A Bookworm Bucket List: Meeting Your Favorite Author

A Bookworm Bucket List: Meeting Your Favorite Author

This post was previously published on the BucketList.org blog in January 2015.

Authors are like rock stars to bookworms. So any bookworm bucket list will include meeting your favorite author, poet or essayist.

Who would be on your list? The author of your favorite book from childhood? The poet whose words were your first true love in a high school English class? Or the journalist who wrote the book that opened a whole new world to you?

At the top of my list are Wendell Berry, Thomas Moore, David Whyte, and Vicki Robin. Some of my favorite authors are no longer living, but I fantasize about asking Rumi, Alice Miller, Tee Corinne, or Flannery O’Connor to sign a book for me.

Luckily, I’ve met David Whyte and Thomas Moore and they were definitely bucket list experiences.

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Review: Carbon Footprint Calculators

Review: Carbon Footprint Calculators

Tracking your carbon footprint isn’t the easiest thing to do. There are several online calculators, but a footprint is a moving target, changing with each meal, each type of mile driven and each time we turn up the heat or air conditioning.

In this post, I’ll review some of the biggest or best online carbon footprint calculators I could find. This will be eye-opening for me personally, but I hope it will help you determine which calculator might best serve your needs.

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The Staycation Bucket List

The Staycation Bucket List

This post was previously published on the BucketList.org blog in December 2014.

Did you know that every US state and Canadian province and territory are represented on BucketList.org? Not just by BucketList.org users living all over the continent, but every state, province and territory appear on someone’s bucket list. That means that someone actually wants to come to where you live no matter how boring you think the place might be.

So here’s a quick guide on how to build a local, staycation, even, budget bucket list for your very own home state.

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A new Greatest Books list

A new Greatest Books list

More than 6 years ago, I started reading fiction quite earnestly. Specifically, I pulled together several “greatest books” lists and began working my way through them.

However, I kept track of this effort on paper and didn’t collate my lists too well. I’ve resolved the issue, though, and am happy to start working with a refreshed “greatest book” list of my own.

Download the Greatest Books list here.

I pulled together four distinct lists of books to make this happen, including:

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Budgeting for the Bucket List Life

Budgeting for the Bucket List Life

This post was previously published on the BucketList.org blog in December 2014.

Living the Bucket List Life inevitably costs money. Not always a lot, but oftentimes something. So how do you decide what to spend to accomplish your bucket list goals?

I asked some friends how they budget for “vacations” and did some research online, it seems like a lot of people just pick the vacation they want and either save up or put it on a credit card. Very few people actually seem to be budgeting for their bucket list life.

But you’ve got a long bucket list, right? Bucketlist.org readers want to drink vodka in Russia, pay for a child’s Cleft lip surgery, complete a Spartan Sprint, and much more!

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Review: Life Expectancy Calculators

Review: Life Expectancy Calculators

I focus intensely on living a good life. I actively work on my bucket list, which has provided some crazy adventures. I focus on experiences over material possessions and have gotten my finances in order to support my larger life goals.

Sometimes, this focus inevitably leads to thoughts on how much life I might have left.

From a young age, I wasn’t spared the experience of death. I attended the funerals of grandparents and great grandparents, lost a friend in high school, and have lost many more since, unfortunately. I say this because not everyone has been this close to mortality. Some folks have never been to a funeral, for example, or are lucky enough to still have grandparents around.

I’m just laying the groundwork for what this blog post is about. To be blunt, it’s about life expectancy. But, in reality, it’s about living and living well.

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Hang Gliding: Fly Like Superman

Hang Gliding: Fly Like Superman

This post was previously published on the BucketList.org blog in November 2014.

Hang gliding is the perfect bucket list goal for those who’ve always wished for the super power to fly.

A hang glider is a triangular sail with an aluminum frame. This is different from a paraglider, which is more of a parachute. In a hang glider, you’re facing down and forward like Superman, while in a paraglider, you’re in more of a seated position. The two are often confused, with paragliding showing up on more bucket lists, but I’d like you to consider hang gliding too.

Last summer, I went hang gliding at Morningside Flight Park. I drove down to Charlestown, NH on a Friday after work and set up camp next to “The Castle,” a tiny cabin atop a hill on their property.

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