Expidite the expidited

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I am headed to the passport office this AM to get a new passport. I didn't have time to do the expidited renewal after getting back from Japan. So I made an special expiditing appointment with the passport folks in Atlanta. I am glad I only have to drive into Atlanta, not fly up to NY or Washington DC. It seems I have had to do some expiditing everytime I have renewed my passport. Passports are good for 10 years. When you get a new passport it is a time to ponder where you will be and what the passport will look like in 10 years. The pic belows shows the wear on my now cancelled passport. it was a 50 page book (the extra pages version) and 46 pages are fully used. Many countries require 3 empty pages to enter their country. So, I got full use of the larger size passport. If you need more pages, you send the passport in and they will "sew-in" more pages. The thickest passport I ever saw was at the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan border. A truck driver I saw had a Uzbekistan passpo...
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I am working mostly on computers again this weekend. I am moving all the files into their appropriate storage areas. I have a quite a bit more to do. I am stuck with a 10 Mbps NIC in the machine I am typing on now (Pentium 233 we threw together). Simultaneous Internet access and file transfers can take quite a while. The progress box on the other machine here says 98 minutes.... uh oh, something is weird.

I am setting the new "work box" up to easily accept strange hard drives. It is a dual boot machine with linux and windoze. I will be adding a 5-1/4 in floppy drive to the complement of I/O. It has both MFM and IDE controllers. I am skipping all SCSI and CDROMs for now. Other future projects will be to figure out how to get the data of the C64 disks so we can run those games we had so much family fun with in a 6500 emulator that must be out there.

I sent out a bunch of RFQs for my new truck and dump trailer. It will be interesting to see what I get back. I did it by paper and mail. The option to submit RFQs is available on the web but that kinda defeats the purpose since I suspect there is a bidding arrangement via the web. Everyone knows who has the goods, and there are rules of engagement. I suspect a paper based is not there yet... too much data entry.

I am going out of town for three days to ride along with dealer technicians so I can further empathize with their work (and what I put the department through). This is not mandatory for me. The snow on the ground is the crustiest snow I have ever seen. We have been alternating between rain, freezing rain, and snow for the last few days. The llamas don't like it one bit. It is warm though. It has been over freezing in their llama house so I have not been running the heater.

Hopefully, I can get the EPROM burned for my 2 meter GE radio project tomorrow. I want to get some data links set up. With my satelite internet connection and all the batteries, generators, and inverters I have I will be able to be in touch without any power, cable tv, phone, gas, water or any other physical infrastructure. My tractor and jeep would fit the bill ok if the road went away as well. (I think I just jinxed myself)

I have been reading short stories lately which has been a great deal of fun. It is great to kick back a little. My finance class starts on the 24th.

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Expidite the expidited

-
Image
I am headed to the passport office this AM to get a new passport. I didn't have time to do the expidited renewal after getting back from Japan. So I made an special expiditing appointment with the passport folks in Atlanta. I am glad I only have to drive into Atlanta, not fly up to NY or Washington DC. It seems I have had to do some expiditing everytime I have renewed my passport. Passports are good for 10 years. When you get a new passport it is a time to ponder where you will be and what the passport will look like in 10 years. The pic belows shows the wear on my now cancelled passport. it was a 50 page book (the extra pages version) and 46 pages are fully used. Many countries require 3 empty pages to enter their country. So, I got full use of the larger size passport. If you need more pages, you send the passport in and they will "sew-in" more pages. The thickest passport I ever saw was at the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan border. A truck driver I saw had a Uzbekistan passpo...
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