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The Life List

I don’t really like the term ‘bucket list,’ as those are usually the types of things you want to do quickly right before you die and I believe you should not wait to do things, because no one is guaranteed a long, happy, or healthy life. But a Life List is a fun and stress free way of keeping track of things that you might want to do to add a little more fun on the journey. Plus they say putting things in print makes them more tangible, more real.

In no specific order:

Finish my PhD – finished in 2021

Change all document to “Dr. Melissa Aho” – done

Join the Explorers Club – became a member (MN ’12) in 2012

Become a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations

Become a Member of The Baker Street Irregulars (BSI)

Get my private pilot license

Get a helicopter rating

Get a float plane rating

Get my instrument rating

Get my drone certificate

Pilot a blimp or zeppelin

Pilot an airplane in each of the 50 states – 3 so far: MN, WI, and AZ

Fly an airplane around the globe

Write and publish a book  “The Machiavellian Librarian” was published in October 2013

Write and publish a Sherlock Holmes book

Write and publish a Sherlock Holmes short story “The Personal Diary of Mrs. Martha Hudson, Housekeeper to the Famed Detective Sherlock Holmes” in The Norwegian Explorers 2016 Christmas Annual, No. 15: The Miss Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Ray Riethmeier and Phillip Bergem, Editors. Minneapolis, MN: The Norwegian Explorers of Minnesota, 45-50.

Write and publish a book of bad poetry and photographs

Write and publish a book on female pilots

Translate an old book or saga and publish it

Have a photographic exhibition

Be an extra in a movie

Have my name in the credits on a movie IMDB credit for being an production intern on the HGTV show TIPical Mary Ellen and I was “thanked” by the Finnish movie “The Fencer”

Be an extra on a TV show – I interned on a HGTV show TIPical Mary Ellen (first season) and my hands were in a episode

Have my name in the liner notes on an album – In the liner notes for donating to Marian Call’s album Something Fierce

Be on a Podcast – 1/2 completed. My song suggestions were on ‘Off The Shelf’ podcast and I was mentioned by name.

Host my own Podcast on Books and Reading  Book Talk with Melissa Aho started in 2017

Buy a book in a bar in Iceland

Visit the oldest bookstore in the world: The Bertrand Bookstore in Lisbon, Portugal

Go on safari in Africa   – Went on safari in Kruger Park in August 2007

Travel the Trans-Siberian Express or what’s left of it

Scooter through Vietnam

Vespa through Italy

Visit Holland during tulip season

Visit McMurdo in the Antarctica

Stay at an ice hotel in Scandinavia

See and go inside the pyramids of Egypt – December 1996

Take a cruise down the Nile – December 1996

Visit Machu Picchu – January 1995

Sail across Lake Titicaca – January 1995 and had lunch with my sister on Isla del Sol

See the Door of the Sun at Tiwanaku, Bolivia – January 1995

Climb the pyramids of Tikal (aka Yavin 4) – July 1992

Go to the top of the Empire State Building

See the heads at Easter Island

See Stonehenge with or without druids

Surf in Easter Island

Walk around Pompeii

Cross the Australian Outback by car or airplane

Circumnavigate the globe

Climb Kilimanjaro or Mount Kenya

Travel Cape to Cairo

Visit Greece and the Parthenon

Spend the night in a “real” castle

See an opera at La Scala

Salsa in Havana, Cuba – July 1998

Tango in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Drive the ALCAN Highway

Sail down the Mississippi River from the Headwaters to NOLA

See the Taj Mahal

Walk along the Great Wall of China

See the Grand Cannon

Visit Oshkosh (the Holy Grail of airplane shows- camping under an airplane optional)

Go to the Kentucky Derby and wear a fancy hat and drink a mint julep

Storm the beaches of Normandy

Travel though each of the 50 states – 18 so far: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Virginia

Visit 100 countries – 15 so far: Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Canada, Cuba, Egypt, France, Germany, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Lesotho, Mexico, South Africa, and United Kingdom

Ride the Vomit Comet

Attend TED

Attend a Presidential Inauguration (had tickets for the 2021 Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden, but did not attend)

Snorkel with manatees in the Florida springs

See a quetzal or a narwhal in the wild

Become fluent in Arabic, French, or Japanese

Buy a piece of Louis Vuitton luggage or a Hermes bag/scarf

Learn to play the violin or mandolin – took a few mandolin lessons in June 2013, tried playing the ukulele in August 2015, and made a 3D violin in September and October 2018

Play chess in New York City’s Central Park

See the Mona Lisa, in the Louvre in Paris – July 2013

Go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower – July 2013 and had champagne

Have my fortune told by a real fortuneteller

Start a business – had a few little businesses that did not work, including Minnesota Expats (the bag biz which closed down), but Second Goldfish (the publishing business) and Melissa Aho LLC (social media biz) still going