15Jul 2020 by Dave Macleod No Comments
[#65 Lesson] Variety in Adventure

[#65 Lesson] Variety in Adventure

BUCKET LIST, LESSON
This life lesson relates to my previous blog post #65 Go Whitewater Rafting. When I crossed #65 off my list, it was the first time I had ever been whitewater rafting. The only other time was last year, with my mum, along the Grand Canyon. Both were whitewater rafting tours, but they were vastly different. The Kaituna River experience was short, only 50 minutes long, but it was packed with Grade 5 rapids and a huge 7 metre waterfall. The Grand Canyon was a 4‑day adventure with up to 8 hours on the river each day. We only tackled Grade 3 & 4 rapids on this trip and the scenery was the total opposite of the New Zealand bush along the Kaituna. Kaituna River The thing is, both were amazing…
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01Jul 2020 by Dave Macleod No Comments
#65 Go Whitewater Rafting

#65 Go Whitewater Rafting

BUCKET LIST, TRAVEL
This bucket list item was completed on 17th September 2014 in Rotorua, New Zealand. I had been living in New Zealand for about a year when my brother, Galen, sent me an email saying that he had some money saved up and wanted to come and visit me. Galen and I love adventure activities and after hearing about all the exciting experiences I had been having in New Zealand, he wanted to come and experience some of them for himself. After exchanging a few emails, we had sorted out a good time for him to visit and he booked his flights. He would be coming for five weeks and wanted to experience as much of New Zealand as possible. We came up with an awesome adventure itinerary of New Zealand…
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17Jun 2020 by Dave Macleod No Comments
[#93 Lesson] Room for Improvement

[#93 Lesson] Room for Improvement

BUCKET LIST, LESSON
This life lesson relates to my previous blog post #93 Take an IQ Test. “Once you stop learning, you start dying”    – Albert Einstein Renowned as one of the great minds of the 20th century, Albert Einstein has taught this world a lot. His words were simple, but this quote has echoed with me for several years. I have done my best to adopt this mentality and my life is fueled by constantly learning new things. I’d say trying a new sport or activity is my favourite way to learn. It’s the right blend of a mental workload, exercise and usually involves a shot of adrenaline in there every now and then. This is why skydiving has grabbed a hold of me so strongly. When people ask me what it’s…
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03Jun 2020 by Dave Macleod No Comments
#93 Take an IQ Test

#93 Take an IQ Test

BUCKET LIST
This bucket list item was completed on 6th August 2014 in New Plymouth, New Zealand. I think we have all taken those online IQ test where you answer a few multiple-choice questions and then it spits out a result. “Congratulations! Your IQ is ‘blah blah blah’! You are in the top ‘blah blah blah’ percent of the world!” This wasn’t for me… I was always curious about my IQ, but if I was going to do a test, I wanted it to be a legitimate one. I started Googling to see what was available in New Plymouth and it turned out there were a few psychology practices that administered IQ tests. I called around and got a few prices before landing on one. I was pretty broke at the time,…
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06May 2020 by Dave Macleod No Comments
#21 Ride in a Helicopter

#21 Ride in a Helicopter

BUCKET LIST
This bucket list item was completed on 14th March 2014 in New Plymouth, New Zealand. Once I settled in New Plymouth, the first big boy engineering job I landed was as a project engineer for a company called Core Group Limited. Core Group offer project management and pipeline integrity services to the oil and gas industry in the Taranaki region.  Part of Core Group’s services include conducting helicopter flights along the easements where their clients have pipelines laid. This is to ensure that that are no threats to the pipelines such as civil earth works or farmers digging up their paddock overtop of the pipelines.  I knew that our company conducted these pipeline flights every month and I thought that this might be my chance to cross another item off…
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08Apr 2020 by Dave Macleod No Comments
#10 Buy My Own Car

#10 Buy My Own Car

BUCKET LIST
This bucket list item was completed on 10th February 2014 in New Plymouth, New Zealand. During high school and university, I always had the use of a family vehicle. I had a 4WD Ford Escape that I took on many camping and surfing missions throughout Nova Scotia. It was great to always have a vehicle to use but I never had my own car, purchased with my own money. I thought this was a good item to put on the list. When Kyle and I first landed in Auckland, we bought a car to begin our road trip throughout New Zealand. I say “we”, but Kyle was the one who bought the car with his money. We shared the expenses on the car while we were travelling but at the…
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25Mar 2020 by Dave Macleod No Comments
2013 Roundup

2013 Roundup

BUCKET LIST
I was busy in 2013 and managed to complete eight items from my bucket list. Three of them were completed on my trip to Las Vegas and then one was completed in Canada before I moved to New Zealand. The remaining four items were completed in New Zealand as I travelled around and explored everything this beautiful country has to offer. In case you have missed any of the stories or lessons from my bucket list adventures in 2013, here is a roundup of them. #25 Go to the Grand Canyon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6GThvLCtFk Completed on 4th January in Arizona, USA [#25 Lesson] Witness Things With Your Own Eyes #40 Jeep or Buggy Sand Dunes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_AOs67PYBc&t=1s Completed on 5th January in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA [#40 Lesson] Take Time to Make Decisions…
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26Feb 2020 by Dave Macleod No Comments
[#35 Lesson] Sometimes Great Ideas Shouldn’t be Repeated

[#35 Lesson] Sometimes Great Ideas Shouldn’t be Repeated

BUCKET LIST, LESSON
This life lesson relates to my previous blog post #35 Eat a Tequila Worm. This was not the first time I learned this lesson and it will not be the last time. My friends and I are always coming up with ideas or adventures for the activities that we like to do. This means we are always testing out new adventures and not all of them are a raging success. We describe the activities by either Type 1 Fun or Type 2 Fun. Type 1 Fun relates to an activity that is fun while you are doing it, still feels fun in your mind when you look back on it and is likely to be repeated because it was so fun. Type 2 Fun relates to an activity that is…
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12Feb 2020 by Dave Macleod No Comments
#35 Eat a Tequila Worm

#35 Eat a Tequila Worm

BUCKET LIST
This bucket list item was completed on 6th December 2013 in New Plymouth, New Zealand. After finishing a few months of travel throughout New Zealand, I was running out of money and it was time to find a job. Kyle and I headed back up to New Plymouth to try to find engineering work. I was not focused on any specific industry. Instead I just knocked on the door of any place that said they hired engineers. In 2013, the oil & gas industry was booming and that meant jobs were easy to find. We started job hunting on the Monday and were both given contracts to the same engineering firm on the Friday. We were stoked about how quickly things progressed and before we knew it we were working…
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29Jan 2020 by Dave Macleod No Comments
[#3 Lesson] Sample Life for Everything It Has to Offer

[#3 Lesson] Sample Life for Everything It Has to Offer

BUCKET LIST, LESSON
This life lesson relates to my previous blog post #3 Go Skydiving. I did my first tandem skydive in August 2013 but did not learn to skydive until December 2014. For some people, they are hooked after their first tandem and jump straight into their advanced freefall course to learn how to solo skydive. I was a bit different. I did my tandem jump to cross it off my bucket list and it was exciting and an amazing rush, but I did not instantly think it was something that I wanted to do as a hobby. It was in February 2014 that I was watching episodes of Nitro Circus when I decided that I wanted to learn how to solo skydive. In their show they were always doing skydiving or…
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