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Showing posts from April 13, 2008

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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The weather is great today and we are expecting it to get better and better over the next two days. I went up with my aviation mentor the other day. We went over to Sidney NY and got gas for the plane. My instructor has been out of town. I am still working on my Chinese. It is clear that it gets harder as you learn more characters. I need to practice more with Google in Chinese. These are pictures of downtown Coventry NY and the Silo Restaurant in Greene NY. The video is final approach at Greene NY 4N7 runway 25. This is the runway I practice on.
There is a lot going on. I have been hiking and running. I shoot for at least five miles either running and hiking. They are different exercises for sure. The hiking is therapeutic for contemplation. The running is good for the stress of "gotta do something now!" In the past few weeks, a cat has been put down, a llama was put down and five chickens were killed by a weasel that got into the chicken pen. Spring has sprung in Upstate NY. What you do is all a matter of priorities. Make time for creative stuff, plan for the necessary work stuff. Get lots of sleep and don't drink.