Wish List: Explinations

I wanted to tell people the stories of how I accomplished the things on my list. So here in no particular order are my stories.

4. See the world from above the clouds
My time in the army had me flying a lot. To Korea and then to Afghanistan I saw a lot of the world from 32,000 feet and that is definitely above the clouds.

15. Fly (pilot)
The premise of this wish was that I would pilot the aircraft and I got the Chance While I was in Korea. One of my Warrant Officers was doing a maintenance flight, basically he was lifting off, holding a hover, and landing. Since it is not all that big of a deal, he took me up and let me hold the hover for about five minutes. Yes, that sounds boring, but can anyone else reading this say that they "piloted" an Army Apache helicopter?

21. Love someone so much it hurts
There is a small portion of my list that was included because I couldn't have imagined life without those things happening to me, this is one of those. For reasons of my own I will not mention names, but there are times I think about her and still get knots in my stomach.

27. Stop smoking (inside joke sorry)
The inside joke was that I don't smoke. In my office, we would get to take a break every once in a while to smoke, well, I don't smoke, so I would say I am taking a smoke break just to get out of the office for 5 minutes. I got into such a habit of this that my sergeant commented that I should look into quitting.

28. Live abroad
One year in Korea and one year in Afghanistan might not count for some of you but it does for me and as it is my list, (X)

35. Do something unpredictable
After we redeployed to the states from Afghanistan I had a weekend where I really didn't have anything to do. All my buddies were home on leave and I was left to my own devices. I was planning on seeing a movie that night but I never made it to the theater. I started driving and made a wrong turn that put me on 421 south. I decided that I really didn't care where I went and was in the mood to drive. I reached the Atlantic coast a few hours later, in the town of Southport, NC. I watched the sun rise and had breakfast at this little greasy skillet on the shore and headed home.

195. watch the sun rise on the beach
See the story for #35.

46. Learn to swim
This may seem pretty lame to some but I have a very rational fear of drowning, so I thought, to give myself more time to complete the rest of my list it would prove a handy skill.

68. Be a knight
In the fall of 2009, after moving back to Columbus, I was knighted and included in the Knights of Columbus. Since there are not to many chivalric orders still around today, this will do.

87. Cuddle up and watch White Christmas with someone I love
Christmas 2008, I introduced the magic of Irving Berlin to Goldie, a friend in Lexington, KY.

89. Celebrate a birthday twice
While stationed in Korea, on the other side of the International Date Line, I arranged for my leave to start on my birthday. I took off from Inchon Airport outside Seoul around 7 am, crossed the IDL, where it was the afternoon of the day before. When I landed in Atlanta, I celebrated turning 21 for the second time in 24 hours.

110. Be someone’s conscience
In my life I have had a few people take me into their confidence, I take a little pride in know that people trust me enough to confide in me, confidence booster.

118. Admit my favorite movie to someone
In high school I was afraid of the question, "What's your favorite movie?" It is a stupid thing to lie about but I would every time. I am comfortable enough with myself now that I can say that Breakfast at Tiffany's with Audrey Hepburn is my favorite movie, hands down.

133. Be quoted
I love posting on forums about nothing. I came across a forum topic of all things awesome, in which the soda from the late 90's, Surge, was discussed. We were discussing how awesome it was and I contributed "It is so awesome, I think an old lady died from the awesomeness." One of the posters thought this was kewl enough for his signature on that forum. Six months later I was scanning a forum for WOW and came across my quote, I asked the user where he had heard it and he told me he pulled it from a signature he had seen on another forum, it had worked it's way through at least three forums. That is Awesome!

167. Live on a farm
After I left the Army, I moved in with my grandmother in Kentucky, where she runs a small farm, with chickens.

179. Work at a museum
For three months at Ft. Bragg, I was assigned to the detail that maintained the 82nd War Memorial Museum.

184. Watch all three lord of the rings movies back to back
CAUTION: Do not attempt unless you have the entire weekend, plenty of snacks and beverages.
It was a very long weekend after we redeployed. Again all my buddies were home on leave, and I didn't have gas money. :)

That is everything I have done so far, stay tuned for more updates and stories.