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...

Here is a list I started a few years back.

Advice to the young man.

  • Listen to yourself. Don't expect others to.
  • Work to identify your basic needs even as far fetched and difficult they may be to cope with. The important thing is to realize that they are your basic needs.
  • Work to identify how you should obtain your basic needs.
  • Develop a vision of your life. You and your vision are sacred and should never be compromised.
  • Make lists. If you don’t know how to make a list ask someone who does.
  • Ask questions of your enemies, how else can you figure out what they are thinking. Of course years from now you will not consider them enemies but they were actually helpful in your development.
  • Take self tests, but don’t take them seriously.
  • Be nice to yourself. Don’t plan on anyone else being nice to you. You have the responsibility to be nice to yourself alone.
  • Better yourself, and think about what that means.
  • Work hard. Work hard at increasing your ability to work harder, both mentally and physically.
  • Listen 50 percent of the time and talk 50 percent of the time.
  • Do the things that are hard so long as you have vision behind them. If the vision is not there it may only make you bitter.
  • Do want you want, but not at someone else’s expense without their explicit approval. (this is a tough one in the global economy, think about the person making your clothes in a China, or Africa or some orther place, maybe Mars.)
  • Find good in everything. See perfection in things that are not perfect. It is there.
  • Think about what life balance is. Disregard it when necessary.
  • Don’t waste your money on a sports car as part of a mid life crisis. It will not make you better.

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Expidite the expidited