Bucket List

How have I gone 12 years of blogging and never done one of these?

PLACES TO SEE

(a) checked off (but may well want to do again)

• Disney World

This has been the trip of my life so far. Story here, here,  here and here (yes, it took four posts to document). Within thirty seconds of arrival, Eva (who has never shown an interest in going back to anywhere...wanted to come back here. And we will. 

• Cabin retreat on a lake. 

Our honeymoon at the Bonnie View Inn on Lake Kashagawigamog near Haliburton, Ontario. I can't say enough good things about this place. The food was exquisite, the honeymoon chalet pure bliss, and they even knocked about fifteen percent off our bill as a surprise honeymoon present.

• Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio

I am a roller coaster aficionado, and Cedar Point is heaven on earth for people like me. Six Flags Magic Mountain has three more coasters...but Cedar Point's are faster and taller. I've been twice, once in 1992 and again in 2003, and I really want to go back.

(b) Yet to see:

There are dozens, scores of places on this earth I would love to see. I intensely envy my friend Jason, a jet-setter whose country count is somewhere in the 120s at this point. Let's try to restrict this to the top ten places/experiences I most want to see and have.

• train trip across Canada
• Cape Breton
• Québec City
• Alaska cruise
• European river cruise (that's cheating, there are a whole bunch of countries and cultures on one of these)
• Scotland--staying in an old castle
• Paris
• Hawai'i
• Pompeii
• The Grand Canyon

THINGS TO HEAR

(a) heard

• Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto (last month!)
• not one but two favourite musical groups, albeit very much of their era (Roxette and The Proclaimers, the latter of whom I've seen twice)
• My favourite balladeer (John McDermott) and my second favourite, Roger Whittaker
• George Carlin, live
• The Vinyl Café Christmas Concert
• The Phantom of the Opera and The Book of Mormon

(b) Left to hear:

• The National (Great Britain) Brass Band Championships
• Mahler's 2nd Symphony
• Marc-André Hamelin
• Hilary Hahn
• Jeff Foxworthy and/or Bill Engvall
• the Just For Laughs Festival in Montréal

THINGS TO DO

(a) Done:

• rode in a helicopter
• travelled in a car doing 220 km/hr (136 mph)--the same day I rode in the helicopter, and I'm going to have to blog about that day soon
• saw the Northern Lights
• got married
• composed music
• learned a language * (enough so that some piece of paper calls me 'fluent', at ant rate

(b) Yet to do:

• write a book. I swear to all the gods that ever were, this one's going to happen. I keep starting and then losing interest, or becoming convinced my few readers will, and petering out. I never seem to get solid ideas even for short stories; one exception, far and away the best piece of fiction I've ever written, is published here and in the subsequent four newer posts. 
• Get my music on to YouTube. I think I have most of the capability in place to do this now (having a piano certainly helps!) but the logistics of it elude me.
• teach someone to play piano. Probably going to be my niece Alexa (Lily too, if she's interested; something tells me the piano isn't going to be quite dangerous enough for her.)
• Acquire enough money to buy the people I love at least one special item. Yes, yes, I know, some of the least dear gifts are the dearest. But just once -- per love -- I'd like to be in a position to indulge my inner Saudi sheik. 
• Read à la recherche du temps perdu (In Search Of Lost Time)
• Watch the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup

That's my list. What's yours?