Things I would do if I knew I could not fail:
1. Create the Museum of Oakland in the old Fire Alarm Building by Lake Merritt. (Note that our fabulous Oakland Museum of California focuses on the whole state and only a bit on Oakland itself.)
2. Create something like St. Louis’ City Museum in Oakland (a crazy fantabulous indoor/outdoor space where industrial arts, playground activities, salvaged vehicles and aircraft, and a most fertile imagination run wild).
3. Write John Brook, a screenplay on the life of J.S. Bach, in English, set in a modern American city, but keeping the other details of his life and work pretty much the same (but how to plausibly depict fathering 20 children?).
4. Buy 3039 Monticello Ave. and/or 4157 Broadway and create a proper Bruce Lee tribute site. Update: in 2020, the current owner added a quite stylish silhouette to commemorate the history made in this house. Meanwhile, the Oakland Museum of California certainly could and should add a prominent, permanent tribute sculpture and/or display of him–he was born in California and lived significant seasons of his life here.
7. Bring about the Three Bridges 50K Ultramarathon, from San Quentin, across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, across Richmond, down the Eastshore trails, across the Bay Bridge, up the SF Waterfront, and across the Golden Gate Bridge. This route is actually all ordinarily open and runnable except for the crucial two mile stretch of the western span (double suspension) of the Bay Bridge (in red, below). If they can entirely close the Verrazano Narrows bridge for the NYC Marathon, surely they can close one lane here for us!
6. Write a counterfactual novel set during the California Missions period, in which the Fransciscans make every effort to pursue a full cultural contextualization of the Gospel, from a posture of deep personal and cultural humility and teachability.
Bucket List:
1. Run a 6-minute mile (at age 60/+)–current PR is 6:24 and this may no longer be in reach!
3. Run the NYC Marathon; Boston (ran the fall-delayed 126th, for which I qualified in late 2018!); the Dipsea
4. Camp at one of the “Dark Sky” parks
5. Places to visit: Gibraltar, Istanbul, Moscow, India, Singapore, New Zealand, Cabo San Lucas (2023), Panama Canal, Key West
6. Go on a hiking trip that includes Badwater (Death Valley) and the summit of Mt. Whitney
7. Catch a foul ball at an A’s game (A’s vs. Royals, Sept 17, 2019, on the 3rd deck!)
Russell Yee 