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Showing posts from June 27, 2010

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 have an apartment in Duluth. What a great deal. It is a 1050 Sq feet with a wood burning fireplace in between the den and living room, washer, dryer, exercise room, gated community, swimming pool all for 713.00 a month. I chickened out on buying a place on the lake right away. There appeared to be good deals in this market, but I still have to learn more. I snapped this on a 777 aircraft the other day. Some people will bring anything on as a "carry on."
I was woke up last night about 1:00 AM. There appeared to be a party going on in the room next door. It wasn't totally loud. There wasn't any banging on the walls or anything. But it did wake me up and I didn't really get back to sleep for the rest of the night. When I went down for breakfast I noticed a "do not disturb" sign on my neighbors door. I was thinking these folks don't need that. So, I took it with me.
Here is a poem, sent to me, worthy of repeating. "Designed to Fly" by Ellen Waterston After ten hours of trying the instructor undid my fingers, peeled them one by one off the joystick. "You don't need to hold the plane in the air," he advised. "It's designed to fly. vA hint of aileron, a touch of rudder, is all that is required." I looked at him like I'd seen God. Those props and struts he mentioned, they too, I realized, all contrived. I grew dizzy from the elevation from looking so far down at the surmise: the airspeed of faith underlies everything. Lives are designed to fly.
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I drove down to Florida over the weekend to visit with my Mom and Sister. I purposely retraced some of the roads I used a long time ago. I rode my KZ400 motorcycle to Florida alone 30 years ago (almost to the day). The roads looked a lot the way I remembered them. Although there were more fancy houses and Dollar General stores. The roads commonly had that "go on forever" look and drove into the vanishing point of tall trees. And yes, I did get a speeding ticket from a local sheriff.