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Showing posts from June, 2022

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 ony 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 passpor...

Guest from Latvia

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This past weekend we had a guest for a couple of days from Latvia. It was her first stop on her first trip to the US.

Jewel the Heterochromatic Iris Cat

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A picture of Jewel.

Guest from NYC

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We had a guest this past week. Marina came down for a couple of days to visit Atlanta. Its been hot here in Duluth just like everywhere else it seems. The AC broke down just as the temps got hot (of course-- not because of pessimism, but things break under pressure.) It was a combination of problems and it actually broke twice. The second time I had to drive into Atlanta to get a new capacitor for the blower motor. I dont know how people cope by totally relying on service people. But then again my repair skills don't scale well. They are a matter of pride, nevertheless.

"Could be" Becomes "Yes it can"

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The new driveway progresses in Berkshire, NY as well as remodeling in Duluth GA. There is nothing nearly as seductive as manifestations realizations of "what could be".

Drug Use

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In this age of "pharma" it strikes me that we may be living in mass ignorance in regards to "pharma for social change". With modern abilities to synthesize most compunds and drugs (maybe all) isn't it conceivable that drugs could be created by organizations that can use these coumpounds to affect humans in the most disturbing ways. Years ago folks had no question that technology was and is used for intelligence and covert operations. Do we think that the "technology age" as it progresses into the "bio age" that these advances will be used for human manipulataion without their concent or knowledge? Any drug that is reported to take away "free will" and can be delivered to selected individuals through very casual interaction should get our attention. It is very conceivable that variations and combinations of drugs briefly mentioned below are used to exploit others for social change. Or are we so naive that these drugs/weapons would ...