1. Do-It-Yourself TV Stand and/or Entertainment Center Part 1: Plans and Stuff to By – It’s a crappy entertainment center, but that title is such tasty search engine bait. How could Google resist? How could someone looking for “diy entertainment center” resist? (I’m omitting parts 2-4 from this list; they’d occupy spots 2-4 if I included them. Because it’s kind of a crappy entertainment center. It’s falling apart even as I type. It probably didn’t deserve to make the move.)
2. US War Deaths by Day by Conflict (War, Battle) and How Iraq Compares – More good SEO-bait in the title, but at least this time it’s sort of a worthwhile article. Gives some perspective and all. Korea was way worse than anyone gives it credit for.
3. More B-52 Photos, By Request (Plus a Couple Pics of AMARG) – SEO-centric title, yep. And, fwiw, the post delivers as promised. The photos look warm.
4. My First Red Egg and Ginger Party – Turns out other non-Chinese people also don’t know what gift is appropriate at one of these (money in a red envelope is the right answer).
5. Getting Closer: My Do-It-Yourself Kitchen Table Project So Far – The title was not written to impress you, it was written to impress an algorithm. Algorithms have no soul (I don’t think). And right now the table is in the garage holding up my compound miter saw.
6. Spooky Gulch, Peek-a-Boo Gulch, and Dry Fork Hike – Yeah, it’s probably a hike everyone should go on in their lifetime (unless they’re claustrophobic or exceptionally wide-hipped).
7. Elwha Valley, Humes Ranch Loop, and Goblin Gate (A Six-Mile Hike) – I’ve posted less-read articles about much more interesting hikes. Goblins Gate is cool, but the rest is a tree prison. Hopefully those that read the post last year now understand as much.
8. Trip to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park(s?) – The follow-on post about General Sherman and General Grant was immediately below this one in the rankings, but it’s sort of the same post, so not included. Big trees, much snow, many photos. Well — a *few* photos.
9. Planes of Fame Air Show 2009: Old Planes in the 909 – I went to this air show. It’s a lot better than you’d expect an air show in Chino to be. Many WWII-vintage planes in the air.
10. Gantt Chart for My Home Renovation Project (in Pittsburgh) – Yeah, so I didn’t really keep to the schedule, unfortunately. If I had — just, wow.

And for what it’s worth, here were the top five images viewed. These only count if they were viewed as a separate page, which probably only usually happened if they were found through Google or Bing image search.

1. Ford Tri-Motor Interior – It’s a photo of the interior of a Ford Tri-Motor (passenger) airplane located at the Evergreen Aerospace Museum. It’s a nice photo. I’d want to look at it.
2. Gantt Chart – It’s the Gantt Chart from above. Not very photographic, but it gives the appearance of having planned.
3. P-40 Warhawk Flying Tiger – From the same collection as the tri-motor above, only this one has a drip pan!
4. Trigger Finger Splints (1) – Way better than Trigger Finger Splints (2). It shows off my trigger finger splints.
5. Forbes Field Outfield Wall – And now I see this wall *every* *single* *day* (unless I don’t go to school, in which case I don’t see the wall).

So now you know and, assuming that knowing remains half the battle, that makes this useful.

bkd

1. Shawshank Redemption – Loved it; in my personal top 10. Speaks to the idea of hope without feeling cloying; the characters deserve the ends they get.
2. The Godfather – I just don’t care about gangsters. That said, it’s a very compelling, interesting movie and I have a hard time arguing with its belovedness.
3. The Godfather II – Ibid.
4. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – I liked it. It’s not my fourth-favorite movie or anything and the Italian extras trying to play civil war soldiers are, IMHO, unintentionally funny. But I liked it a lot. Eli Wallach ftw.
5. Pulp Fiction – A lot of fun and violence. I should probably watch it again and see if there’s anything more to it than that, but, you know, fun and violence are good either way.
6. Schindler’s List – Overrated, under-interesting. Any PBS or History Channel program on the holocaust is more moving (if perhaps only due to lack of editorial). Little plot, no surprise, and the black-and-white is, I think, just an attempt to make the masses think they’ve watched and comprehended something “arty”. Life Is Beautiful was way better, frex. It had a plot and some emotional resonance.
7. Inception – Haven’t seen.
8. 12 Angry Men – Kind of cool. It’s sort of a small movie, but it’s a good lesson about how a group of people who are foolish in the first place can easily get brow-beaten by Henry Fonda. Wait — that *was* the message, right?
9. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Kind of boring. Not much happened. Didn’t see any reason to care about any of the characters. Now what?
10. The Dark Knight – There was a fantastic 90-minute brainless action movie in here just trying to get out. Alas. [My earlier review.]
11. The Empire Strikes Back – Given its iconic status and that I loved it as an eight-year-old, calling it “still watchable” should probably serve as high praise.
12. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – Awful on many, many levels. In Peter Jackson’s defense, most of the flaws came from the source material. Why didn’t the eagles come at the *start* of the journey? How come it hadn’t occurred to anyone any earlier that a bunch of ghosts owed Aragorn a favor? Why were the main characters so blasé about everybody in their army dying such that they were making jokes about how many bad guys they’d killed? Who thought it was a good idea to include a scene where a hobbit sings while some dude eats tomatoes with his mouth open? How come Gandalf could only see the future in ways that didn’t matter? Why were there eight different endings, none of which were the right one? Man. As Terry Brown once said, this was the first movie that won Best Picture based on quantity of work rather than quality.
13. Seven Samurai – Haven’t seen.
14. Star Wars (A New Hope) – Wooden characters, stilted dialogue, loved it when I was five years old, but now it’s unwatchable. Yeah, I know, I’m worse than Hitler.
15. Fight Club – Haven’t seen.
16. Goodfellas – Haven’t seen.
17. Casablanca – It’s okay. In 2008 I typed: Some great one-liners, but the plot’s unclear. Is Rick the main character? What’s he trying to achieve? Should I be happy at how it ends? I probably would have liked it better if I hadn’t been told it was the third greatest movie ever. I probably would have.
18. City of God – This is my cousin’s former favorite movie. It was pretty good, although it sort of felt like every movie I’ve seen about violence in poor neighborhoods.
19. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring – I still kind of like this one. There’s so much potential in here. The scary parts are actually kind of scary. The characters are dynamic. Their actions seem to matter. It’s a beautiful movie on the screen and in 5.1 surround and it’s nice how it doesn’t insult you at every turn.
20. Once Upon a Time in the West – A little long and the music was kind of cheesy, but there are some really beautifully put-together scenes in here (e.g., the opening) and I like it enough to own it.
21. Rear Window – Every Hitchcock movie is sort of the same to me. Fun to watch the first time, not much reason to go back to it.
22. Raiders of the Lost Ark – Some time between 1981 and 2006 this movie became unwatchable for me. Sad.
23. The Matrix – Cool concept. Characters and story were flat, but the concept — the *concept*!
24. Psycho – Haven’t seen.
25. The Usual Suspects – Not bad. I think the twist is unfair, though. There’s no real way to suspect who the bad guy is, which left me feeling like someone had just been yanking my chain the whole time. And it has one of the untalented Baldwin brothers in it, which isn’t a plus.
26. Silence of the Lambs – Haven’t seen.
27. Toy Story 3 – Very funny movie, although I think I liked the first two better.
28. Se7en – Haven’t seen.
29. It’s a Wonderful Life – Haven’t seen.
30. Memento – Kind of a challenge to keep up with, which I liked a lot.
31. Lord of the Rings: Two Towers – Atrociously awful. Three hours of filler, none of which impacted the overall story of the trilogy. No character development and nothing important happened. CGI for its own sake. Rancid.
32. Sunset Blvd. – A role where William Holden’s overacting actually fits the character. Fun and dark and full of implication about what Hollywood in the 1950s was probably like.
33. Forrest Gump – Meh. I liked it a lot the first time through. Upon further review, it seems utterly cynical in its message that, in order to get ahead in life the key thing to do is not try very hard and let things fall into your lap. Forrest should have let Lt. Dan die. OTOH, this is where I first heard the story of Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, which I encountered again in Tennessee last year.
34. The Professional – Haven’t seen.
35. Dr. Strangelove – I think I like this one a lot, although part of me thinks that I only like it because I feel like it’s a movie that I *should* like. ::shrug:: I enjoyed seeing George C. Scott do comedy and there are a number of lines from this movie that stick with me.
36. Apocalypse Now – Also in my personal Top 10. Awesome characters and does a brilliant thing in weaving an actual story into an absurd and wacky setting with so many messed-up characters. I felt like I learned a few things about human nature from this movie (e.g., “F—, man, this is better than Disneyland!”).
37. Citizen Kane – Lovely camera angles. Banal plot, but, you know, *lovely* camera angles.
38. North by Northwest – Seriously, all of Hitchcock’s movies run together. Yeah, I know, Mt. Rushmore and the plane in the corn fields. I liked it the first time I watched it.
39. American Beauty – Haven’t seen.
40. American History X – Didn’t feel like a complete movie to me, but I remember liking a lot about it. Felt like it pulled its punches toward the end maybe.
41. Taxi Driver – Haven’t seen.
42. Terminator 2: Judgment Day – Haven’t seen.
43. Saving Private Ryan – I have mixed emotions about it. I loved it the first time I saw it. The D-Day montage is jaw-dropping, but having since read enough about WWII to know better, seems a little disingenuous (in the sense that no one person would have seen a tenth of the extreme instances shown in these 15 minutes of the film). I also think that the ending is a little contrived and too conventional. A lot of the in-between sticks with me, though. Also importantly: the pinnacle of Vin Diesel’s career. Giovanni Ribisi’s too. Probably Nathan Fillian’s and Ted Danson’s also. Huh.
44. Vertigo – Hitchcock. See above.
45. Amélie – Haven’t seen.
46. Alien – Haven’t seen as such.
47. WALL-E – Liked it, especially the first half-hour. I thought it was amazing how much character, setting, and plot were conveyed during that time of no dialogue. Things got a little silly and slow once they got in the ship, though. IMHO.
48. Spirited Away – Haven’t seen.
49. The Shining – I like Stanley Kubrick and this movie is effective for me. The masks haunt even still.
50. Paths of Glory – Haven’t seen.
51. Lawrence of Arabia – Remember liking it when I watched it, but then again I watched it when I was in high school as part of a class and I may have just been happy to not be having to sit through a lecture. Do high school teachers give “lectures”? Whatever it is they do. At this point I mostly just remember the Turkish guy coughing.
52. Black Swan – Haven’t seen. IMDB users often overrate newer movies.
53. Double Indemnity – Haven’t seen.
54. The Pianist – Haven’t seen.
55. A Clockwork Orange – Really, really effective. I don’t know that I can say I “like” a movie like this, but — yeah. I like how effective it is; another one that haunts and sticks.
56. To Kill a Mockingbird – Saw in ninth grade, I think.
57. The Lives of Others – Liked a lot; kind of surprising it’s rated so highly, it being foreign and all. The ending felt like it was a little drawn out the first time I watched it, but I didn’t feel that way the second time. Tense and captivating.
58. City Lights – Haven’t seen.
59. M – Haven’t seen.
60. The Departed – Poster boy for everything I don’t like about Martin Scorcese. Scorsese. Whatever. Want more on why this movie sucks? Here’s a blog post I wrote in 2007 entitled “The Departed Wasn’t a Very Good Movie“.
61. Aliens – Haven’t seen.
62. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – I liked the concept and it seemed like the movie almost lived up to it (but not quite).
63. Requiem for a Dream – Haven’t seen.
64. Das Boot – This might be the first war movie that I really liked. I still really like it, I think. I imagine the inside of that submarine didn’t smell very good.
65. The Third Man – Haven’t seen.
66. Reservoir Dogs – Haven’t seen.
67. L.A. Confidential – Also probably in my Top 10. Loved it; better than Cats.
68. Chinatown – Felt tired and like something I’d seen a thousand times before. I’ve been told that this is only because Chinatown was the first-ever movie like this. Fine, but now it feels tired and like something I’ve seen a thousand times before. OTOH, includes some stunning footage of the LA River…
69. Modern Times – Tried to watch; failed due to lack of patience. I’m not a film student, no.
70. Treasure of the Sierra Madre – To quote myself: A painful experience. That crazy old guy alone would have been too much to take. Boring dialog and no reason for me to care about the characters.
71. Life Is Beautiful – Fortunately they were sent to the concentration camp because I couldn’t take any more of that self-indulgent Italian guy trying to act “funny”. Once they got to the camp, though, this movie rawked.
72. Back to the Future – I worry that if I watch this movie again I’ll end up hating it just like I now have to hate Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Right now my memories of it are still innocent and pleasant.
73. Monte Python and the Holy Grail – There were maybe ten years in my life when I thought Monte Python was funny. Those are in the past now.
74. The Prestige – Haven’t seen.
75. Pan’s Labyrinth – Meh? Spanish girl. Some guy gets his mouth slit open, but he was kind of a jerk, so maybe that was all right. Yeah, meh.
76. Raging Bull – Way better than The Departed. A little over-long maybe, but otherwise compelling.
77. Cinema Paradiso – Haven’t seen.
78. Singin’ in the Rain – Haven’t seen. Probably now too tainted by A Clockwork Orange to watch with an open mind.
79. Some Like It Hot – Haven’t seen.
80. The Bridge on the River Kwai – Top 10 list probably. William Holden is a little hard to stomach, but I love the contrasts between Americans, British, and Japanese. “I thought you were the enemy, sir.” “Well I’m an American if that’s what you mean.” Yeah.
81. Rashomon – Haven’t seen.
82. All About Eve – Haven’t seen.
83. Amadeus – It’s a very 80s movie, but I still probably like it.
84. Once Upon a Time in America – Haven’t seen.
85. The Green Mile – Felt like a movie that was trying to cash in on Shawshank Redemption‘s halo. It was all right I guess.
86. Full Metal Jacket – Two movies in one! I liked the first one a lot better than the second one. The second one just felt like a generic Vietnam War movie. Having a character named “Animal Mother” doesn’t make a movie interesting in itself. IMHO. R. Lee Ermey ftw though.
87. Bicycle Thieves – Haven’t seen.
88. 2001: A Space Odyssey – I mean, yeah. It’s slow and mostly plotless. Interesting-enough vision of the future, but, you know, none of that vision has come true. Maybe HAL still will. I’ll give it some more time. Not my favorite Kubrick movie; I liked Barry Lyndon better, frex.
89. The Great Dictator – Tried to watch recently; failed. Chaplin is just too twee for me. I mean, it’s 2011, of course he is.
90. Inglorious Basterds – Haven’t seen.
91. Braveheart – I really loved this movie back in the day. I think I started liking it somewhat less when I found out that by “freedom” in the end, they meant that the Scots won the war. I liked it better when I used to think that they all died in the end and were in that sense “free”. Regardless, a lot of very nice violence.
92. The Apartment – Haven’t seen.
93. Downfall – I wanted this to be better than it was. I didn’t hate it, just didn’t think it was special. Came across as a little dry maybe. Could be I know too much history to find sufficient novelty in the story or characterizations, but whatever. I mean, it had occurred to me before watching this movie that Hitler was, in fact, also a human.
94. Up – It was okay. A little bit more of a downer than I wanted it to be. Also didn’t really like its message that taking out the garbage every Thursday *is* an adventure. It’s not, I swear.
95. Gran Torino – Haven’t seen. Mean to.
96. Metropolis – Heh. I mean, you know. It’s hard to watch this as a 2011er. You have to watch it with context, which, I dunno, seems a bit much. Frex, you can watch and enjoy Mozart’s Don Giovanni and not have to keep telling yourself that, you know, this is *really novel* for 1787! Metropolis, by contrast, comes across like simplistic, socialist (or fascist?) political scree. There’s little emotion in it and the plot and characters serve only the message. Maybe it was novel for its time, but, again: not a film student, don’t have to care.
97. Gladiator – Loved it when it first came out. Like it less now. I still love, though, the recurring theme of the guy dragging his hand through the wheat, which doesn’t have a lot of meaning early on in the movie, but by the end is very, very powerful. The Danish woman who played, well, the woman, had kind of a crappy accent and wooden delivery. Joaquin Phoenix was fun to watch. Ridley Scott spent a lot of time in his commentary talking about how much money he saved by reusing sets.
98. The Sting – Haven’t seen.
99. Unforgiven – Greatest movie of all time. All the movies Eastwood directs have great scenes in them. This is the one where the scenes all work together. Has some fantastic, memorable lines in it. The scene where they shoot the first cowboy is the most uncomfortable assassination ever. “Take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.” It’s an unusual movie that can pay homage while debunking mythology.
100. The Maltese Falcon – No. Just no.

~ Fin ~

bkd

Posted this list originally here. Now updating!

I no longer think that I necessarily need to see every single US National Park before I die. The hamburger list has left me a changed man. OTOH, I’m pretty interested in going to Samoa now, so, you know. Things change. Alpha by park and I bolded the ones I visited while on the recent cross-country road trip:

1. Acadia: visited on road trip.
2. American Samoa National Park: not visited.
3. Arches: visited! A few times, back in Utah days. Very pretty. I like Canyonlands better, though. There can be only one.
4. Badlands: not visited.
5. Big Bend: visited on road trip.
6. Biscayne: not visited.
7. Black Canyon of the Gunnison: not visited.
8. Bryce Canyon: visited! Very photogenic and pretty small for a western-US park.
9. Canyonlands: visited! Way prettier than I expected and seemingly less crowded than the other Southern Utah parks.
10. Capital Capitol Reef: visited on road trip.
11. Carlsbad Caverns: visited on road trip.
12. Channel Islands: not visited.
13. Congaree: visited on road trip.
14. Crater Lake: visited on road trip.
15. Cuyahoga: I sort of drove through it. Half credit?
16. Death Valley: visited! Went last November and took photos. I didn’t think it was so amazing when I was there, but some of those pictures make it look dang pretty.
17. Denali: not visited.
18. Dry Tortugas: not visited.
19. Everglades: not visited.
20. Gates of the Arctic: not visited.
21. Glacier: visited on road trip.
22. Glacier Bay: not visited.
23. Grand Canyon: visited! And I’ve always meant to go back to hike and see what there is to see on the northern rim. Some day, some day. For that matter, some day I’m going to buy a scanner and scan all my conventional photos from pre-digital days. Just not today.
24. Grand Teton: visited! Another one I should probably go back to in order to actually explore. The family reunion we had there didn’t involve much of the park. (Visited again on the road trip, fwiw.)
25. Great Basin: not visited.
26. Great Sand Dunes: not visited. (Seriously? “Great” Sand Dunes…? I should probably visit just to confirm/refute my skepticism.)
27. Great Smoky Mountains: visited on road trip.
28. Guadalupe Mountains: visited on road trip.
29. Haleakala: not visited. Next Hawaii trip though. Maybe.
30. Hawaii Volcanoes: not visited. February! (Hopefully.)
31. Hot Springs: drove through it on road trip and, since that’s about all there is to do there other than getting naked and bathing, I’m counting it. I ate lunch there.
32. Isle Royale: not visited.
33. Joshua Tree: visited! Was interesting enough the first time, but the second time, well — I kind of figure that my second trip to Mars will also reveal the destination to be a desolate, ultimately uninteresting landscape.
34. Katmai: not visited.
35. Kenai Fjords: not visited.
36. Kings Canyon: visited! (So they are separate parks!)
37. Kobuk Valley: not visited.
38. Lake Clark: not visited. Is there any part of Alaska that’s not a national park? And I sort of get the sense that they have all these parks because there was no one who wanted to live there anyway.
39. Lassen Volcanic: visited on road trip.
40. Mammoth Cave: visited on road trip.
41. Mesa Verde: visited! I remember being hot and very, very sleepy — but a fun trip with Fresh Goat and ErinJ and at least one of the goatlings. I think JA was on that trip too.
42. Mt. Rainier: visited! Many times, but most recently evidenced here. Also visited on road trip.
43. North Cascades: visited!
44. Olympic: visited! Some day I want to go when it isn’t fogged over, though. And I should probably go to the beach and rain forest side of it one of these days. Re-visited on road trip.
45. Petrified Forest: not visited.
46. Redwood: not visited. Probably this weekend though.
47. Rocky Mountain: not visited.
48. Saguaro: not visited. I don’t think — although this photo was taken really, really close to the park entrance.
49. Sequoia: visited! Big trees. Big trees.
50. Shenandoah: visited on road trip.
51. Theodore Roosevelt: visited on road trip.
52. Virgin Islands: not visited.
53. Voyageurs: not visited.
54. Wind Cave: visited on road trip (again, just drove through it, but I saw caves in the area, looked at *more* bison in the park — I’m counting it).
55. Wrangell-St. Elias: not visited.
56. Yellowstone: visited! I was a kid, though, so mostly I remember the smell of sulfur and a geyser. Visited again on road trip.
57. Yosemite: visited on road trip.
58. Zion: visited! And the Virgin River Narrows was the best hike ever.

Okay, so: barely mostly (31 1/2 of 58). Still technically correct.

bkd

1. Acadia: not visited.
2. American Samoa National Park: not visited.
3. Arches: visited! A few times, back in Utah days. Very pretty. I like Canyonlands better, though. There can be only one.
4. Badlands: not visited.
5. Big Bend: not visited.
6. Biscayne: not visited.
7. Black Canyon of the Gunnison: not visited.
8. Bryce Canyon: visited! Very photogenic and pretty small for a western-US park.
9. Canyonlands: visited! Way prettier than I expected and seemingly less crowded than the other Southern Utah parks.
10. Capital Reef: not visited.
11. Carlsbad Caverns: not visited.
12. Channel Islands: not visited.
13. Congaree: not visited.
14. Crater Lake: not visited.
15. Cuyahoga: not visited.
16. Death Valley: visited! Went last November and took photos. Y’know, I didn’t think it was all that amazing when I was there, but some of those pictures make it look dang pretty.
17. Denali: not visited.
18. Dry Tortugas: not visited.
19. Everglades: not visited.
20. Gates of the Arctic: not visited.
21. Glacier: not visited.
22. Glacier Bay: not visited.
23. Grand Canyon: visited! And I’ve always meant to go back to hike and see what there is to see on the northern rim. Some day, some day. For that matter, some day I’m going to buy a scanner and scan all my conventional photos from pre-digital days. Just not today.
24. Grand Teton: visited! Another one I should probably go back to in order to actually explore. The family reunion we had there didn’t involve much of the park.
25. Great Basin: not visited.
26. Great Sand Dunes: not visited. (Seriously? “Great” Sand Dunes…? I should probably visit just to confirm/refute my skepticism.)
27. Great Smoky Mountains: not visited.
28. Guadalupe Mountains: not visited.
29. Haleakala: not visited. Next Hawaii trip though. Maybe.
30. Hawaii Volcanoes: not visited. Ibid.
31. Hot Springs: not visited.
32. Isle Royale: not visited.
33. Joshua Tree: visited! Was interesting enough the first time, but the second time, well — I kind of figure that my second trip to Mars will also reveal the destination to be a desolate, ultimately uninteresting landscape.
34. Katmai: not visited.
35. Kenai Fjords: not visited.
36. Kings Canyon: visited! (So they are separate parks!)
37. Kobuk Valley: not visited.
38. Lake Clark: not visited. Is there any part of Alaska that’s not a national park? And I sort of get the sense that they have all these parks because there was no one who wanted to live there anyway.
39. Lassen Volcanic: not visited.
40. Mammoth Cave: not visited.
41. Mesa Verde: visited! I remember being hot and very, very sleepy — but a fun trip with Fresh Goat and ErinJ and at least one of the goatlings. I think JA was on that trip too.
42. Mt. Rainier: visited! Many times, but most recently evidenced here.
43. North Cascades: visited!
44. Olympic: visited! Some day I want to go when it isn’t fogged over, though. And I should probably go to the beach and rain forest side of it one of these days.
45. Petrified Forest: not visited.
46. Redwood: not visited.
47. Rocky Mountain: not visited.
48. Saguaro: not visited. I don’t think — although this photo was taken really, really close to the park entrance.
49. Sequoia: visited! Big trees. Big trees.
50. Shenandoah: not visited.
51. Theodore Roosevelt: not visited.
52. Virgin Islands: not visited.
53. Voyageurs: not visited.
54. Wind Cave: not visited.
55. Wrangell-St. Elias: not visited.
56. Yellowstone: visited! I was a kid, though, so mostly I remember the smell of sulfur and a geyser.
57. Yosemite: not visited.
58. Zion: visited! And the Virgin River Narrows was the best hike ever.

If I ever get around to the 48-state trip, I should be able to knock a bunch of these off the list. And then I’ll have to do that driving trip up to and through Alaska. Then I can die. I mean, eventually.

bkd