Flush — A Design Blog by Ivan W. Lam at ivanwlam.com

Every night, as I lay in bed waiting to fall asleep, a million things speed through my mind. I think about what I’ve completed that day and what I have yet to accomplish the next. It never stops until I am asleep. When I wake up, I already feel behind.

This is a problem. Even though I take pride in being someone who is constantly generating ideas, I inevitably have more ideas than I can execute. Yes, a lot of those ideas are probably not that good and practically trivial, but ideas are ideas, and until they are executed, they all weigh relatively equally as valid solutions.

So, to ease the pressure off my brain just a little bit, and to celebrate the 100^th post of Flush, I would like to share 100 things I have brewing in my head. (I have a lot more, as I’m sure you do as well.) Some are very realistic and executable, while others are more ideal and fantastic.

Site

1. Get all areas of the experiments section opened and working.
2. Have a creative About section.
3. Redesign Flush to fit with transparency theme.
4. Have the entire site be mobile and screen-reader friendly (in other words, accessible).
5. Have the site completely done by sometime next year, before I realize I need a redesign.
   

   Career

6. Continue with learning ActionScript 3.0.
7. Learn MySQL.
8. Learn Processing, whatever benefit I may get from it.
9. Learn AfterEffects.
10. Learn podcasting.
11. Learn a printing press.
12. Learn to hand-assemble a book.
13. Learn to use a type design program.
14. Learn to write a form that will update an XML file.
15. Finish my print portfolio.
16. Create a multi-functional business card.
17. Design a body font family, including ligatures and special characters.
18. Attend AIGA Design Conference 2009 in Memphis, TN.
19. Be a part of the Olympic branding committee of a Summer Games.
20. Buy a copy of CS4 (unless I wait too long and CS5 comes out).
21. Meet well-known design figures with mutual respect.
22. Design a self-promotional holiday souvenir.
23. Be part of an “awesome” project.
24. Own a copy of Sagmeister’s “Things I Have Learned From My Life So Far”.
25. Volunteer with whatever AIGA SF needs volunteers for.
26. Start a career portfolio archive.
    

    Experiments

27. Design and screen print shirt graphics with geeky design-related topics.
28. Make a poster/series with writing with light.
29. Make an info-graphic poster of the bodies of the solar system.
30. Print an image on the same sheet multiple times.
31. Print an image on separate transparency sheets and align the images in the light, then photograph it.
32. Create a poster series of the sun’s actual visible electromagnetic spectrum.
33. Design a reusable calendar.
34. Do a time lapse series of one location at the same time each day for a long period of time (e.g. a year).
35. Invert night sky photographs.
36. Overlay a high-resolution photo onto a low resolution version of the same photo.
37. Align panoramic Photomerge photos but don’t blend the edges.
38. Put supposedly-panoramic Photomerge photos in a grid in relation to one another.
39. Create a new typeface by overlapping two typefaces, then take the overlapping areas or dissimilar areas.
40. Use enlarged small type on screen as regular type.
41. Use Flash/ActionScript to write a visualization of two bodies orbiting.
42. Create a motion graphic piece that will show a writing with light, but the light moves with time, so the writing cannot be seen at any one time, but collectively.
    

    Life

43. Continue with learning either/both French or/and Japanese.
44. Learn Morse code, just because.
45. Learn Braille, just because.
46. Learn American Sign Language, just because.
47. Learn more about astronomy.
48. Learn more about physics.
49. Learn to surf.
50. Learn to ski and/or snowboard.
51. Learn to ballroom dance, for whatever future occasion.
52. Start life blogging again.
53. Get my life completely GTD’d.
54. Pay off my student loans and start being in the black.
55. Get a green job.
56. Live in a studio apartment.
57. Have a road trip of some sort across the country.
58. Go to an amusement park one of these days. It’s been too long.
59. Go mini-golf with friends.
60. Go on a road trip with friends.
61. Go on a cruise with friends.
62. Go to a beach where the water and the weather is not cold.
63. Be part of the excitement in Washington D.C. on January 20, 2009.
64. Attend an American/Western wedding. (I’ve only been to Chinese style weddings).
65. Attend a baseball game.
66. Attend an indoor concert with die-hard fans who sing along to all the songs.
67. Play more Wii.
68. Become a space tourist.
69. Experience Zero G in one of those planes.
70. Fly first class.
71. Ride in a Rock-Star-Style Tour Bus.
72. Spend a week in a cabin with friends.
73. Get into a habit of exercising and eating right (for the most part) for the rest of my life.
74. Return to a routine of swimming.
75. Get shampoo/body wash that takes out the smell of chlorine.
76. Have a crazy adventure night like in the movies, but with no one dying.
77. Buy myself things for the holidays that I’ve been longing for all year but have been really conservative with money. Or when I get a full-time design job.
78. Go on a “vision quest,” whatever that is.
79. Re-watch the Matrix Trilogy.
80. Watch something in IMAX.
81. Re-watch Motorcycle Diaries.
82. Re-watch the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony.
83. Have a movie marathon of Planet Earth.
84. Be an awesome and cool uncle when my niece or nephew is born.
85. Help build houses for families who need and deserve it.
86. Volunteer at a soup kitchen or something similar during Thanksgiving and Christmas.
87. Convince my friends that it’s “should have” and not “should of”, among other things.
88. Build something useful with wood.
    

    World

89. Visit New York City and live there for a month.
90. Visit Japan and live there for a month.
91. Visit Beijing and the Olympic area.
92. Visit Vancouver during the Olympics in 2010.
93. Visit London during the Olympics in 2012.
94. Volunteer to do something in Africa.
95. Visit Australia.
96. Visit Machu Picchu.
97. Visit France and try to live there for a month.
98. Visit Italy.
99. Visit Dubai and sight-see all the cool architecture.

100. Learn to live, and live to learn.

Let’s see how many of these I can accomplish by the 200^th post. I know I won’t be able to do all of it, but it’s still good to try.

Flush.