summer time goal: bridge to tip, 62.6 miles. 

Hazelnut Flan with Roasted Cherries. 

I’m starting to cook my way through number whatchamacallit. The one with the cookbook. I’m going to make someone a great wife one day. 

I’ve been sitting on this gem for a while now, and finally pep talked myself into finishing the last four sentences. Enjoy my foray into Indian Gaming. 

October 11-12, 2009: 

I have a habit of doing things on a whim, so when the thought of celebrating the  colonization of the Americas with the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe crossed my mind I was done for.

Number 44, I will conquer you at the largest collection of slot machines in the world on the day that we celebrate the introduction of small pox and coffee to North America.

I figured that there were 6,200 slot machines at Foxwoods Resort Casino, that I was bound to come out on top.

So, armed with my comrades from Ohio, I aimed my Toyota Camry for Connecticut. Jonathan Paplebon had just blown a game lead in the 9th to lose the series 3-0 to the Anaheim Angels. I was already entering Yankee country a loser, but was prepared to spend my cold, hard salary on success and glory. I would soon find out that this was not so.

Entering the Foxwoods complex is like having an out of body experience because it is massive and full of cigarette smoke. Senior citizens whip around on their motorized scooters, prepared to gamble their social security away, and for some reason there are lots of children - just hanging around. One has to wonder exactly what they are doing there or if they’ll have college tuition money when they turn 18.

The three of us checked into our $100 a night Tower room after walking about a mile through a maze of slot machines and jewelry stores. With my AAA discount we obtained a king sized bed, a mini fridge, and a soaking tub. I was fine with this because there was also 24 hour room service. I set my sights on nachos for later and made a mental note to save enough cash because they were going to be expensive.

After donning our best gaming faces, we cautiously left the 15th floor in search of fossil fuels to begin our night. We settled for gigantic burgers and strawberry shakes at Fuddruckers as we tried to come up with a plan to win the most money humanly possible, or how to get boys to fall in love with us and buy us things. 

After an hour losing money at the roulette table (number 17, you’re dead to me) I abandoned my team for higher, safer ground: slots. 

I didn’t know what I was doing, and I’m still not entirely sure, but by simply pushing what seemed like arbitrary buttons, I was up $60. This was a great! I had won back my roulette spending and made an extra twenty. I was not to be stopped, and approximately 30 seconds later I was $20 in the hole and ready to drink. I had nothing on the grannies around me hitting it big and winning what is often known as “a jackpot”. I was devastated. Slots were nothing but shiny light brites that took my dollars and spat back failure. 

The only logical thing to do after embarrassing myself and inhaling a ton of cigarette smoke was to retreat to Hard Rock Cafe and try to get people to buy us drinks. Which, to my surprise, came easier than gambling. 

Enter Po Chiu, Assistant General Manager at Stadium Sports Bar and Grill and that is where I will end the story of my night. It is unimportant that later on I purchased previously mentioned nachos and locked myself out of my $100 a night hotel room for 45 minutes. 

Moral of the story: you will lose your money if you put it in slot machines, and people really do wear fanny packs and visors at these places. 

I’ve been proactive this week about establishing beginnings for many of my numbers. I wish I could say the same for the write ups of my adventures, but I am having a hard time focusing on reflection.

I’ve been busy in my new office life and slowly easing into my new routine. It’s a wild ride.

I spent a great deal of time in Borders today picking through books. The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook will be my cooking partner for the endeavor that is Number 24. I’m a little upset over the success of Julie and Julia because this number was part of my original 2003 list and now it seems like I’m ripping her off. That is of no bother. I will carry on. 

The cookbook is a good one though and I ultimately chose it because it breaks down its chapters by month and there is nothing I enjoy more then cooking for the seasons. I think I will start this number in January. This gives me enough time to amass all the cooking equipment I need (knives! cast iron! I can’t wait!) via Christmas lists and mom, but it gives me enough time to properly read it through and know what I’m getting into.

Either way it looks like come January I’m going to be cooking, and trying, a whole lot of seafood…  I’m nervous about that part. 

Hello world. 

This is my quest to reinvent myself and change the world. 

Let me back up a little. My name is Sarah and I am twenty-three. I live in the city (What city? The city, Which city? A city.) (Location is arbitrary) and I’ve recently decided to enter the post-collegiate work force. Not by choice. So I’m twenty-three, I live in the city, I have a BFA. 

I made my original list of sixty things the summer before my senior year of high school back when things like swimming with dolphins and drinking cheap wine on the beach seemed like the right things to want to do with life. I later revised said list in the winter of 2004 after dropping out of Big City University, using this list as my mandatory essay (can you believe this?) which eventually got me into Big City State School for Artists. Which is where I got this BFA from. For four years that is pretty much all my list did for me as I became encumbered with work, working, and drinking beer. About a week before birthday XXIII I panicked a little because I owed it to myself and Mandy Moore to stay on with this goal.

Sadly my ideals in 2009 were (are) drastically different then my ideals in 2004, so I was forced to revise my list for the third and final time, and on June 17th gave myself exactly seven years to plow through a list of sixty new and foreign and seemingly intimidating things. 

The goal of this blog is to document this experience. To write about it, plan for it, post images from it. Many of these things that I am about to embark on were part of the original sixty. Some have taken on new forms, becoming more challenging and of importance as to where I see myself going. 

This is intimidating. I’m excited to share it all. 

1. Drive Cross Country

2. Become a regular

3. Bungee Jump

4. Ride on a motorcycle

5. Get a massage

6. Plant a victory garden

7. Audition for a reality television show

8. Help build a house

9. Attend an Opera

10. Wine taste

11. Have my palm read

12. Knit a sweater

13. Go to Grad School

14. Learn to golf

15. Milk a cow

16. Hike the Appalachian Trail

17. Learn to drive stick

18. Send a message in a bottle

19. Quit Longhorn

20. Complete a triatholon

21. Own a record player

22. Work at a summer camp

23. Ask someone on a date

24. Cook through an entire cookbook

25. Volunteer in another country

26. Gift 1,000 paper cranes

27. Brew my own beer

28. See the Great Wall of China

29. Shoot a gun

30. Read a book a month for a year

31. Go to Alaska

32. Bike the Cape, bridge to tip

33. Learn to scuba dive

34. Donate blood

35. Take a wheel throwing class

36. Read through the MLA “Books to Read Before You Die” list

37. Have a pen pal

38. Sell things on etsy.com

39. Make a latte

40. Catch a game in 10 different baseball stadiums 

41. Do one thing from “This Book Will Change Your Life”

42. Snowshoe

43. Go to Australia

44. Play the slots 

45. Don a bridesmaids dress for a wedding

46. Live in another state

47. Work on a cruise ship

48. Go to a music festival

49. Drink sake

50. Do one thing from “Delaying the Real World”

51. Complete an open water swim

52. Own a copy of Codex Seraphinianus

53. Downsize

54. Visit 5 Presidential Libraries

55. Save $10,000 for ‘a rainy day’

56. Stay at Walter De Maria’s The Lightening Field 

57. Photograph with a Brownie Hawkeye

58. Learn to play guitar

59. Blog about this experience; share with others

60. Fall in Love. 

60 things I want to do before I’m 30 by Mandy Moore

I WAS IN VANCOUVER MAKING THE movie Saved with Macaulay Culkin. One day, Mac and I were going over these random items on a list he had made of things he wanted to do before age 30.It inspired me to start my own list;now my boyfriend, Andy Roddick, has a list too! It’s such a cool idea. Everything’s usually just up there in your head; writing it down solidifies it. Anyway, I decided to put down things that really scare or challenge me. It’s all about realizing the possibility each presents. Anytime you attempt something, you’re stepping outside yourself. And who knows where it may take you?My eyes have been opened to a whole new world.

Mandy Moore as told to Elizabeth Kuster (August 2003). “60 Things I Want to Do Before I’m 30”. Seventeen: 187.