The Rhino’s bucket list, in no particular order I want to…
Run with the bulls in Pamplona. This one has been dancing in my head since I first read about it some 20+ years ago, thanks to Ernest Hemingway. I’m fast, fleet and sure of foot, and I have a fine, subtle and nuanced appreciation for the completely insane, and look fanfuckingtastic in red and white. This sounds like a party.
Play my guitar in concert, in front of thousands. If running with animals that actually want to shove large sharp things in my intestines sounds like fun, this is fun squared. I think I’m a damn fine musician, I am after all, a legend in my own mind, even if all available evidence says I suck, at least in comparison to anyone who actually plays for a living. Plus, it beats falling off of a mountain.
Climb the Matterhorn. Like running with the bulls, this one is born of reading, in particular Mark Twain’s A Tramp Abroad. Which is why I picked the Matterhorn as opposed to K-2 or Aconcagua or Mt. McKinley. Twain is just that good. Plus, the Matterhorn is half the size of Everest. No reason to start by climbing the biggest one first. I’ll hit that piece of lunacy if I live through this one.
Go to Antarctica. It really sounds like a nice place to live, it being cold as hell, and me liking the cold (in part because I can break a sweat in a blizzard.) No one ever goes there to stay except for scientists who like being alone a lot. What about the rest of us loners? How about non-scientists who would not mind sitting staring at penguins and ice for years at a clip? What about us?
Run an ultra-marathon. I know I can run for 2 hours, I’ve run 2 and a half before. A marathon is not outside the realm of immediate possibility, so I’m setting my sights higher here. I want to see if I can run for an entire day without stopping. I want to know how many miles I can go without stopping. I want to run til I fall apart, then laugh, get up and keep going.
Maybe I can mix those last two together. Good lord & butta, that would be a dream, wouldn’t it?
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Viddy of the day: Antarctic Ice Marathon & 100k
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This, therefore, is a faded dream of the time when I went down into the dust and noise of the Eastern market-place, and with my brain and muscles, with sweat and constant thinking, made others see my visions coming true. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible.
T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom
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Go to Ireland and Poland, and rediscover for myself the roots of both sides of my family tree. I’ve never been home, and I think of both places as home. I am a third generation America, second by at least one telling of it. It is only natural to want to return to the place where the family is actually from, if for no other reason than to see why the hell everyone was so damn eager to get the hell out and come to this rathole.
Learn to surf, then go to Jeffrey’s Bay South Africa, Oahu, and Australia’s gold coast, and surf my ass off. Nothing to say about this, except this just sounds like a million tons of fun. Also toss in deep sea diving on top of this, and maybe change the scenery for diving just a bit.
Run for some local political office. Now this one I could do right now, but to be honest I don’t have the stomach for it, or more appropriately the adrenal glands for it. When confronted in an argument, the adrenaline tends to flow, and arguments turn into shouting matches with me. That whole fight or flight response thing. And I like to fight. A lot. Too much, methinks.
Get a Friggin Job. It’d be nice to have one before I die from lack of work. Can’t afford to sneeze without a job, and can’t do any of it without money that comes from working, so all the others are predicated on this one.
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I get a feeling this list will expand as time goes on and I think more on it.
That’s it from here, America. Go to sleep.
Casus Belli 