If I won the lottery

Every once in a while I daydream about how my life would be different if I won the lottery. My problem -- here in ''real life'' -- is that my interests are too diffuse. I'm interested in lots of stuff -- but not obsessed with any one thing. So, not much within any one realm gets done.

The other impediment is that I need to work for a living. So all the "home maintenance" stuff ends up taking up my free time. For example: this weekend, and the next few weekends, I'm devoting a few hours per day to digging a trench to lay down some drainage pipe -- so that my workshop can get its final certification/inspection.


So: here's what I'd do with myself if I won the lottery (clustered by topic, rather than ranked by order)...

-Krav Maga classes
-Wing Chun classes
-Escrima/Arnis/Kali classes
-Japanese Ju-Jitsu classes
-Brazillian Ju-Jitsu classes
-Aikido classes
-Hapkido classes
-Black Crane kung fu classes

-Tap dancing classes

-Martial arts practice
-Lift
-Learn to run faster
-Practice doing a one-armed chin-up
-Learn the rudiments of rock climbing, including increasing my grip strength
-Learn to swim decently
-Get the equivalent of life guard certification (regardless of whether I actually take the certification)

-Buy an English horn
-Practice the English horn
-Buy "great pipes" bagpipes
-Practice the pipes
-Play the guitar and electric bass more
-Learn the clarinet
-Actually practice the trumpet
-Actually practice the trombone
-Set up my recording gear
-Buy a tube amp (don't know which; would try out a few)
-Buy a decent USB or Firewire recording interface
-Buy actual monitors
-Buy a ribbon mic
-Record my songs
-Put some of my music on the web
-Buy that one mini-synth that I have as a "desktop" on my computer at work -- the vocoder one

-Do woodworking
-Buy a wood-turning lathe
-Buy a fairly large bandsaw
-Build a "wood milling" shed for the bandsaw

-Do weird electronics to build music gizmos

-Build a wind-driven bassy string drone device for the back yard

-Build an electric guitar from scratch, with hand-wound pickups and oddball electronics

-Build a climbing structure/clubhouse for the kids

-Clear out the weeds and brambles from our yard

-Build a potting shed

-Go through our boxes: sort, discard, tidy, put away

-Write a few genius scholarly articles, including publishing my Master's thesis

-Write a few children's books (K thru 3rd grade, probably)

-Maybe keep working (human contact!), or maybe not; but if I did, only about two days a week

-Short-term, have the kids home with me instead of putting them in daycare

-Visit friends and family in the U.S. more often

-Enter my mountains of thoughts and ideas on scraps of paper into the computer, and organize them

-Shoot and edit my zombie/martial arts film short

-Shoot and edit my music video ideas


Observations:

-I didn't put "spend more time with the family" on there, as I already do a pretty good job of that. It's the **other** stuff I don't do.

-Unlike what a lot of people would do with their lottery winnings, I don't have "travel, see the world", "buy a fancy car", or "buy a bigger house". (Oh! Should pay off the mortgage, though.)

-The stuff I'd spend money on are (1) classes, to learn how to do things, and (2) tools and equipment, to help me better accomplish tasks.


--GG