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Showing posts from January 23, 2011

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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I went to the pistol range Saturday with a bunch of pilots for something different. You can see where my first shots were with a rented gun.
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It has been a while since I blogged. It was one thing than another. My latest trip to Europe was a success. It is amazing how problems dissolve when you have people in the same room. I flew into Munich, took the train to Marktoberdorf. After 3 days in Marktoberdorf I hopped on a direct overnight train to Venice, Italy. Unfortunately, It was a night train so I didn't get the benefit of the scenery. It felt good to maneuver the trains and stations. I hardly screwed up at all. Since I was by myself, don't know any other language besides English, and it was the first time, I did ok. Venice was better than expected. I don't recommend going to Venice by yourself. Also, I was there in winter. I can imagine how busy it must get in season in the evenings. I would definitely avoid that. Exploring first thing in the morning in Venice was cool. There are no crowds and the images were very impressive. I think it is pretty hard to take a bad photo in Venice. I have so many pictures. ...