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Gracie doesnt like New Years eve much. I am not sure why.

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Central Asia

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We are back from our most recent crazy trip. This time it was Central Asia and the "five stans" - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. We made all of our objectives. And we have now been to 104 countries. Angie has 95 and I have 94 countries. Together it is 104. These five countries were packed into 12 days, 7 flights, 2 high speed trains, 1 cable car ride, 1 horse ride, and lots of hours in car trips. They are all Muslim countries, but they are better characterized as former Soviet countries. Russian langauge is a strong second language in all of these countries. There isn't much English spoken in any of them. Angie being fluent in Russian made all the difference and did intrepreting for me as well as a couple of British backpackers we met in Turkmenistan. Tajikistan is the Country with the distinct langauage being a derivitive of Persian with the others being Turkic. Ethnically, Southern Uzbecs are Tajik. Interesting, the spelling of many...
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The ANITA payload launched the other day. The next payload (BLAST) may launch tomorrow. You can check out ANITA tracking here: http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon8/balloon8.htm Looks like we are going to try for Mt. Terror again Monday. It may take weeks to get up there waiting for weather and willing souls. The first picture is an area we have been blasting at to get ready for an addition to the building there. At 4:30 PM almost everyday we get the "kaboom". Blasting is also used to hunt for fossils. The fossil hunters look in very particular strata. Dynamite makes the job practical. The second picture is observation hill here at McMurdo. I will walk up there tommorow for fun. There is a running race up and down "ob" hill on Christmas day. I may participate if my ankle feels up to it.
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It has been some home time for a while. It's good. I have been surveying my projects around here. There are many, but overall I am easily gaining on them. Once you start a project it becomes a commitment. Only thinking of them is a waste. Starting and finishing them is the virtuous stuff worthy of the human experience. Given my definition, I have about 12 open projects. My Honda S2000 didn't start the other night. I had to do the impossible limbo (feet over the trunk with top down) under the dash of a small sports car to identify the issue. The local Honda dealer wanted $85 for the part and had to order it. The OEM part on the internet was $41, fast delivery. Angie and I have started a new regimen at the gym. We will be back up in New York soon, continued effort with the farm. There is always yard work here in Georgia. We do it all ourselves.
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Columbia, Guyana, and Suriname

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We are back-- again. This time from Northern South America. As we planned, we spent midnight Christmas eve in a new and interesting place. We were at 35000 ft above the Eastern Venezuela jungle. We had a flight leaving Bogota at 11:00 PM arriving in Georgetown Guyana at 3:00 AM. We have noticed at lot of what you might call "odd hour" flights outside the US. It makes sense, the Western world (West Europe, US, etc.) connects with these flights. It makes sense to schedule flights as "connecting". On our initial flight from Atlanta to Miami one of the passengers seemed to have been arrested when we landed. We don't know the details, but it was noteworthy and a minor inconvenience. Subsequent segments took us to Bogota, Georgetown, and Paramaribo. We decided to go back to Georgetown from Paramaribo overland. looking at the maps and globes over the years it always seemed like an interesting place to experience. There is exactly one road East-West across these two...
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AeroVentures, Inc.

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I noticed that often I don't post about things that have been important/changing to me. It's a bit like forgetting to take a picture when something crazy happens, even when the camera is in your hand. Journalists are trained to take the picture first then worry about everything else. I felt I did a better job taking pics in uncomfortable situations when I was in Africa. I was yelled at, threatened, scorned, and vastly outnumbered. It was uncomfortable. But, I did what I needed to do to get the result I wanted. (Video would have better in capturing some of the adversity I created.) Aeroventures is my flying club with about 150 members and about a million dollars in assets. There has been some incredible tension with the board of directors for over a year. I joined the board in that period because of the tension. I figured it would be a skill developer. “Calm seas never made a good sailor.”--Franklin D Roosevelt It was indeed a skill developer. Eventually, there was legal a...
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