My Life Goals

Last updated 2025-06-02

Or alternatively titled "Things To Do Before I Die".

There's some cross-referencing among the items, so I've added labels in boldface and/or dependencies (dep) in parentheses where necessary.

Art

  • Learn bass (bass) (playing bass right now)
  • Get enough vocal training to not sound terrible
  • Learn basic music theory at least I know what major chords are
  • Record a song I made plenty of music and published them
  • Start playing drums again (drum)
  • Join a rock band as bassist (dep: bass) or drummer (dep: drum)
  • Go to a twenty øne piløts concert (dep: umich) AAAAAAAA clanky tour my life is complete
  • Buy Trench (2018) on CD or cassette I bought a CD!
  • Go to an IDKHOW concert (dep: umich) Checked as of 2024-04-05
  • Go to a MCR concert (dep: umich)
  • Go to a Green Day concert (dep: umich) Saviors Tour Detroit, 2024-09-04
  • Learn to properly rap the entirety of Car Radio
  • Learn to play Jesus Of Suburbia on bass
  • Learn to play Paranoid Android on bass
  • Get more stickers (three times now)
  • Get a few figurines or little artifacts on my desktop Painted a figurine of my fursona
  • Get a hammer and a sickle to put on my wall
  • Commission an artist I have my first commission of my life by Nelson Lopez
  • Have something signed by, or take a photo with an artist I know
  • Make a furry comic

University

  • Get a bachelor's degree in ECE
  • Get offer from UMich (umich)
  • Get a bachelor's in CE at UMich
  • Get a master's
  • Publish a paper of some sort somewhere and snail mail my friends signed copies of it
  • Become head of tech dep't of student union I made it through one year of tenure
  • Become TA of Intro to Comp Engr I got the job and made it through the semester!

Engineering

  • Get access to a machine shop There is one in uni
  • Use the lathe
  • Use milling machine
  • Use electric drill
  • Learn to make PCBs like a professional (pro-pcb, dep: reflow) (I took EECS 473 so technically I get to check this off)
  • Get an oscilloscope
  • Learn to use an oscilloscope
  • Learn reflow soldering (reflow) Check out Reflow Workshop
  • Host a reflow soldering workshop (dep: reflow) (It's finally over)
  • Try more embedded development (Took EECS 373 which was a massive pain and I'm not remotely proud of what we made but technically I get to check this off)
  • Get a PinePhone Pro and hack it
  • This is gonna sound like an sponsorship but it's not. Get a Pinecil, PineTab, PinePower, PineNote and PineBuds
  • Make a submarine. Around 2 liters in volume, uncrewed (obviously)
  • Make my kid(s) a custom calculator to avoid those lame Casios, assuming they'd still use those for math 20 years later (calc, dep: kid, pro-pcb)
  • Go to my high school machine shop and help out my engineering teacher and his FRC team
  • Learn to make better 3D models
  • Learn to operate a 3D printer
  • Design a PCB namecard or badge that is functional in at least one way (this one's on the works)
  • Document development of a project in a video
  • Use the V-USB library somewhere
  • Make a portable electronic musical instrument
  • Make a computer keyboard do something else while looking the same
  • Use an e-ink screen in a project, probably the custom calculator I used it in the Live Caption Badge
  • Make an elliptical reflector dish
  • Write some assembly wrote some for EECS 370
  • Try an ARM SBC I just realized I have a Raspberry Pi
  • Try writing STM32 C did some of this for EECS 373. The code style ST uses is terrible (2 spaces, line break before curly brace, CamelAndSnake_Case, uppercase function names)
  • Try a RISC-V SBC Got a LicheeRV Nano from a friend
  • Make a weird-looking USB flash drive I made one out of a covid rapid test box
  • Give someone something handmade as a gift I gave a blobcat PCB to my friend
  • Use an Espressif SoC on a PCB I soldered a ESP32-S3-WROOM on the Live Caption Badge
  • Make something that is not, but looks like an electrolytic capacitor

Computer

  • DIY a desktop computer, which conceivably will run Arch Linux and KDE
  • Get a proper OpenWRT router at home
  • Configure neovim "just the way I want" and not change it in one year
  • Get a secondhand ThinkPad T420

Travel

  • Visit Köln (Cologne)
  • Visit the Netherlands
  • Visit Shenzhen
  • Visit Taipei
  • Go to the beach

Miscellaneous

  • Attend a furry convention MCFC 2025 was my first furcon
  • Attend another convention of any kind
  • Learn CW (a.k.a. morse code)
  • Get a ham radio license and buy a handheld station DE BH4FXW 73 sent from my UV-5R
  • Get an FCC ham radio license as well KE8ZVB W8MOS
  • Eliminate as much meat as possible from diet
  • Declare myself expert in at least one thing
  • Own a cat (probably two)
  • Read all books by Karl Marx
  • Get a semi-professional filming rig with a greenscreen and stuff
  • Have one or more kids (kid)
  • Get my own credit card (at least it's got my name on it)
  • Install solar panels somewhere
  • Seek revenge on that one roommate whose gaming noise keeps me up at night I managed to meet this goal with an advanced tactic called "forgiveness"
  • Drink tiny amount of vodka
  • Participate in a protest, verbal or physical
  • Host a technical talk on a conference
  • Steer employer (if any) into FOSS'ing a software project
  • Co-author an IETF RFC
  • Get a tiny tattoo
  • Restuff my blåhaj
  • Flip off a conservative
  • Do standup comedy at an open mic night