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Showing posts from April 1, 2012

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 tried to do a solo cross country today. But, the weather degraded unexpectedly and I ran into a low ceiling. I ended up going into a cloud. That got my attention pretty good. I diverted to a nearby airport, landed, did a bit of a read on the situation, and got my confidence back. I figured I would try it again at a lower altitude. When I was about 20 miles out from my destination the weather at the destination called for "Clear to 1200" (not enough). I decided to do a 180 and go back to LZU. Clouds can be very difficult to see when you are ascending into a haze. The density of the haze is especially difficult to distinguish when you are looking up. I still got some hours and some practical experience in "aeronautical decision making" (ADM) and used some good judgement (GJ) which is the opposite of poor judgement (PJ). I still had time to take the self portrait. It is a special place alone in a plane. I got to try out my new iPad app that has charts with an overlai...
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This has been a long stretch in Duluth GA, 4 weeks, it will be 5 weeks before I leave for South America this weekend. I am looking for houses again/still. It is a bit overwhelming. But, I am closer to zeroing in on exactly what I want and what makes sense. Here are two pics about one of the most talked about characteristics in the Atlanta area, traffic. The new roundabout is really a revolution near downtown Duluth. It is very anti-Atlanta thinking. Roundabouts or what we used to call "traffic circles" years ago are a great way to keep traffic moving. The car in the pic is somewhat typical. You see Georgia plates with a Dorschel dealer sticker from Rochester NY and a SUNY Geneseo, NY license plate frame. NY State isn't bad, really even in the winter (well that is a stretch some days), but bring your own job. Atlanta is nice. There is a lot to do. You can get anything here and you are close to the country if not in it.
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