This is my first “Filch It Friday” post as part of Nutmeg’s blogging carnival.

There’s a blog I keep up with (when time permits) that recently had a post I couldn’t get out of my head for several days. She called it “100 Things Before I go.” I think I’d call it instructions for grabbing life by the short & curlies. Here are some of mine, in no particular order or quantity:

1. Run a mile in under 5:48. That’s my personal best, accomplished 25 years ago.
2. Be a pseudo astronaut. Price tag? About $20K in 5-10 years or $200K in a year or two.
3. Run with the bulls in Pamplona.
4. Teach my daughter Spanish (to the extent of my knowledge, which isn’t much).
5. Learn Chinese with my daughter.
6. Learn to be a smart investor.
7. Teach my kids to be smart investors.
8. Hire a really good interior decorator.
9. Jump out of a perfectly good airplane. But maybe when I’m 70. Y’know, so if something goes south, I still had a pretty good run.
10. Teach my son how to build things well.
11. Teach my kids how to be better entrepreneurs than their dad.
12. Write a novel.
13. Own a sports car.
14. Learn to play “Dueling Banjos” (for real).
15. Bench press 250 pounds.
16. Run a dog boarding kennel. (retirement job)
17. Visit some authentic Zen gardens in Japan for a week.
18. Compete in the Olympics. So long as curling is a medal sport, I figure I have a shot until about age 60.
19. Go fishing with my dad.
20. Visit some acquaintances in Australia I met online.
21. Spend a week in the Louvre.
22. Drive the autobahn. In a Porsche.
23. Seduce Diane in France. Or Italy. Or Spain. (Or all three.)
24. Teach my kids to play a musical instrument.
25. Walk China’s Great Wall
26. See the Terracotta Warriors.
27. Make a return visit to the Mayan pyramids in Mexico.
28. Walk the Parthenon.
29. Keep an apartment in the downtown part of a big city, just to visit once in awhile.
30. Find someone in need of help and turn around their financial life (in the spirit of “teach a man to fish”).
31. Drink a pint in Ireland.
32. Spend a week in Moscow.
33. Get a pilot’s license.
34. Get an hour or two of telescope time at Keck.

(Note - Some on my list are pipe dreams - but those are really the best ones, aren’t they?)