This page holds experiences, accomplishments, and forms of exploration I still hope to pursue.
Some items are ambitious, some playful, and some deeply personal. Together they reflect a desire not just to achieve, but to experience life more fully and intentionally.
I keep a page like this because aspiration should remain visible. A person can become so occupied with obligation and maintenance that they forget to keep reaching toward wonder, growth, and meaningful experience.
Also see https://www.bucketlist.net/lists/user/mikeaorlando/
Study aikido and zen in Japan
I’m drawn to this because it combines discipline, philosophy, place, and lineage. I have already spent meaningful time around martial arts and contemplative practice, and I want to experience them closer to the cultural and historical roots that shaped them.
Part of the appeal is not just learning techniques, but learning a different pace, posture, and relationship to attention.
Visit Eureka springs Arkansas buried city and haunted house
I like old places, half-forgotten infrastructure, and places that feel layered with unusual history. There is something fascinating to me about towns that have been partially preserved, partially abandoned, and partially transformed into stories.
This kind of place feels like a mix of archaeology, folklore, and architecture.
stay in a bubble globe hotel for vacation
This appeals to me because it blends comfort with exposure to nature. I like experiences that make me feel close to the outside world without fully separating from rest and shelter.
It also feels playful and slightly surreal, which is part of the point.
Japanese Illumination Festival
https://www.japan.travel/en/uk/inspiration/top-10-illuminations-japan/
I’m drawn to large-scale light installations because they combine art, technology, atmosphere, and public wonder. Japan especially seems to do this with a level of care and beauty that turns lighting into a full emotional environment.
I think this would feel both peaceful and spectacular.
See the northern lights in person
The northern lights feel like one of the clearest examples of the world being more beautiful and mysterious than everyday life allows us to remember. I’m drawn to them because they sit at the intersection of science, scale, and awe.
I want the experience of seeing something that is both explainable and still emotionally overwhelming.
built a part of and see the Lego great ball contraption
https://www.greatballcontraption.com/
an annual event in chicago where participants build one huge lego rube goldberg machine
I love systems, engineering, playful complexity, and collaborative building. The Great Ball Contraption is appealing because it turns all of that into a shared kinetic artwork.
It feels like the perfect combination of design, mechanics, teamwork, and delight.
Visit Rockbridge Near rolla, mo
source: From seat mate on plane going to Dallas 2022
it is a very peaceful forest camping area in missouri.
This appeals to me because I enjoy peaceful natural places that are close enough to be real and accessible, but still feel like a discovery. I like places that invite reflection without requiring a huge production to get there.
It sounds like the kind of place that helps a person slow down.
eat at the Peacemaker restaurant in St. Louis
source: from From seat mate on plane going to Dallas 2022
Visit and stay in Whittier Alaska
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittier,_Alaska
it’s a tiny town that lives in a building, separated from the world by a multi mile long train tunnel.
I’m fascinated by unusual human settlements and the way geography shapes daily life. A town that is physically isolated, compressed into one major building, and connected through a long tunnel feels like a real-world science fiction setting.
I want to understand what it feels like to live inside that kind of constraint and remoteness.
visit Greenfield villiage / Henry ford museum In Detroit
https://www.thehenryford.org/visit/venues/greenfield-village
I’m drawn to this because it represents invention, industrial history, systems thinking, and the material reality of how things get made. I enjoy places where ideas are tied to artifacts, mechanisms, and historical context.
This feels aligned with my interest in builders, tools, and the evolution of practical innovation.
Cattleman’s at the stockyard In dallas
See A show at red rocks
Red Rocks seems like one of those venues where the location changes the meaning of the performance. I’m drawn to it because it combines live music, geology, scale, and shared energy.
I want to know what it feels like when the environment becomes part of the art.
See the Sailing stones in Death Valley
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones
This is interesting to me because it is a natural phenomenon that feels improbable and slightly mythic. I like things that initially look impossible and then become even more interesting when you learn how they actually work.
It is a good example of mystery increasing appreciation rather than reducing it.
Watch a huge whale emerge in person
I want this because very large animals have a way of recalibrating human scale. A whale surfacing feels like one of those moments that makes the world feel older, bigger, and more alive than our normal environments suggest.
I imagine it would feel both beautiful and humbling.
Go on a disney cruise
Part of the appeal here is seeing a highly designed experience executed at a very high level. I’m interested not only in enjoying it, but in observing how entertainment, logistics, hospitality, and atmosphere are all orchestrated together.
It also appeals to the part of me that still likes wonder, immersion, and crafted environments.
Fly in a private jet without trying to
This one is partly humorous, but also reflects a desire to stumble into unusual life experiences as a side effect of being involved in interesting work and relationships. I like the idea of certain experiences happening naturally rather than as trophies to chase directly.
It says something about wanting life to become unexpectedly expansive.
go to EDC las vegas (electric daisy carnival)
Date done: 2021, 2022
EDC represents large-scale sensory design, music, energy, and temporary community. It is one of those environments where technology, art, sound, and emotion are all turned up at once.
It matters to me not just as a party, but as an example of how humans create immersive collective experiences.
visit and party in some asian country
Travel in a train car
I like trains for preserving distance, scenery, and transition in a way that flying usually does not.
Part of the appeal is being able to think, watch, read, and move through a landscape gradually.
See the Pando Tree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
Pando is the world’s largest tree by measures of weight, landmass and species, and is generally held to be the world’s single largest organism by weight
Pando is compelling because it changes the idea of what a tree is. I’m drawn to things that challenge ordinary categories and reveal deeper systems underneath what looks simple on the surface.
It is a beautiful example of hidden interconnectedness.
go to an island that is extremely hard to get to, and have a reason to go
I do not just want difficulty for its own sake. I like the idea of a place being hard to reach because it preserves meaning, specificity, and intention.
The “reason to go” part matters because I want certain adventures to emerge from purpose, not only consumption. Geocaching, ham radio, remote weather stations, lighthouse repair, etc.
live in other cities and explore them, one month at a time, with a reason to be there and engage
I want to know places through lived rhythm, not only through tourism. Spending a month somewhere allows enough time to form habits, notice details, and experience the shape of ordinary life.
The “reason to be there” matters because I want exploration tied to contribution, relationships, or meaningful work.
Caribbean cruise
Date done: 2017
This belongs here because cruises represent a distinct form of travel: highly managed, floating, transitional, and social. Even when completed, some experiences stay on the page because they reflect a type of life I wanted to taste and understand.
Go visit Cerro Gordo mines and help with a project
I’m drawn to this because it combines history, restoration, isolation, and hands-on contribution. I like the idea of not only visiting an unusual place, but helping preserve or improve something within it.
This fits a broader theme in my life: I prefer participation over passive observation.
Meditation Ceremony and Retreat
Date done: 2022, 2023, 2024
This matters to me because I do not want my life to be made only of productivity, stimulation, and external striving. Retreats give me a way to practice stillness, deeper observation, and a more deliberate relationship with mind and attention.
I keep it here because it remains part of the life I want to continue choosing.
a relaxed and meandering road trip with a group I’m close with
I like the idea of movement without urgency, structure without overplanning, and shared time without the need for constant output. Some of the best experiences come from being with people I trust in a setting where conversation and discovery have room to unfold.
This item is really about closeness as much as travel.
Go visit an airplane boneyard
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_boneyard
I’m fascinated by large systems after their useful life has ended. Airplane graveyards are visually striking, but they also say something about engineering, scale, obsolescence, and the afterlife of infrastructure.
They feel like industrial archaeology.
Work behind the scenes on something at an EDC Las Vegas event
I do not only want to attend extraordinary experiences. I often want to understand how they are built from the inside. Seeing the backstage systems, coordination, labor, and design behind an event like EDC would be deeply interesting to me.
It would let me experience wonder and operations at the same time.
Visit the Springfield Missouri cheese caves
This appeals to me because it is one of those hidden infrastructure stories that most people would never think about. I’m drawn to unusual supply-chain, storage, and engineering systems, especially when they are physically large and culturally strange.
It is exactly the kind of reality that feels both mundane and astonishing.
Lego House inside tour
LEGO® House - LEGO Inside Tour
A very limited capacity 2.5-day experience only available twice a year.
This is appealing for the same reason many systems-rich experiences appeal to me: it reveals the inside of something that already inspires delight from the outside. LEGO represents creativity, modularity, design, and structured imagination.
An inside tour would let me see the philosophy and systems behind the product.
go to electric forest
notes: 2023 planned
I’m drawn to environments that combine music, art, lighting, nature, and temporary community. Electric Forest seems especially interesting because it blends festival energy with a setting that feels immersive and dreamlike rather than purely urban or commercial.
It feels like a place built for wonder.
See coral reefs diving underwater
I want to experience an ecosystem that is both visually beautiful and ecologically profound. Coral reefs seem like another example of life creating something that feels artistic at large scale.
This also appeals to my interest in seeing worlds that are usually hidden from everyday human experience.
Visit and Stay in Tombstone, the old west town that is a tourist spot
I like preserved places where myth, history, performance, and tourism all overlap. Tombstone is appealing because it turns a chapter of American history into a still-inhabited symbolic environment.
I’m interested in how places become both real and theatrical over time.
Camp in the American Southwest on a beautiful night
The Southwest has always felt visually and emotionally iconic to me. It represents scale, dryness, color, open sky, and a certain kind of American stillness.
I want the direct experience of being in that landscape at night, not just seeing pictures of it.
Kerala Dust in Concert
notes: 2023 at electric forest
Burning Man
I’m drawn to Burning Man because it seems to function as a temporary city built around creativity, participation, experimentation, and alternative forms of community. It is interesting both as an experience and as a social system.
I want to understand what it feels like to inhabit that kind of environment directly.
Visit Ron in Colombia
Scuba dive in a sunken ship
This appeals to me because it combines exploration, skill, danger, beauty, and history. A sunken ship feels like a frozen human story inside a non-human environment.
It is part archaeology, part adventure, part altered perspective.
Go to a world fair
World fairs represent ambitious public imagination: design, technology, architecture, optimism, and nations trying to show what they believe the future could be. That is deeply aligned with the way I think about human creation.
Disney world!
notes: i did lots as a child
This stays meaningful because some places are part nostalgia, part design appreciation, and part reconnecting with wonder. Disney is interesting to me both as a childhood memory and as a large-scale example of storytelling, systems, and immersive experience.
Cabin in the woods during snow on a mountain
This image appeals to me because it combines solitude, warmth, weather, and beauty. It feels like a setting for stillness and retreat from noise.
Some bucket-list items are really about atmosphere and state of mind more than activity.
Stay in a castle
notes: I did visiting merryl
Amtrak empire builder trip
Go across USA in a train car for 48 hours
I’m drawn to this because it is a long-form crossing that preserves time and landscape. It seems like a good container for thought, reading, observation, and seeing the country as connected terrain rather than disconnected destinations.
Visit and explore the southwest American desert like in the roadrunner cartoons
Part of the appeal here is that childhood imagery created a strong visual and emotional map long before I understood the real geography. I want to see the actual landscape that sits behind that stylized imagination.
It feels like reconnecting a cartoon memory to the physical world.
Help a nascar race team
I’m interested in high-performance environments where logistics, mechanical skill, speed, teamwork, and rapid decision-making all come together. Helping a race team would let me see a tightly coordinated system under real pressure.
That is exactly the kind of organized intensity I find compelling.
Mardi Gras in New Orleans Louisiana
Date done: 2023-02-11
This matters because it represents a form of collective celebration tied to place, tradition, excess, and atmosphere. It is the kind of cultural event that teaches something about a city by letting you feel it at full volume.
Visit biosphere 2
I’m drawn to Biosphere 2 because it combines systems design, ecology, architecture, experimentation, and big human ambition. It is one of those places that makes visible how difficult and interesting it is to build closed or semi-closed living systems.
That is directly connected to my broader interest in how complex systems are designed, maintained, and understood.