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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Radio Path Study in Antarctica

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My mission went well yesterday. We went to White Island and an area near Williams Cliff to check for decent radio paths for some of our problematic links. We had some promising results. I will be going to pole tomorrow. I still have to check the times and bag-drag. I will be getting on 20 meters on 14.243 at about 000 hrs UTC over the next week. I am hearing that they are getting a signal into the United States. Although I may have to climb a tower at Pole to fix the 6 element beam. We will see. My email and blogging will be out of schedule a bit. The South Pole has only 11 hours of satellite visibility for our Internet and phone connection. They have a great ham radio station and from what I hear it can be very different from McMurdo. It will be a great thrill to see the dome and the new station. I will be posting a time I will appear in front of the webcam after I get down there. The temps at pole are fairly warm at -20 or -30 F.

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

-
Image
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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Summer's End - Hopefully.

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My sister took a picture of an iceburg near Greenland that looks a little like a cat, our white cat, Jewel. I been using the M998 without doors and the back curtain rolled up. Much better in summer. Redneck A/C. The Moon, Jupiter and Venus in the early Morning, using nothing but my cell phone to take the pic.
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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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We have been busy getting furniture. I have decided after a prolonged evaluation period, I don't like IKEA. I certainly don't need a reason, maybe it is the cheap furniture, crowds, waiting, poor (no) service. Maybe it is the non standard vocabulary. I don't like buying furniture at all anyway. But, I can say I did find a few furniture stores close to home that were a true shopping pleasure such as "Bova" and "By Design". Angie and I went to a fundraising dinner for Refugee Support in Atlanta Friday Night. We both had fun and we felt our dollars are making a difference. We also got a copy of "Pete the Cat", Autographed.
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