Well, this is embarrassing, for a supposedly veteran traveler. And inconvenient. I was trying to make some US to Europe flight reservations for this fall, and the reservation system required my passport information. Not surprising. Then I noticed that my passport expires in July this year (2022 was always far into the future, every other time I thought about it), and the reservation system would not accept a traveler with a passport expired before the flight date. Soooo…off I go to try and get my passport renewed ASAP, during a time when all government services are worse/slower than ever (COVID). Rookie mistake, and I can only hope that airfares don’t go crazy during the 5-8 weeks it’ll take to get my update.

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Our little town’s biggest annual event is tomorrow, The Fallbrook Avocado Festival. We’ve missed it the last few years, so we’re going to this one. It’s basically a big street fair, with some good food and the occasional nice bit of art and craft. If nothing else it should be a good chance for some photos.

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I have to say, the Russia-Ukraine war has me pretty worried about an escalation to nuclear. Putin isn’t rational, and he’s sitting on a big stockpile of nukes, and if he believes he’s losing the war…not good. I would be 100% in favor of a strike team from us or any nation going in for an assassination – that may be the only way to bring Russia back from the brink. It’s very weird to write this paragraph, but the more I look at the situation it’s clear that there is one and only one human being who is threatening the world with nuclear war, and removing that one human would be the right thing to do.