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Showing posts from November 21, 2021

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...

Thanksgiving vacation 2021

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We are back from our Thanksgiving vacation 2021. We spent most of the time in Ireland and then to cap it off we participated in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It was 7 hotels different hotels in 8 days. We spent one night on the plane of course. I drove 1300 km in Ireland and North Ireland, concentrating on what side of the road I should be on and uttering my self-talk -- "Lefts are easy. Rights are hard". The Parade People ask us... "How did you get the opportunity to walk in the Macy's day parade?" It was in the works for a few months. Angie works at Macy's and they sent out a corporate email canvassing for volunteers. She applied and then again applied for me being a family member. We were eventualy approved for the role we asked for --"Banner Carrier". Neither one of us have any parade experience, nor band, nor theatrical, nor anything to do with "entertainment". We thought being in this incredibly iconic American event ...