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"Challenge is an essential ingredient in a perfect life."--Charles Dowdell

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Winter in Georgia

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We had some snow. It wasn't as bad as Florida or the Gulf coast. It is still a novelty when we get snow that lasts for a couple of days or more. I have absolutely no issue driving in it having spent most my life in Upstate NY, but the other drivers are another story. We are prepared here not to have to go out anyhow. I took a couple of pics of where the milk and bread was supposed to be in the grocery store before the storm hit. Just a toilet. However, it is the first one I have put in that works lower that the sewer line. It pumps up. Works good. It was a long time coming with all the other projects I have in flight.
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Central Asia

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We are back from our most recent crazy trip. This time it was Central Asia and the "five stans" - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. We made all of our objectives. And we have now been to 104 countries. Angie has 95 and I have 94 countries. Together it is 104. These five countries were packed into 12 days, 7 flights, 2 high speed trains, 1 cable car ride, 1 horse ride, and lots of hours in car trips. They are all Muslim countries, but they are better characterized as former Soviet countries. Russian langauge is a strong second language in all of these countries. There isn't much English spoken in any of them. Angie being fluent in Russian made all the difference and did intrepreting for me as well as a couple of British backpackers we met in Turkmenistan. Tajikistan is the Country with the distinct langauage being a derivitive of Persian with the others being Turkic. Ethnically, Southern Uzbecs are Tajik. Interesting, the spelling of many...
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Columbia, Guyana, and Suriname

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We are back-- again. This time from Northern South America. As we planned, we spent midnight Christmas eve in a new and interesting place. We were at 35000 ft above the Eastern Venezuela jungle. We had a flight leaving Bogota at 11:00 PM arriving in Georgetown Guyana at 3:00 AM. We have noticed at lot of what you might call "odd hour" flights outside the US. It makes sense, the Western world (West Europe, US, etc.) connects with these flights. It makes sense to schedule flights as "connecting". On our initial flight from Atlanta to Miami one of the passengers seemed to have been arrested when we landed. We don't know the details, but it was noteworthy and a minor inconvenience. Subsequent segments took us to Bogota, Georgetown, and Paramaribo. We decided to go back to Georgetown from Paramaribo overland. looking at the maps and globes over the years it always seemed like an interesting place to experience. There is exactly one road East-West across these two...
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Risk is the precursor to learning. You have to take a risk that you will learn something.

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I found a good quote today. "Risk is the precursor to learning. Courage is the precursor of risk." I find the preceeding quote to be very profound. "Just like the llamas that are cautious where they drink their water. So should humans, where they get there knowledge. Often humans emblazonly extoll truth that they obtained from a turbid pond." Life is ok today, complex but ok. I mowed a couple of acres maybe, but the tractor is losing power after an hour. It is not water temp related. I have to do some research. The fields I mowed once last year are absolutely beautiful this year. They are all wildflowers. Some are green grasses, some are other colors and shapes. There are no weeds, only misplaced plants. The weather this week has been fantastic. Today there was a huge barn fire in Triangle. The smoke went straight up and stayed there.
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Things have been busy as usual. We are getting the front of the property raked out ready for seed. Last year we got a significant amount of firewood from this area and dug up all the roots. The plan is to go canoeing Sunday.
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