.

Meh. Who needs it.

Learn To Ride A Unicycle
Topic: Goals
I had a girlfriend when I was 16 that had a unicycle. She could ride it.

I hadn't thought it would be much harder to do than ride a bicycle no-handed... but I was way wrong. I tried once. I failed miserably. I wanted to keep trying, but she wasn't too interested in teaching me, so this goal has gone unfulfilled.

Maybe I'll learn someday.

Learn To Ride A Bicycle With No Hands... Including Turning
Now Playing: Blinded By The Light (Manfred Mann, not the Bruce Springsteen original)
Topic: Goals
Because it looked so cool. I'd see people just kind of gliding along, turning circles and leaning back a little, like they were sitting in a chaise lounge by the poolside instead of coasting on a wire and tube framework at about fifteen miles an hour with no safety equipment. It looked cool.

This, by the way, is the same reasoning most people use when they start smoking. Dangerous? So what... it looks cool.

So anyway, I wanted to do this. I'd try it now and then, and give up when I was afraid I'd destroy my bike, and try again in a few months or something.

And I eventually did, in fact, succeed. Now when I ride a bike, if my hands are touching the handlebars, it's because I want to stop, and that's where the brakes are. Or I'm changing gears.

And no, you cannot get service in the drive-through if you're on a bicycle. I think that's horribly unfair.

Make My Parents Proud
Topic: Goals
I'm almost certain that maybe I've perhaps done this, once or twice.

Probably.

Find a Dinosaur Fossil
Topic: Goals
I've done this. Sort of.

I've found fossils before; who hasn't? They're everywhere. From impressions of ferns, to petoskey stones... fossils are all around. And I've found things like that.

But my childhood goal was to find a complete fossil of an honest-to-by-Gods dinosaur. Brachiosaurus was high on my list of hope-to-find fossils. Or maybe a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Triceratops was neat. I had a model of a flying pteranodon in my bedroom, hanging from my ceiling, for a long time; one of those would have been cool too.

Needless to say, I haven't found one.

So when I heard about that kind that found a whole velociraptor skeleton in Montana a few years back, I wanted to kick him all the way back in time to when the beastie was still moving, and he looked like an hors d'oevre.

Uhm... er... I mean... I was happy for him. Truly.

Pilot Some Kind of Aircraft
Topic: Goals
I'd still love to do this.

The closest I've gotten is flight simulators: most recently, the banshee in Halo which, to quote Ford Prefect, "...looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow."

I wanted to become some kind of pilot for the military. But there's this rule about 20/20 uncorrected vision, so I was ineligible. And pilot's classes are smeggin' expensive.

My first choice of craft, though, if I could afford it, would be a helicopter. Definitely. There's something about an aircraft that can contour fly, fly sideways, backwards, and move in pretty much any direction the pilot wants. It hovers. It takes off and lands on one spot; no runway required. How cool is that? Very, very cool.

But if I were flying an airplane, I'd love to be behind the controls of the SR-71 or YF-12. So fast, you don't hear the passengers screams until you land, and it doesn't matter any more.

Based on my experiences with flight simulators, I don't doubt that I'd never get a pilot's license for conventional aircraft. I could do a helicopter, but landings aren't the kind of thing you'd want to trust me with on anything with wings.

So this is a non-accomplished, but perhaps that's for the best.

Halo
Ford Prefect
A-12/YF-12/SR-71 Images

Become A Martial Arts Expert
Topic: Goals
I studied American Shao Lin in Bremerton. Wa. under Sifu Gilbert Jones. But I didn't get to devote the time and effort into it that I wanted to. I learned just enough to wish I had learned more.

I also learned the dedication and time it takes to become an expert martial artist. You can't do it on the weekends... you have to live it.

Maybe some day, I'll get more training. For now, I'll just try to get in some kind of decent physical condition, just in case a window of opportunity opens again.

Learn to Play Pool Like a Master
Now Playing: pool like an amateur
Topic: Goals
I'm not going to accomplish this one. I can't do masse' shots, I've only intentionally sank more than one ball on the same shot once in my entire life, and I've only dropped a 3 cushion shot once too, and I almost scratched when I did. I'm more lucky than skillful, and I've been referred to as the king of slop more than once.

I'm not a terrible player; I can at least play. I learned a lot from a friend of mine a long while back, named Chuck Boucher (pronounced "Boo-Shay"). He was a master. He could do masse' shots, he could run a table, and he could drop the 9 ball on the break in a game of 9 ball. Every time.

So he taught me some things... strategy, how to use english, following through, stance, how to make a proper bridge, and so on. I never got as good as him, and never will. But I learned how to play without looking totally weak.

Once, I sank a simple shot into a corner pocket. I applied english to the shot in such a way that, after it hit the ball and sank it, it rolled away from it, backward, in the exact opposite direction of the way it had got there. It looked like magic, and felt how magic probably feels, too.

The friend I was playing with said "Wow... that was sweet. Where'd you learn that? I'd have scratched on that, guaranteed." And normally, so would I.

But not that time. That time, I felt like I actually had some skill and finesse, like I almost knew what I was doing... because I did.

I still lost the game. But it was a sweet moment.