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Showing posts from June 5, 2005

100 and Done! (Countries that is...)

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We are back! This last trip brought the total countries visited to 100! It is a crazy milestone. It is difficult, time-consuming and can be (IS) expensive. After I got back from Antarctica in 2007, I started thinking about it. After 2010 I was thinking about it more (as I moved from NY to Georgia) and in 2014 it had become a real goal. Between Angie and I we have been to 109 Countries. We are tied at 100 countries each. We have 9 countries different in our lists. For example, I have been to San Marino. She has not. She has been to Israel. I have not, yet. There has been some fun competition in this area. That's why we had to establish rules. 1.) Must be listed (as a country) with the US State Department 2.) Being in an airport doesn't count. You have to get through immigration somehow and not in a DMZ or a no-mans-land 3.) A passport stamp is not required. I have been to Canada, Paraguay, and Uruguay without getting my passport stamped. There are friendly borders in many places...
Well I got my truck back. It had been in the shop for two weeks. I made the serious mistake of taking the truck to Botnick Chevrolet in Binghamton, NY. I suspected the injection pump went bad. Chevrolet, as part of a class action suit increased the warranty on the injection pump. I thought it was increased to 150k miles. It was only increased to 120k miles. I have 132k miles on my truck. I asked Brian if it was under warranty. He originally said yes. So every day I would call Brian from the (place primary color here) team in service and everyday he told me tommorrow, except for Friday when he said Monday. The original quote for the repair was $2100. So I told them I would take it to a diesel shop where I could get it done for $1800. They decided to fix it for $1800, 'cause they would have had to put it back together. I think that is quite a bit of flexibility in price. They have quite a gravy train. So yesterday I give Brian a call at 12:00 and leave a voice mail indicating th...
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Small farms Bonnie and I went to a wedding yesterday. That was nice. It was in a small church in Virgil, NY (in between places). James and Georgie got married. Now they have 7 kids between them. I think there are five girls and two boys. The oldest is younger than 10. Everybody has to have a hobby. I had a good time. We are working on the yard again today. I am working mostly with stone. They are plentiful and mostly in the way. I found a great use for old roof shingles. I put them under the stones in the washes I am constructing. It looks great and should keep the weeds out for quite a while. The shingles are also plentiful and inexpensive. There is no shortage of work. I had to get out of the sun for a while. The basement is cool. I am tinkering with some technology projects. You can see the bluebird sticking her head out of the house. There is quite a bit of activity in the bluebird house. It probably was not the best time to build the stone ring around the well head. The tr...