Ambitions Afoot

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Three thousand six hundred and fifty-two days. That is ten years from my fortieth birthday to my fiftieth. 87,648 hours. 5,258,880 minutes. This includes the extra two days for the leap years, I think. If I sleep the recommended eight hours a day, which I don’t see happening, I’ll really have 58,432 hours. However, working roughly 40 hours a week or 2,080 hours a year, the new real number is 37,632 hours.

37,632 hours for the next ten years to accomplish the project I’m calling Ambitions Afoot.

What is Ambitions Afoot?
This is the official start and the beginning of tracking just how I’m going to do this.
It’s a weird time to start a project like this. Life for all of us in this world is a bit chaotic and unpredictable, but something that I have learned in the last four decades of my life is that there is no perfect time to do anything, or very rarely. So, here I am, in an imperfect world, at an imperfect time, trying my best to document a vast number of things, bucket list items I’ve wanted to do for my whole life.
They range from physical to digital projects. A full list can be found here.

Why Now?
I’ve been playing around with this idea for some time now. Over the last year and a half, I’ve been testing how I want this blog to look and reflecting on why I wanted to do this.
I think as we all age, a small thought enters our heads of our own mortality. We realized that we’re halfway and that we’ve got to do something, or anything meaningful with our lives. Perhaps it’s because we start seeing people around us pass away. Long-time family members age and are no longer as spry as they once were. In facing our own mortality, or this thought, I wonder if that drives why we care for and feel a need to be with them more than so we don’t miss out on the important days. Maybe, because I’m in a line of work that thinks about and plans for the worst day that people could face.
I think this is called a midlife crisis.
So, here I am with all these ideas of things that I wanted to do as I grew up, but not knowing where to start or how. Instead of burying my head in the sand and buying a sports car that I can’t afford, I’m going to write about and track this effort to spend the next ten years of my life either succeeding or failing at this list.

Why AI?
If you’ve poked around this blog already, you’ll have noticed that I use AI. In this post I’m not going to dig in deep why I use AI. That’s for another day. For now understand that I see AI as a hammer and like a hammer it can be used by anyone to smash something or by a master to intentionally use the hammer as a tool to create and build.
For now, let’s agree that I have a hammer and as a novice of that hammer, I must practice and think about how I use it to create from my imagination.

Why a Blog?
In college I studied telecommunications or more specifically video production. There I learned that for roughly every few minutes of video it would take an hour to edit. I also have no real desire to be famous. I’m married to the most beautiful and smartest woman I know. She’s brought in to this world three wonderful children that I give up my side of the bed for when they have bad dreams and need mommy. I’d rather lose sleep to ensure the happiness and well being of my family, not trying to amass a following of people. I also want to make sure that I get so spend time with my family during the hours of this project.
I’ll be sixty when my oldest graduates high school, or there about. My wife and I have also worked hard to put ourselves in a position to be able to care for and give our kids time. I have a mowing robot so that I’m not spending four hours each week NOT mowing but spending time with my family.
All this to say, I’m happy with my family life and I’m not going to risk that happiness for fame and fortune. I’m not going to spend my time chasing the different algorithms for a number of different video and social networks for likes. I’d rather spend my time chasing these ambitions that I’ve always had and document them so anyone who cares can follow along. Perhaps learn something, be entertained, or motivated to do their own thing.
Thus, a blog. Simpler and less intrusive to my life and family.

Why Document This at All?
In the same thought of thinking about my own mortality, I have also thought about how to preserve this effort to look back on or to pass onto my children if they one day want to look back on their dad. I also want to be able to look back and have something to reflect on as I progress forward.
If somehow these ambitions turn into a monetary flow of funds, cool, but that’s not goal here.
While I’ll try to be somewhat constant in posting updates, I’m not going to set any schedule other than to document major updates and outcomes. The content here should be meaningful, or at least I’ll try to make as worth your time as a reader of this blog. This post alone has taken me a month of on and off writing with all the other things that life demands of me.

Success or Failure
I’m giving myself ten years to do all this. Do I think I can do it all? Yes, I do. Why? Because if I didn’t try, I never started, and never starting or even have tried is the worse outcome than failure. At least with failure I’ll have known that I tried and learned from it.
If I succeed at something, great! I can mark it as done. It doesn’t have to be perfection in completion. Just done.
If I fail at something, great! I tried with all my might that I currently had. Hopefully I learned from It and maybe others who read this do too.
As a human, I might lose interest in an ambition and cross it off the list. I’m not going to stand here and say that all this will get done but I do believe that I can get it done.

What Can You Do?
Read the posts. Maybe reach out via email if you feel inclined. Perhaps someday I’ll have a small store or place people can drop some money for me to buy coffee. As stated previously, I’m not inclined to spend my time chasing the algorithm when I can spend it with my family and on these ambitions.

A Review of 2025 – 2026
Feel free to skip this rest of this post if you’re not interested in the finer details of each of my ambitions. Each year around my birthday I’ll write a post that documents a detailed overview of where I stand for this whole project.

AmbitionsAfoot.com
The site itself is 90% where I want it. Since I’m not trying to break the algorithm or become famous, there won’t be any major changes till I feel it to be necessary.

Assemble
If I’m building something from my design or instructions.

• NEW & NOT STARTED – Build the Lego Neuschwanstein Castle.
  • I received for my 40th birthday the Lego Neuschwanstein Castle! This is a dream set for me and I’ve added it as I’ll spend a significant time enjoying this build. I have various other Lego Architecture sets and find them to be joyful and relaxing.
• IN PROGRESS – Build a Harry Potter train layout to be placed under the Christmas tree.
  • Last I checked, Santa has my list and is making sure I stay nice. Currently I have the following sets:
    • Hogwarts Castle: The Great Hall (76435)
    • Hogwarts Castle: Owlery (76430)
    • Hogwarts Castle: Castle Boathouse (76426)
  • I think I have one or two more sets stashed away, but I’m not sure.
• NOT STARTED – Put together a dream desktop PC with a top-of-the-line GPU.
  • The cost of computer parts places this ambition out of reach for me at the moment.
• IN PROGRESS – Build a master-grade Gundam.
  • I received a MG Epyon for my 40th birthday and have plans to build it this summer.
• NOT STARTED – Build a trebuchet for launching tennis ball sized items.
• NOT STARTED – Repurpose my desk into a standing desk with a hidden ultrawide monitor.
• IN PROGRESS – Build mechanical keyboards to use all my Lord of the Rings keycaps.
  • This is pretty much complete. I have two main boards that I use for typing. Another board I want to modify with low-profile switches and then this will be complete.

Design
Think of drawing or building something from scratch. This is the catch-all term for my artistic endeavors.

• NOT STARTED – Sketch as close to daily as possible.
  • I have an iPad Mini and Procreate that I have used several times to sketch. However, I haven’t been consistent with this enough to say that I have started it.
• NOT STARTED – Complete one drawing or 2d art piece a month.
• NOT STARTED – Recreate and finish an old animation that I started in college.
• NOT STARTED – Create my dream video game.

Vocation
A fancy word for my career and to better myself for my job.

• IN PROGRESS – Make the next military rank.
  • I technically made this happen within the last year after I wrote this down but, I still wanted to achieve one more rank. I need to work on finishing up my associates degree that I started in the military and begin to take classes for the next rank.
• NOT STARTED – Get a master’s degree in something meaningful to me.
• IN PROGRESS – Seek at least one professional certification each year.
  • This year I’ll be focusing on the CompTIA AI Promoting courses.

Entertainment
Board games, card games, and video games. Let’s have some fun in old age!

• NOT STARTED – Learn to play Warhammer Old World.
• IN PROGRESS – Learn to play Warhammer Age of Sigmar.
  • I have been learning from my best friend and have played a handful of games thus far. There is still a lot to learn and I need to work on my army.
• IN PROGRESS – Play each suggested deck of cards in Dominion.
  • I’ve begun this ambition and only inhibited by time and gathering with friends. We all have varied busy schedules and kids.
• IN PROGRESS – Play at least one video game a year to completion.
  • I’m not sure what game to focus on first. My first few games will be centered on the Steam Deck.
• NO STARTED – Mod Skyrim into the game I have always wanted to play.

Nutriment
This is my section on building a better body and mind for the second half of my life.

• IN PROGRESSS – Reduce soda from daily consumption to less than once a month.
  • A work in progress for sure! I depends on how tired I am and the cravings. Though I am getter better at drinking more water and lighter creamer coffee.
• IN PROGRESS – Minimize my digital footprint to only what I need and use.
  • I’ve cut down a lot but I still haven’t completely cut things out.
• IN PROGRESS – Run one race a year.
  • I missed training for a race with my wife this past May. I’ll have to find something soon. Maybe a virtual race.
• IN PROGRESS – Score a 100 on a PT test.
  • Both the PT test scores are changing and I’m trying to find my routine for working out.
• NOT STARTED – Participate in a GoRuck challenge; Light, Medium, and Heavy events.

Transcribe
I struggle with proper grammar sometimes, and I’d like to improve it.

• NOT STARTED – Record the Japan trip in a book for preservation.
• IN PROGRESS – Rewrite the old short story that I have always tried to expand on.
  • This is actually coming along! I have figured out how I want to write my drafts and navigate writing this story.
• NOT STARTED – Learn to write better by taking a course.
• NOT STARTED – Rewrite a great classic work of literature as if I were an apprentice.

Understand
Focus on learning to expand my big brain and skill set, including physical skills or mental understanding.

• NOT STARTED – Learn passable German and Spanish.
• NOT STARTED – Attempt to learn Archery.
• IN PROGRESS – Learn to play golf.
• IN PROGRESS – Decide in which direction to double down in learning AI.
  • I’m still sorting this out, but I’m getting better at prompting.
• NOT STARTED – Learn to read and write Cirth from Lord of the Rings.

Read
Pick up a book, or listen to one.

• STARTED – Read or listen to one book a year.
  • I’m well on my way here! I’ve gotten through a couple in the last year and have started to write my thoughts on them.
• NOT STARTED – Read Load of the Rings.
• NOT STARTED – Read every Dirk Pitt adventure novel.
• IN PROGRESS – Read to my kids as much as possible.
  • I’m doing okay at this, but I could be better.

Extra
If the item doesn’t fit in the other categories, it’ll fit here.

• NOT STARTED – Skydive.
• NOT STARTED – Travel once per year, which is non-work related.
• NOT STARTED – Travel outside the country at least once every five years.

Thanks for hanging in there reading all that! Here’s to the next year of ambitions afoot!

Respectfully,
-Michael