After their son was killed riding a bike in Taiwan, Matt and Jill Kuebrich were left with the grim task of clearing his cramped Taipei bedroom and found a journal on his desk. Beneath its worn, brown cover was a list of 157 activities.

"This is not a wish-I-would-have-done-it list," Andrew Kuebrich, 24, wrote in pen. "This is a I-did-and-it-was-amazing list. The main reason I am creating this list is because I feel like most people wander aimlessly through life like a zombie and never break through and experience it. I am Andrew Kuebrich and this is my journey."

The wild assortment of items — some he'd done, most he planned to do — included sky-dive, learn to play the guitar, travel to London, drive a combine, make a huge difference in at least three people's lives, spend the whole day naked at a nudist camp.

It was a list that suited the Kuebrichs' youngest son, an exuberant 6-foot-3-inch, 200-pounder with puppy dog eyes and a crooked smile who was voted class clown upon his 2005 graduation from Plano High School. Andrew quoted obscure comedies to crack up his friends, organized alternative spring breaks to build homes for the poor and volunteered for years as a counselor at a summer camp for children with mental disabilities.

Those who knew him say he had indomitable optimism, remarkable endurance as a collegiate distance runner and a knack for daily acts of kindness. They say they didn't know how many lives he touched until his life ended Jan. 25 on a coastline road in southern Taiwan.

After their return home to Plano, his parents posted one activity from the list almost daily on Facebook with a short explanation to help Andrew's many friends — he had close to 1,000 of them on the social network — celebrate his life.

In an unexpected version of modern interconnectedness, people began doing the activities for Andrew, and posting them on the Facebook page. Only a few remain to be done.

At the same time, friends and relatives have continued Andrew's good works. He ran 45 miles in a Relay for Life to raise money to fight cancer, in honor of his grandmothers who died of the disease. After his death, teams raised nearly $10,000 in a Relay for Life in his name.

Andrew routinely donated blood. Plano has started an annual blood drive in his honor. As a student at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Ill., he was named Man of the Year. After his death, Andrew's parents contributed $2,000 in his name to the college.

And, on Sunday, upward of 200 people are expected to participate in a 5K run to raise money for a Plano High School scholarship in Andrew's name.

"I didn't think it'd be that big," said Joe Solecki, 25, who had known Andrew since fourth grade. "I didn't realize he had such a big impact."

'Chief of Good Times'

The youngest of three boys, Andrew was "born happy" and very energetic, said his father, Matt. In a home video, 2-year-old Andrew jumps on the couch singing "Don't Worry, Be Happy." He taught himself to ride a bike and told his second-grade speech therapist she wasn't paid enough to teach him.

He always tried to keep pace with his brothers, whom he raced around the outside of the family home. After the brothers would quit, Andrew continued to rack up dozens of laps.

At Plano High School, he was an honor student and member of the basketball and cross-country teams who bodysurfed on classmates at a pep rally. He starred as the fictional character Danny Zuko in a school production of "Grease" and dressed and danced as film character Napoleon Dynamite at a variety show.

At Monmouth, he ran cross-country and organized spring break mission trips. After serving as president of his fraternity, Andrew gave himself the title "Chief of Good Times." He spent hours drawing with chalk on the driveway with his 4-year-old cousin and sent a video of himself reading a children's book to his toddler nephew. He never gave up on the Cubs.

All this time, Andrew was running like Forrest Gump: 50 miles around Des Plaines; the Chicago Marathon; 50 kilometers near San Francisco. He also began making his list, soliciting suggestions from friends, revising, adding an item when he would accomplish one.

After graduating with degrees in economics and international business, he grew restless working at a big-box hardware store in Wisconsin. By August 2010, emboldened by a tenuous lead on an English teaching job in Hong Kong, Andrew moved there and taught 3- and 4-year-olds for 10 months before taking a similar position in Taipei.

He found outlets for the restlessness, ran a 100-kilometer ultramarathon in Singapore, traveled through Asia and bungee-jumped from the Macau Tower, No. 133 on the list.

During his school's winter break, Andrew sent Christmas cards to family and friends, then he took off on a ride around Taiwan, another item on his list.

The route was mountainous, rainy and cold. He had ridden about 340 miles, near the island's southern tip, and needed to get back to Taipei to help a friend who was moving to the region.

But on a stretch of two-lane road Jan. 25, a few feet before the start of a bike path, Andrew was struck from behind by an SUV driven by a 70-year-old man, and he died at the scene.

Forgiveness

When Jill Kuebrich answered the ringing phone in the middle of the night and was greeted by a representative from the American Institute in Taiwan — a branch of theU.S. State Department— she said she knew immediately it was devastating news.

At a celebration of Andrew's life four days later, his older brother Ben Kuebrich told the overflowing crowd at the United Methodist Church of Plano that Andrew was the family storyteller.

Ben, 28, recounted Andrew routinely greeting their brother Matt with a tackle long after Matt had begun attending college. Ben told of Andrew asking his mother if she would celebrate her 40-cents-an-hour pay raise by finally buying brand-name ketchup.

But time would never permit Ben to tell all the stories: about Andrew persuading a fellow runner to bite into a pine cone, or persuading another friend to drink cheap beer heated in a microwave. Or Andrew hiding snacks in friends' houses, then visiting and leisurely fishing the items out of the wall, or taping a square on his dorm room floor and demanding that anyone stepping inside it dance — or so many more.

Ben was feeling particularly guilty. A doctorate candidate at Syracuse University, he had been too busy to get home when Andrew ran the Chicago Marathon last year. They tried but failed to arrange a time for Ben to visit Taiwan.