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...
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I am having issues with my computer at home. I am reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling the system. It is very time consuming to go through and fix these things but what else can you do? I have no net access at home for the next few days. The good thing is that this will give me more confidence of the computer for Bonnie while I am gone so we can email each other easily. McMurdo now has 2 T1 lines this year. That will be a big help compared to how it has been there. There are a lot of folks (with lives off the ice). Bandwidth would be a requirement. I don't expect gobs of bandwidth but hopefully I can buzz through some emails as the opportunity presents itself.

It appears I am getting some teeth pulled to go to Antarctica. Today I find out how many. So... I am giving some teeth up to have the opportunity on top of all the other sacrifices. I have never had a tooth pulled up to this point so I am a bit nervous. I hope this will be the last on the list of sacrifices.

It is going to be a trip. 6 weeks from now I will probably be on the ice. I will be a "Fingee". With it sunny 24 hours a day that will be some adjustment. I don't like sleeping with the light on. So I will probably get some big eyes as I adjust and eventually pass out from sleep deprivation after a couple of days. My goal is to stay well and achieve the highest work performance rating attainable. I will be exercising, running and working on equipment that is fun to work on, radios and telecom. I am pretty sure the program uses ham bands for VHF since they are the US government and they set the rules. I will be programming, setting up and repairing repeaters and all sorts of other stuff to be sure.

Four months away is a long time. As a percentage of my life at 45 years old it is 0.74 percent.

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Anonymous said…
squawk

DOWDELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!

squawk
11:19 PM
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