The results

Here are the number of incorrect guesses in my vanity game:

MChes: 0
G of All Creation: 2
Little Mama: 1
Real: 3, but she guessed too many
Anonymous [Beerstraw? Monster?]: 2

So Little Mama, the cool mama in the wilderness, is the big time winner [except for MChes who doesn't count]. So here's the real answers for each one and the reason for it:

See every bird in North America: NO. I enjoy birds and wilderness but I'm not big into listing, which is the obsession with seeing as many species of birds as possible. There are some bird species I wouldn't mind seeing a hundred more times [trogons, gray hawks, etc.] and there are species which I will never look for.

Become a professor of physics: NO. It turns out that experimentalists don't get summers off like theorists do. Anyway, although I've decided to continue my studies in physics, I have no idea if I want to do physics professionally. There are a lot of other things that I would love doing but probably won't for purely practical reasons.

Finally dunk a basketball: YES. It was pretty embarrassing to put this under one of my "passionate dreams" but it's true. Last week I dropped the ball in the hoop and the nicked the rim with my hand on my way down, so I'm reasonably close. There's something about being 5'7" that makes this seem really exciting to me.

Have 9 kids: NO. I have no idea how many kids we'll have. But we are both reasonably sure that we won't have 9.

Travel to New Guinea: YES. This has been a nearly all-consuming passion for the last year or so. We're going to Costa Rica and Peru first for "training" but someday we will be there.

Have one of my pieces performed by a professional quartet: YES. When I die maybe somebody can scrap this together in memory of me. I don't have any prayer of it happening until then.

Hike Kilimanjaro: NO. It would be fun, sure. But I hike to be in wilderness, not just to conquer some famous peak, so I'd prefer to spend a lot of time elsewhere in Tanzania or midway up the side of Kilimanjaro.

Publish in National Geographic: YES. Maybe this isn't strictly true, but it is true that one of my life goals is to become a published wildlife photographer who can pay for his travels and gear with his photos. Putting NG on there seemed a good way to crystallize that unwieldy sentence. And, as MChes points out, NG would be awesome.

Win a Nobel Prize: NO. I don't love physics nearly enough to put the work into it that would produce a Nobel.

Write the definitive particle physics popularization book: NO. If I ever write a nonfiction book it will be about something specifically not physics-related.

Now you know me.

Little Mama now gets her amazing prize. "Little Mama, you are super cool!" That's it.