Happy birthday, Double Down!

Eh, I'd just be another case of a geek trying to imitate the popular people and failing miserably.

 

I cannot possibly hope to match Double Down. I won't even try.

However, with my 35th birthday approaching next year, I figure I'd give a list for what I'd like to do in the next 35-plus years.

Starting with the basics because that's where everything has to start:
* I'd like to have that feeling of independence I once had by having my own place. Even if I have to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous roommates for a time.
* I'd like to start making better decisions in my life. I'm not making all the right ones.
* I'd like to lose about 75 pounds.
* I'd like to make it to a major metro daily as a sportswriter.
* I'd like to be a better person and a better journalist.
* I'd like to see the student writers I've mentored do well in journalism.
* I'd like to bungee jump on my 60th birthday.
* I'd like to be able to spend more time with my family while they're still around. Working 60-plus hours a week and keeping up a social life doesn't lend itself well to that.
* I'd like to be able to take a real vacation, not some four-day or five-day "mini-vacation."
* I'd like to get a master's degree in either journalism (and be able to teach college students and set them in the right direction) or history (since I have an avid interest in that field, particularly military history).
* I'd like to find the right person to spend the rest of my life with. Going solo gets old fast.

 

My list will be nowhere near as wonderful as Double Down, but here goes.

-- I want to see Roger Federer play at Wimbledon before he goes downhill

-- I want to finish the weight loss I started two years ago, and I want to drop the last 45 or whatever it is this year.

-- I want to pay off my credit card debt.

-- I want to get married and have babies.

-- I want to teach said babies to play hockey, although if I have none of my own, I'll settle for teaching my sister's babies to play hockey.

-- I want to get a job closer to my parents and siblings. It doesn't have to be at an APSE triple crown winner either, it merely needs to be close enough that I can visit regularly while everybody's still healthy and the babies are still, well, babies.

-- I want to finish my quest to visit all 50 states. I have four to go -- Maine, Florida, Hawaii and Alaska.

-- I want to leave the world a better place than I found it. I'm just not sure how I'll go about doing htat yet.

 

There ain't cowboys (or bodysculptors) in Maine!

 

I'll bring some with me

 

Lobstermen, s'chick. Lobstermen are the ticket.

 

You have a certain wisdom that comes through in your posts. That's why I thought you were much older when I first saw your posts. I never would have thought I was older than you are...

 

Now that you mention it, I do see a certain wisdom when I look at pictures of myself.

 

Damn, not only can DD write dialogue that converses with me from the screen, the guy can get in my head from hundreds of miles away.

BYH is correct. Effin' Chosen One.

Props for a great list (can I go with you to see Arsenal kick the bejesus out of Man Yoo?) and Happy B-Day to one of the reasons to read SportsJournalists.com.