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Showing posts from December 5, 2010

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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Here is an interesting one. http://nysdocslookup.docs.state.ny.us/GCA00P00/WIQ3/WINQ130 http://books.google.com/books?id=oHkA15BCY9MC&pg=PA509&lpg=PA509&dq=robert+j+lewis+raymond+corp&source=bl&ots=66o6dkChtm&sig=Wj-jDaUqZ6qiIdBtn5uCltfaehg&hl=en&ei=9RMCTaLKKMP7lweT8Y3SCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false It appears Bob Lewis the former chief engineer (key person for technical liability responsibility) at The Raymond Corporation (A division of Toyota) just got out of Prison after serving 2 years. He was convicted of Producing Child Porn, or something like that. He retired after he got arrested. Now that he is out he can come back and visit, maybe consult. Good for them both. Truth is stranger than fiction.
It looks like I will have to go to a country other than the USA to look through wikileaks. What side of the "iron curtain" do we really live on these days? Although currently you can still get there via http://wikileaks.nl/ but for how long? Access is problem enough; additionally, there will be significant hurdles in getting to site data. Our country is being run by gangsters.
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The weeks are flying by. I am trying to get some stuff done by year end. Yes, it is yet another year gone. I planned a great hike yesterday. You might ask, "How do you get to the Southern start of the Appalachian Trail (AT)?" The answer is obvious. You cannot get there by car boat or airplane. You get to the start of the AT by foot. I had a great hike. After 5 miles I ran across a "hike-in" only lodge. They offered me some hot drinks and soup. Since it rained all day (my fire building opportunities were dampened) it was a welcome treat. The woods and the trails were fantastic. I will be back to this particular trail area when the views are not obscured by clouds. I hiked about 13 miles. My altimeter watch indicated that I climbed over 1700 feet. I spent about 8 hours on the trail. I slept pretty well (after the 50 min drive back to Duluth) except for my sore feet. This is the kind of stuff I truly enjoy experiencing. The movers delivered my stuff from NY. Now,...