So this is my list of stupidly meaningful things you’re to do before you die. As a warning: this post will probably evolve as I do. And of course, it’s a bit aspirational.

Outstanding:

1. Write a book about something cool and true. Such as Two Years Before the Mast but on a science topic.
2. Learn to shoot a flint-lock, muzzle-loading rifle with true accuracy.
3. Rehab a house myself, with friends and family.
4. Live in Ireland for a few months.
5. Secure admission to a PhD program. Then get insanely great research done, until death.
6. By my middle thirties eliminate the use of ‘like’ from my oral vocabulary.
7. Testify as a expert witness once, like on CSPAN.
8. Take in 10 Bruins home games a year for ten years.

Accomplished:

1. National service (AmeriCorps 1.5 years).
2. Spend 3 months writing diary every day (Summer 2010).
3. Pretentiousness Award (Fall 2010).

That’s about all I can think of, for now. Oh, maybe I’d also like to learn some German, and work there awhile. Seems like a pretty full life to me, though.