Another kind of list

This from our blog:

These days, everyone is talking about their bucket list--that list of things they absolutely want to see/do/accomplish before they kick the bucket. We don't have a bucket list (the idea of doing something just to check it off a list isn't really appealing to us) but we do have a list of things that we would like to see and/or do next. And it has some wonderful and lovely adventures on it.

But we also have another list. That other list contains the things that we've decided just aren't worth the time or trouble. Bungee jumping is on that list. We're not going bungee jumping. Or climbing all seven summits of the seven continents. Nope---just doesn't seem to be the way we want to spend our time. No criticism is implied towards anyone who enjoys these activities, we've just decided they aren't for us.

We even have a name for this list. It's our Phuket list. yeah, we know that this isn't the way you pronounce the name in Thailand. We're not in Thailand. And when we know that something just isn't going to happen for us, we place it our Phuket list.

What's on yours?

I call them nagonnas, but can't quibble over your choice either. Off the top o' my head:

* Vacation in any country consisting primarily of swamps.
* Become vegan, or fast for any reason not related to a medical procedure.
* Own a Toyota.
* Jump from a perfectly good airplane (corollary to the bungee thang). No BASE jumping either.
* Eat fugu.
* Learn the difference between rap and hiphop.
* Travel on a cruise liner.
* Read Dianetics.
* Attend a NASCAR race or cage/ultimate fighting somethingorother.
* Shoot anything from an airplane.

I'm sure there are others.

Trying to keep this potentially infinite subject near to on-topic:

- I will not be thru-hiking any of America's premier long trails. It is enough for me to spend many, many days and nights on the trail each year. I feel no need to pursue a super-hike of epic proportions. 200 miles at a whack is plenty enough for me.

- I will not be trekking in Nepal, or the Andes, or the Alps, or any other "exotic" faraway destinations. I live in the Western part of the Northern hemisphere and there is an embarassment of riches much closer to home. Jetting halfway around the world just for a hike seems to me to be... excessive and ostentatious. If I travel far, it will be for something other than mountain scenery and trails to hike. I've got those already in my native place.

- I will not become a mountain climber. I dabbled with it when I was a young pup and I quickly decided I was a hiker, not a climber. Living on intimate terms with mortal danger and keeping it a fraction of an inch at bay through concentrated focus and will is not my cup of tea.

That's enough for now. I need to pack for a 4-day backpack next week.

How about this one!

http://www.flixxy.com/el-camino-del-rey.htm

Something tells me I could risk my life more quickly and easily, just by ignoring the warning signs and fencing posted near some of my local cliff edges. The Columbia River Gorge is about 45 minutes from my house, and it is full of hikes near high waterfalls, with abundant opportunities to plunge to my death, all for a mere fraction of the cost of flying to Spain to die!

But thanks for thinking of me!

Hah!

I always tell people that I run my own business, I don't need any more excitement in my life!

wow thats some trail in Spain. I used to totally lose it over exposure like that, then I started climbing things that make that trail look like a sidewalk...

umm lets see, I do not have to climb Mt Everest nor the highest peaks on any continents.

I do not need to hike the length of the Amazon.

I no longer need to ride a motorcycle around the world.

I do not need Bigfoots political BS while camping.
Jim

Oh fun! A divisive list of what I consider isn't worth my time, damn whatever other people may think is worth their time. The only thing that I can truly say is on my phuket or "nagonna" list is to own anything other than a Toyota or a '79 Corvette. Well, there is one other thing but it doesn't bear mentioning. Other than that, just about anything is on my list of possibilities. To me there's not really much of a point to making a list of things that I'm "definitely not" going to do. It seems like a waste of time considering that I don't know the future...

Murphy, you're young, we'll chalk this up to youthful exuberence. As kids we are fed the "you can do anything" line, but the truth is, you cannot do everything and as soon as you chose one thing you eliminate a hundred others.

For instance, if you choose to get married, you won't be a surf bum.
If you get a job you won't be hitch hiking around the world.
If you have children you won't be climbing Mt Everest.
If you choose to live in north America, you will not be a gaucho in Argentina.
So frankly eliminating some of them off the top isn't really such a loss as it may seem.
Happy trails whatever your choices.
Jim

I just have a bucket list. Nothing else. Times change. People change. Circumstances change. Something I wouldn't even consider right now may become attractive in 10 years.

Never say never.

Deleted.

I will never:

1) Carry a hydration bladder. I am somehow able to pull a water bottle out of my backpack and drink from it without becoming dangerously dehydrated. Easier to clean too.

2) Carry an ice axe on my internal frame pack. Is there an internal frame pack that does not come with these? Do most people who buy internal frame packs do routine climbing over ice?

3) Chemically treat water after filtering. Assuming the odds of getting sick by drinking unfiltered water are less than 1 in 100, and the filter removes 99% of harmful stuff, that puts the odds of getting sick from drinking filtered water at 1 in 10,000 - good enough for me. Of course, I don't draw my water from the Rio Grande just downstream of Juarez (another thing I will never do).

4) Brag to "greenhorns" about how I hiked the entire Appalacian trail. Number one, it would be a lie, and number two, I don't feel the need to validate myself to others like that even if it were true.

5) Wear spandex while biking or doing anything else for that matter. Too self-conscious.

Well Jim, I am married, with kids, have a job and live in North America. So there are four things you know I won't be doing.

Here are some things that have moved off the bucket list to the other list.
1. Ranger School
2. The "Q" course
3. Airborne School
4. Fighter Pilot Training
5. Sniper School
6. Heart Surgeon
7. Professional Soccer Player

Here are some things that were always on the list:
1. country music singer (I am tone deaf, so it would work out, but I have no desire).
2. Psychologist


How about a list of stuff you don't want to do, but it could still happen:
1. live east of Colorado
2. pay for my kids mouth reconstruction
3. work in sales

Or, a list of stuff you want to do, but won't get the chance:
1. Drive a Lamborghini 200 mph
2. pay off my college debt

Does being President, a Congressman, or a Senator belong on the bucket list or this list?

Great post balzaccom, this is a fun topic and the responses are great too. I have to say that I agree with everyone's "Phuket list" and had to laugh when I read the name of it.

Rick_D's nearly had me rolling on the floor

For me, I know I won't ever build my own car. I spent many years learning how to, and I've been involved in building many cars "From the ground up", but I have no desire to build one for myself. That's No.1 on my Phuket list.

I won't learn "C" code.

I won't plan to hike more than 8 miles in a day. (It's my curiosity that prevents this. It's a strong force and I lose every time I fight it.)

And for me, Glenn, running for a political office is definitely on the Phuket list because winning would be just awful

Why would you not learn "C"? I mean I can understand Java, or Ada or <shudder> Fortran, but good ol' "C"?!

(From a C/C++, Perl, some stupid proprietary language programmer)

Bill, I read your post and couldn't help but think of the movie "The Candidate" At the end of the movie, Robert Redford wins the long shot, on a bet race, turns to his manager with a plantive look on his face and says something on the lines of "Now what do I do?"

My sentiments exactly!

A Perl coder? Wow, that's pretty rare these days

Actually, that's all I use. (Well, I write and hack a little Javascript, but not enough to count for anything).

But since you asked, I'll go ahead and get a little geeky here... I really like Perl. Code written in perl can be very complex, and is often purposely obfuscated to make it seem so, but it can also be very simple and easy to read and follow the logic. It's really a matter of approach.

Personally, I like to write code that is easy to modify, so I never spend time to create tiny "One liners" that do complex processing. Instead I break down the logic and write it out in the clearest possible way, one that I can come back to in a year or two and easily modify any aspect of the function. I also reuse a lot of my, and other peoples, perl code on other projects, so keeping it simple and easy to edit adds to my personal productivity.

But in many ways, I'm pretty much alone in this approach. It doesn't provide the job security that obfuscation does, or the feeling of sweet revenge when someone else has to take over code you've written, or protection against theft, so most coders would never approach it like I do. They also understand that the perception of complexity is often mistaken for brilliance when it comes to coding. I just don't think that way.

Fortunately for me, code written in this simple style of perl often benchmarks faster than more complex and compacted (obfuscated) approaches. Less lines of perl code rarely equates to a faster function or application.

But the real reason I don't want to learn "C" is that I am lazy. And I am over dedicating so much time learning how to use computer based tools. There is no way I could be productive with C code without spending at least a few years really dedicated to learning it and I'd rather go hiking

But I'm glad I learned perl, and for me, creating stuff with it is always fun

I quit coding after learning FORTRAN IV and BASIC. After that it always seemed easier to hire someone else to write programs for me. It was probably cheaper too. Of course this was back in the punch card and paper tape days. I had to carry several large boxes of cards about a mile to the computer center every time I needed to do a string of calculations. If I recall, they used a Cyber 60 machine. Or, it may have been an IBM 360. Turnaround time on most of my jobs was about 2 hours if the computer had a tailwind. If the facts be known, I really hate computers .

"Code written in perl can be very complex, and is often purposely obfuscated to make it seem so, but it can also be very simple and easy to read and follow the logic. It's really a matter of approach."

So, your preferred method is to "cast perl before swine," so to speak?

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Bad Glenn, bad Glenn...

That's pretty funny!

There is actually "Perl Poetry" too. Here's some:



I don't know if it's good poetry or not, but it is a pretty good example of the kind of obfuscated code I will never write. I'm just not that good at hiding what it really does. I do admire the skill though and I suppose at heart I'm "just another perl hacker" too

Pika,
We're probably the only ones here to have run punch cards on a 360 in fourtran.
Jim

I used to make 80 column punch cards for very limited applications on an IBM129 when I was in the army. It was mostly routine work; I just followed instructions and didn't really know what I was doing. I made a couple of instruction/template cards but that was it.

I took a beginning FORTRAN course in the late 1970's (required for accounting majors, for some obscure reason) and well remember all those punch cards!

Needless to say, I never used it again and within a few years I couldn't tell you anything about the stuff!

Hahahaha, this post was exactly what I needed this evening!

First of all, in support of TR's post, "going back to school" was once on my never list, and yet... here I am! Moving back to NC was on that list once too, as was moving to Alaska ("over my dead body" was what I told my ex when he brought it up, daily, for the year before he moved me there). I did actually like living there for a while, but it gets old in time.

To those of you reminiscing about fortran and punchcards, although I never had to learn them myself, I do recall many evenings going with my father to pick up his printouts at the computer center, hours after he had dropped off his stacks of cards. At the time the single computer took up an entire room. The computing center also doubled as a fallout shelter, although thankfully we never had to employ it for that purpose.

When it comes to perl, you guys are spelling it wrong... it is "purl" and it is what you do on a return row after you do a row of "knit."

Boy, I probably have a thousand things I've said I was never going to do, only to find myself doing them, either voluntarily or out of need. There certainly many things I'd like to do, but am unlikely to accomplish. If you really need a list, I am pretty certain I will NEVER be a dental hygienist since I already can't watch anyone brush their teeth, and I will definitely never be 20 again, even in my mind!

Thanks for the laughs, guys!

MNS

20 is highly overrated. Back then, Karol and I were newly married, I was still in college, and we were broke.

Empty nesting, on the other hand, is highly UNDERrated - it's like dating, except this time we have money. And grandchildren to spend it on!

Same here. I remember those days of punching a thick deck of cards, submitting it to be run - then repunching the first error it found, resubmitting it, repunching the second error, resub....I break into a cold sweat just remembering it.

Did some simple application programming on the NCR Century (?) system the savings and loan I worked for had. (Remember S&Ls? Great business model: borrow short and lend long during double-digit inflation.)

Those were NOT the good old days - these are!

360/model 40 for me, had removable disk packs. Strange thing was the center hub aluminum brakes were not round until at full speed. At startup they sqeaked and whined. One Sunday starting up the machine from powerdown ( I had just finished reading Congo!) they made quite a racket... I listened from down the hall, way too spooky after reading that book! Every programmer should start on punch cards!!!

John

I did also. Used the same computer center as Pika.

I remember my old FEA professor talk about it. Does that count?

I remember punch cards, and I had a friend in SoCal that ran a huge computer room filled with machines that used big reels of tape that they spent all night changing.

My first computer was a Commodore 64. Then a Mac Plus. Today's smartphones are way more powerful, and useful, than either of those.

My perl looks like C code - at least that is what I'm told =).

I took Fortran and Quick Basic in High School - and one of my earliest memories of my father was going to work with him when he was called in for emergencies - he was a Main Frame operator and then later a main frame programmer. So I remember punch cards and these huge tape reels.

I have so far been able to squeek by not learning Java or PHP or Ruby on Rails... Java is the only Computer Science class I dropped way back when - I really don't like it. But... work is forcing me to learn it <sigh>. It was on my "other kind of list", but that is how the cookie crumbles. =)

For me it was PASCAL on punch cards. At least it was a summer college night course so we were the only ones using the main frame and it didn't take hours to be told you had a mistake in your second line

Not much on my not list. I'll try most anything once, especially if someone esle if footing the bill