Back to the "Deep South" in Duluth GA

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I get a kick out of hearing the term "Deep South" in 2026. It is a crazy incredibly outdated label. I think maybe I should start saying the "Deep Northeast". I am a Yankee. My family came over on the Mayflower and moved to Upstate NY via Connecticut. Terms used in the revolutionary and Civil war days are generally inappropriate. My family is all but totally out of NY State now. I find the term "deep south" to be of the same thinking that the movie "Heidi" is what contemporary Europe is like. Watching the fireworks in Rochester, NY from the back yard of a house in the city made it look like a real war zone. It is a long drive between Berkshire, NY and Duluth, GA. Most of the 35K miles on the truck were spent in between. I drove the truck about 3k miles in 2-1/2 weeks. It was great to spend time on the farm. It was good to make some progress on needed repairs and improvements. I also felt good about making some new friends up there. I will be...
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I am Sao Paulo Brazil concluding this trip to South America. I worked my way up from Buenos Aires, Porto Allege and now Sao Paulo. There have been a whole bunch of cities in between. The weather has been nice. The temps through this trip have ranged from 90F down to about 70F (in the rain). I can't count how many formal meetings I had until I go through my notes and certainly the number of informal meetings is almost incalculable.

I like Brazil and I liked Argentina more than I expected. The Brazilian people are friendly, hard working, enterprising and the women are very good looking as a whole. All and all I think the people here are very positive by nature. A good example is that when a shop owner told us not to park in front of his store it was with a sincere smile, not a snarl. And there was little or no animosity from the driver.

We got caught in Sao Paulo traffic a couple of times. Most nights we made it to the dinner by 11:00 PM. In one case, I needed to remind myself that the inconvience we felt waiting in traffic was not what the motorcycle driver and his family felt with his almost certain death.

I will be back in Brazil in February, after a similar whirlwind trip in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.

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