House up for auction... again!

Well, it's been a frantic few days of packing and organising, paying bills and doing all the necessary paperwork before setting off on my big trip. I missed a few days of blogs, for which I apologise, but it's been chaos here!

I now have a big van parked outside the front of the house, and over the next day or so am moving everything that I have left into storage at a friend's place.

I think I have finally got just about everything done that I need to do. This would all have been so much easier if I could have just left it all here and walked out with just my wallet and passport as planned. Never mind.

The house is still up for sale with my local real estate agent, who is very optimistic, but he also put me in touch with a specialist online real estate auction service, which is much more geared up for selling Australian real estate then eBay is.

Take a look here:
www.GeeWizAuctions.com

Once again, fingers crossed!


Note: THIS IS THE LAST BLOG ENTRY ON ALife4Sale

The ALife4Sale blog ended on 31st July 2008. Please go to the new www.100goals100weeks.com blog and subscribe there if you wish to continue to follow the story. The two blogs overlapped for the month of July 2008 only.

Calling all Ian Ushers...

Does anyone know of any other Ian Ushers out there.

When I get to the UK in September, one of the goals I am hoping to achieve is to gather five Ian Ushers together in one place:
http://www.100goals100weeks.com/goals_Details.php?id=47

So, my first task is to find as many Ian Ushers as I can. I have sent an email to all the Ian Ushers that I could find on Facebook.

But if anyone out there knows of an Ian Usher, particularly a UK based Ian Usher, I would be grateful if you could point them in the direction of the 100goals website, or to the FaceBook group:
The Ian Usher Club

Thanks.

Virtual birthday cake!

I didn't really bother doing anything special for my birthday, and just went out for a few drinks in the city last night at a friend's leaving party - he's also heading overseas for a while.

So there was no birthday cake, or so I thought, until I received an e-cake from Canada. It's a shame I couldn't taste it, it looks lovely. Thank you.

Many thanks to all who sent birthday wishes via email too.

How exciting! Main flights now booked!

I was woken early this morning by a call from my very helpful travel representative with a view to sorting out my main flights for the forthcoming trip.

I have been procrastinating a bit, as the house has not sold, but I finally decided, "What the heck? I'm just going anyway, I can leave the house and paperwork in the hands of the estate agent and settlement agent. Should be fine!" I hope it will.

So my first flight is now booked for Sunday 3rd August, just over a week away, from Perth to Dubai, where I arrive early on Monday morning. From there I fly to Nice in France, and have a few weeks in Europe, including the Tomatina Festival in Spain. After that I fly from Madrid to London, have a few weeks in the UK, and head to Germany for beer-swilling at Oktoberfest.

From Germany I fly to New York on 6th October, and am free to travel the States for a few months. My next flight is booked for January from Honolulu to Tokyo, and then eventually back to Australia in February.

I am now officially excited!

I did a bit of work on the map page today, and figured out how to add a Google map, with lines and dates for flights, and pins for the approximate times and dates for achieving the first few goals. You can see the map page here:
http://www.100goals100weeks.com/details_Where.php

Over the next couple of days I will try to get a bit more information on the map, the calendar and some more details in each of the individual goals that are planned for the early stages.

There are join-in opportunities coming up if you are in the vicinity. Do you want to come along on any of these?
Ski Dubai - planned for Tues 5th August, maybe around 2pm
Big Bungee Jump - planned for Sat 9th August (to be confirmed)
Dive at Christ of the Deep - planned for Wed 20th August (tbc)
Tomatina Festival - happens on 27th August


View Larger Map

If you are planning any trips, take a look at these guys, fantastic efficient service, and excellent prices:
www.airtreks.com

The best travel video ever...possibly!

I was just looking back over recent blog postings, and noticed a comment that had just been posted by Yvette in response to the Happy Guy update blog.

She suggests taking a look at this website:
www.wherethehellismatt.com

I have become a bit hooked on Matt's pages, I like his writing style, and he has some great stories to tell. But it was his travel video that first got me hooked. It was the first thing I clicked when I got to his site, and it is BRILLIANT!! I love it. That's what travelling is all about. Take a look:-



I can't wait to get started on my travels now, but I don't think I will be doing as much dancing as Matt!

Dinner in the sky!

This arrived as an "Add 5" suggestion, but unfortunately missed out on going onto the voting list as it arrived after voting had finished.

It looks great though. There are some fantastic things to do, aren't there? And you only hear about alot of them when you ask people to tell you about this sort of stuff. As I said a couple of days ago in the blog, "You don't know what you don't know!"





Further details at:
http://www.dinnerinthesky.com/

Pictures from: http://www.dinnerinthesky.com/

"Add 5" voting now ended!!

Voting for the "Add 5" extra goals has now finished. I have been watching the voting with interest, and have not been too worried about which ones make it into the 100 list, as I think they are all pretty exciting.

However some of the movements are interesting, and it would seem that some people have their own particular favourites, and are very keen for them to be in the top five. A couple of the goals seem to have come from nowhere to appear at the top of the list, whereas others which were early leaders for a while have dropped away. On a couple of occasions a goal has appeared to have several hundred votes in the space of a couple of hours, when other goals have received none!

So in the interests of fairness I asked my web-designer-guru to weed out all the multiple votes from the same IP address, and the final results are as follows.

The five goals added to the other 95 to make up the total 100 goals are as follows (click on the link or the picture to find out more):

Goal Number 95 - White water rafting

Goal Number 96 - "7 Peaks in 7 Days" (from the 53 Colorado 14ers (14,000ft peaks))

Goal Number 97 - Ride an ostrich

Goal Number 98 - See an active volcano

Goal Number 99 - Spend a night in a haunted house - alone!

Thanks to all who voted, or made suggestions.

Back in the air again.

It's been almost five months since I last went skydiving!! How on earth did that happen? Time has passed so quickly since my trip across Australia in my little camper van back in January and February.

I bought my Toyota camper off a backpacker here in Perth, and drove around 8,000km across Australia, stopping at as many dropzones as I could on the way, and finally sold the camper in Sydney before a last couple of days of jumping.



It was during that trip that I made a firm decision to go ahead with the ALife4Sale project, and made a start on the website. My last skydive on that trip was on Sunday 20th Feb, and I got a lift straight from the Picton dropzone to Sydney airport, where I managed to get an almost immediate flight back to Perth.

When I got back to Perth in late Feb I worked pretty-much full-time on getting the website ready before going back to work at the rug shop. And once the ALife4Sale website went live on 14th March, things just went a bit crazy with all the media attention.

Somehow I have just been pretty busy over the past few months, and perhaps I had got my fill of skydiving for a while during my trip. But yesterday I dropped some friends of at the airport and headed off to the dropzone.

After a cold and misty start the weather cleared up, and I had a great day jumping. I did two or three jumps with a friend at about the same level as me, and the jumps went very well. I also did a jump on my own, practicing some new skills I had been taught.

Overall, it was a fantastic day, great to get back in the air again, and remember why it is such a brilliant sport. I've still got a smile on my face several hours later!

Another "Home Open".

Four weeks ago today I had my first "Home Open", the day before the auction was about to start. Little did I realise that less than a month later I would be doing the same again.

So I spent most of yesterday cleaning the house (again!). I have no idea how it gets so messy in the space of just four weeks, although I imagine the party we had the evening before the end of the auction may have had something to do with it.

I found a broken wine glass down behind the spa, at least ten bottle tops in the spa when I drained it, and a towel that is definately not mine!

But once again the house is ready to open for inspection, and I am hoping to find a buyer as quickly as possible, so that I can get started on 100goals on my target date of 3rd or 4th August.

More details on the house here:
Harcourts Real Estate
or here:
www.realestate.com.au

Fingers crossed!

"Happy Guy" update.

A couple of weeks before the start of the ALife4Sale auction I did a blog about two Aussie fellas who had found a photograph of a happy-looking guy while they were working in a hotel in Banff in Canada.

You can read the full story here:
17 days to go!! Searching for a happy guy.

Well, at that point they had found the guy, after having his picture on their fridge for seven years, and were just about to set off to meet him. Their trip from Melbourne was being funded by the Banff Tourist Board, who saw the story as a great publicity opportunity.

This morning I got an email from Devin Sturdy, telling me that they had achieved their goal. He sent me a link to a Breakfast TV meeting with his brother Nate, and happy guy himself, Paul Daggett.



Apparently the guys have had some interest from producers interested in perhaps turning their story into a movie. Well done guys, good luck.

You don't know what you don't know!!

On Monday evening I was invited by a friend to a presentation on a course he had attended, and was very enthusiastic about. I went along to see what it was all about.

One of the interesting concepts that was discussed during the evening was about knowledge. The presenter drew a big circle on the board, and said that the circle represented everything that could ever possibly be known in terms of knowledge.

She then drew a small slice of the circle. "This represents stuff that we know about, and that we know that we know about." As examples of this, perhaps you know how to drive a car, or operate a computer, or bake a cake, or read a book. We all know different stuff, and we all know about what we know.

The presenter then drew another small slice, as said, "This represents stuff that we know that we don't know." Examples of this may be that you know that people fly helicopters, but you don't know how to. Maybe you know that people perform brain surgery, but you wouldn't know how to. Maybe you don't know how to drive a car, or read Chinese, or any number of other things.

She then pointed to the remaining large area of the circle. "So what's left? Stuff we don't know about, and we don't even know that we don't know about it, because we have no idea what it might even be. So for you, what sort of thing would be in that area? Well, you don't know!"

Part of the course, she explained, was about examining those areas that we don't know that we don't know.

I guess that that has always been a part of my philosophy. Throughout the whole ALife4Sale process, and a huge part of my reasons for creating the 100goals100weeks challenge for myself, is that I have always said that life is about new experiences, seeing new places, doing new things, meeting new people, learning new stuff.

But one of the challenges I have faced when making my list of 100 goals, is that I only know about the things that I know about! So it is more than likely, it is certain, that there are goals that I would love to achieve, but can't add them to the list, because I don't know about them.

That is why I have found the whole "Add 5" process fascinating. There have been so many goals suggested that I had never considered, and so many places suggested that I had never even heard of. As an example, I had never heard of the "Crazy Horse" mountain sculpture, and only by opening myself to suggestions from others have I found out about it.

But a week ago I didn't even know that I didn't know about it!

I hope this whole journey will reveal many more things that I didn't know that I didn't know.

Plan B swings into action....

A few days ago I gave an update on what was happening with the ALife4Sale sale, which currently is not much at all! You can read that update here:
Who bought ALife4Sale? All the answers....

And so now Plan B swings into action. I am still very keen to set off on my target date of 3rd August, but need to sell my house before then. So it is now listed with my local real estate agent. You can see the listing here:
Harcourts Real Estate
or here:
www.realestate.com.au

And so once again I am having a Home Open, on Sunday 20th July between 2.00pm and 2.45pm - fingers crossed.

"The Bucket List"

I finally got round to seeing the movie "The Bucket List" the other night, after so many people have suggested that I should see it.

It stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two guys who meet while in hospital in a cancer ward. They both find out that they only have a short while to live, and set out on a journey to tick off a list all of the things that they have wanted to achieve before kicking the bucket.... hence the name "The Bucket List".

For more on the movie see www.IMDB.com (Internet Movie DataBase):
"The Bucket List"


I was quite surprised at how many of the things they do and the places that they travel to are on my list, or are quite similar to some of my goals. But one of the messages that I got from the film is that it is not always about the big thrills, or the majestic vistas, but is about relationships and making a difference in the lives of others.

And as I look again at my list, I hope I have got some balancing goals in there too. Yes, there are alot of the thrills and majestic vistas, but there are some other things too, which I know will give me alot of satisfaction. One of my main goals, which will span the whole 100 weeks is to raise money for bowel cancer awareness, and again this was another theme from the movie that resonated with me.

Read more about this goal, and my reasons for it, here:
Raise $50000 for Bowel Cancer Research

But ultimately, for me, the big question that the movie raises is this:
"Why do people always seem to wait until they find out that they are about to die, before they start living the life that they really want to live?"

If you have goals, write them down, make a list, and do something about making them happen. And do it now! Not when you find out you have only got six months left!

A goal in common, achieved now by both of us.

When I first came to Australia I arrived on a Temporary Residents Visa in January 2002.

Within the first year of living in Perth I set up a deckchair hire business on the beach at Scarborough, and spent the summer of 2002/2003 sat on the beach watching the world go by. Right next door an Italian guy called Romano had set up a bungee-trampoline business, and we spent many hours lounging on deckchairs, chatting and drinking coffee, or practicing on the trampoline when he had no customers.

 

We became very good friends, and had both recently arrived in Australia from Europe.

At that time, one of my goals was to gain my Australian Citizenship, and get an Australian passport. For me this would be fairly straight-forward, as I was married to an Australian citizen. Romano had the same goal, but he had to try to achieve this via a different route, by operating a business for several years, investing a certain amount of capital, employing a certain amount of Australians, etc.

After two years as a Temporary Resident I became a Permanent Resident, and two years later I was eligible to apply for my citizenship. I did so, and on 26th January 2006 I became a proud Australian.

This is the day it happened:


I haven't seen Romano for quite a while now, although we have kept in touch. I got a message from him just the other day saying that he was running an event in the city, and yesterday I headed into town to catch up with him. I found him, as I might have expected to, sipping an espresso at the cafe, and joined him.

I was very pleased to find out that things were going very well for him, that business was thriving, and that he too had finally become an Australian citizen. Congratulations, Romano. Good on ya, cobber!

The pictures below show Romano's brilliant "Snow In The City" event. Bear in mind that this is Perth, where it NEVER snows. Most of these kids have never seen snow, and it was great to see their faces the first time they made a snowball.



More info:
http://www.protramp.com.au/

Vote now for "Add 5" extra goals

There have been hundreds of suggestions for extra goals which could be added to my list, many of which sound absolutely fantastic. It has been pretty tricky to narrow it down to only 20 to choose from.

There are so many wonderful places to go too, many of which I have never considered before. I think that is one of the big problems when you start travelling, and see some great places, and meet others who have travelled too. The more you see, the more you realise that there is out there that you would like to see. So instead of getting shorter, your list gets longer and longer.

Anyway, there are a few travel goals on the list, a few activities, and a few experiences too. This list of twenty needs to be trimmed down to five, which will get added to the 95 that I already have.

So get voting, the top five make it to the list. Voting ends next Sunday, 20th July.
http://www.100goals100weeks.com/getInvolved_AddFive.php

The twenty possibilities are as follows:-

Cover yourself in honey bees
Climb Big Ben
Learn to ride a unicycle
Spend a week in a silent retreat
See an active volcano
Live someone elses life for a week
See Kakadu National Park, Australia
See Angel Falls in Venezuela
Climb "7 peaks in 7 days" from the 53 Colorado 14ers (14,000ft+ mountains)
Spend a night in a haunted house - alone!
Ride an ostrich
See the giant redwood trees in California
See the Red Paperclip house
Attend a live concert at the Hollywood Bowl
Visit Red square in Moscow
White water rafting
See Burg Hohenwerfen, 'Schloss Adler' in film Where Eagles Dare
See a plane land at St Maarten Island
Become vegan for a month
Adopt an animal (preferably an endangered species)

My favourites are (but don't let this influence your voting!!):
Learn to ride a unicycle
Ride an ostrich
See Burg Hohenwerfen, "Schloss Adler" in the film Where Eagles Dare

Who bought ALife4Sale? All the answers....

The ALife4Sale auction ended at noon on Sunday 29th June, almost two weeks ago, with the highest bid being AU $399,300.

I was quite disappointed with the final amount, which is only at the bottom end of the valuation scale for the house itself, which was valued at between $400,000 and $420,000, but it was still enough for me to be able to sell and move on as planned.

Unfortunately the top bidder was not in a position to complete the purchase, as they had some issues gaining the necessary finances. Since then I have talked to all of the top six bidders, five of whom are Australia-based, and one who is in the USA.

None of the Australia-based bidders now wish to complete the purchase, and the American bidder needs to sort out a visa and approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board, which can take some considerable time.

So I have asked myself why has this happened. Why have these people bid, but either not been in a position to complete, or not wanted to when the opportunity occured? I have also asked many others for their opinion on this too.

The best answer I can come up with is that like me and most other people, these bidders expected the final bids to be quite a bit higher, and really did not expect to win the auction at this price. And therefore they were really not prepared to do so.

After speaking to the top six bidders, I emailed every other bidder who looked at least half-serious, offering them the chance to throw their hat back into the ring. No takers.

I am still very keen to sell up and move on, and as can be seen from this 100goals100weeks.com website, already have new plans in place, which I am keen to get on with as soon as possible.

And I am still committed to doing EXACTLY what I said I would do, and sell everything I have as a complete package!

So the opportunity is still available for anyone out there who still wants to buy the complete package. I have always been serious about selling everything together, and will still do so if anyone wants to buy it that way! The complete package price is $399,300, the high bid. That gets you a $400,000 plus house, a car, motorbike, jetski, furniture, everything. I estimate that there is at least $25,000 worth of extra stuff.

BUT, to do this you need to be either an Australian resident, or already have an Australian visa. You need the finances already in place, and you need to be able to settle immediately. If you want to take up this opportunity, I am looking for full settlement before 2nd August, 21 days from today. Contact me at ian@100goals100weeks.com if you are interested.

If nobody steps up in the next day or two, I still intend to sell up and move on, so I have no option but to implement my "Plan B". I have already talked to my local real estate agent, who still estimates that the house alone will fetch anywhere between $400,000 and $420,000. The house will be listed at this price early next week.

So this is exactly what I intend to do, sell the house as quickly as I can, one way or the other, either as a complete package, or sell the house separately and sell most of my possessions, and then hit the road.

Do I consider this a failure? Well, yes and no. I guess I failed in that I put an item up for sale, and didn't find a buyer by the method I tried. I really thought that the price reached would have been higher, and I really thought that there would be someone out there adventurous enough to take this up.

But it is not the first time that something I have tried hasn't worked out as I had hoped or expected, and I'm pretty sure it won't be the last! I also look at it a a success too. If I hadn't done this, after having the idea, I would have wondered for the rest of my life, "What if...?" At least now I know.

And I can be proud that I gave it my best shot, and followed through with my idea from conception to conclusion. I definately believe that it is better to try and not succeed than to never try at all.

However, with the gift of hindsight, it might have been much better to simply sell my stuff and put the house up for sale four months ago. But then I would have also missed out on an absolutely amazing experience. And as I have always said throughout this, I do believe that live is about new experiences.

Would I go back and do it differently if I could. No, I don't think I would!

"Making mistakes is acceptable. Failing to learn from them is not!"

More here on "The Power of Making Mistakes"

7 Wonders of the World

On the 7th July last year (07.07.07) the The New7Wonders Foundation announced the list of The New 7 Wonders of the World. The list was the result of over 100 million votes from all over the world. The announcement took place in Lisbon in Portugal, at the Benfica Stadium.

Of the original list of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, only one now remains, the Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt. The original 7 Wonders were:
* Great Pyramid of Giza
* Hanging Gardens of Babylon
* Statue of Zeus at Olympia
* Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
* Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
* Colossus of Rhodes
* Lighthouse of Alexandria

The new list, from New7Wonders, announced in Lisbon is as follows:
* Pyramid at Chichén Itzá, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
* Christ The Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
* Roman Colosseum, Rome, Italy
* Great Wall of China, China
* Machu Picchu, Peru
* Petra, Jordan
* Taj Mahal, Agra, India

On my travels so far I have see the Great Pyramids in Egypt, The Colosseum in Rome, and Petra in Jordan. On my list of 100 goals, I have Christ The Redeemer, The Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, and The Taj Mahal.

This means that there is one glaring omission from my list, being the Pyramid at Chichén Itzá. If I add this to my list, when complete it will mean that I have seen all Seven Wonders of the World.

So, as "Fly-By-Wire" in New Zealand has now closed down, as mentioned in the blog a couple of days ago here, I have now removed that from the 100 list, and replaced it with "Chichén Itzá, Mexico"

The other Finalists for the New7Wonders were as follows:
* Acropolis of Athens, Athens, Greece
* Alhambra, Granada, Spain
* Angkor, Cambodia
* Statues of Easter Island, Easter Island, Chile
* Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
* Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey
* Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan
* Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow, Russia
* Neuschwanstein Castle, Schwangau, Germany
* Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
* Statue of Liberty, New York City, U.S.A.
* Stonehenge, Amesbury, United Kingdom
* Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia
* Timbuktu, Mali

I have seen 4 of these, and have 3 more of them on my list, so there is still plenty of scope for something to add to my list after 100goals is finished!

Further information:
Wikipedia - Seven Wonders of the World

A goal achieved today!

Well, it's been a while coming, but today I fnally achieved a goal that I have now been working on for a few months.

Back in early April I started to watch the first series of The Sopranos, a "modern day morality tale about New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano, as he deals with personal and professional issues in his home and business life." (www.IMDB.com)

My goal was to see all six series before I left the house. See the blog entry from when I started my New Jersey journey:
Blog: ALife4Sale - 76 days to go!
and
Blog: ALife4Sale - 63 days to go!

Well, this evening I have just finished the last episode. Goal achieved! But I am now a bit worried, as I have three weeks left here, and no more Sopranos left. I feel like I have lost some old friends. Or had them "eliminated" from my life.

"Ah, what are ya gonna do?"

It's satisfying to complete a goal, but I guess you need something beyond that too, to aim for. I am hoping that over the next two yeras I can add plenty more goals to my list as I tick off my hundred, or I really will be at a loss at the end of it all.

Crazy Horse mountain sculpture

Wow. I am already finding out some fascinating stuff about some of the places I am planning to visit. A couple of people have mentioned the sculpture-in-progress of Indian chief Crazy Horse, which is apparently fairly close to Mount Rushmore. I hope to see Mount Rushmore sometime around October this year, as it is already on my goals list as a must-see.

I had a bit of a search and found out that the Crazy Horse sculpture was begun in 1948 by Korczak Ziolkowski, and his family are still continuing his work today.

It is planned to be the biggest mountain sculpture ever created. When finished, Crazy Horse will stand 641 feet long and 563 feet high - now that's worth a bit of a detour!

Crazy Horse Memorial

Travel South Dakota

Oh dear, looks like one goal will have to be changed!

I am still working on the individual goals pages, adding text about the goals, sometimes some background on why they are on the list, or how long they have been things that I would like to achieve.

I am also adding videos and web page links too, and hope to soon add a section detailing sponsors and supporters, and those who wish to join in with each particular activity.

Last night I wrote a bit more on a few of the goals, and was disappointed to find that one of my goals is no longer achievable:

http://www.100goals100weeks.com/goals_Details.php?id=58

I saw "Fly-By-Wire" on a UK TV show, I think it might have been "Top Gear", not long before coming out to Australia, and thought it looked very exciting.

I added a couple of videos from YouTube to the page, it looks like great fun. I then went to look for the website, and was surprised to find this:



Does anyone know why they closed down? Very disappointing.