History?

I was talking to my younger sister about the importance of understanding history earlier this evening and after I stopped talking (she clearly wasn't too interested, even if she does have a history final exam tomorrow) I got to thinking "I should practice what I preach." Yeah, I've always kind of liked history. As a kid I loved watching programs on the history channel with my dad, or reading books about Abraham Lincoln on my own time and not just because I was being made to for a class....but in school I always kind of brushed history aside as boring stuff  I am being told I am required to know. And, like most young boys, anything I was "required" to do wasn't worth my time. Sort of the "I'm my own boss; I know what I'm doing, so don't tell me what to do" attitude. As such, I didn't learn all that was being taught to me through most of my schooling. Even this semester in my American History course I didn't give the information a second thought. Lucky if I gave it a first thought, when it comes to that. I was more interested in StumbleUpon and the various places it could take me than learning about the intricacies of the Truman administration. But as I said, talking to my sister about it made me realize the importance of historical knowledge for myself, something I don't always think about. But here's where my thought processes get kind of goofy--you'll see what I mean.
I sat down at the computer and just kind of mindlessly pulled up the list of American presidents online. I ended up on the whitehouse.gov page that had (non)detailed profiles of each of the United States's forty-four presidents. I decided in my head that I wanted to study U.S. history though the glass of a research project surrounding each president and the eras during which they presided. I thought I'd write down my findings along the way; I'd just compile all of my findings. The time frame I gave myself for this project was one year.  It would act as a supplementary class, the only difference being I chose what to research and there would be no right or wrong answers as the questions asked as well as the conclusions drawn would all be my own. I wish I could go into this more now, but my mother wants the computer and I want to get at least some version of this online. Long story short--I seriously considered writing--and started planning out the process of writing --a history book. How goofy is that?