Lucky 69!

I'm pleased to report my 69th country visit! I spent most of last week in lovely Cartagena Columbia. Cartagena boasts a fascinating and well-preserved old city as well as a modern skyline (see photo). Many lovely islands are just a short boat ride away from downtown, and I can report that the snorkelling is not bad at all....

Columbia boasts several nice beers, although Aguila quickly became my favorite. Now I just have to plan my visit to several of PSI's Nordic donor countries.....

v/H visits Liechtenstein, 48th Country Visited

Mr Secretary. I am at the Zurich airport after a good meeting with the client, a nice dinner and a succesful trip to Liechtenstein. Took the train to Sargans, the Swiss city bordering Liechtenstein and the Liechtenstein bus to cross the border to Balzers, about half way to Vaduz. I had a little bottle of Fendant handy as I was warned that Balzers was a hole in the wall with few facilities. Majestic snow capped mountains and all that in a tiny street size village with two trust offices and a photocopy center... Anyway, 1 more country to add to the list. At least I worked on the train to make up for the madness of losing one day like this. -M

Ms van Herksen visits Bosnia, 47th Country Visited

Bosnia lies just 15 minutes up the road from Dubrovnik; it would have been madness not to visit. Mr Hovig sadly forgot he had it and in this photo believes he is getting his 93rd country. Pity! Ms van Herksen still trails Mr Sempliner by three countries, but is catching up fast.

Hovig, van Herksen and Chapman visit Montenegro

The UN's newest state, Montenegro, is just 30 minutes from Dubrovnik, so we popped in. For Mr Hovig, this is his 92nd country, for Ms van Herksen, her 46th, and for yours truly, his 77th. That's the local pivo, recently sipped!

Hovig, van Herksen and Chapman visit Croatia

Mr Hovig, Ms van Herksen, and yours truly visited Croatia this past week, making the visit official with Posip, a jaunty white from Korcula.

v/d Z Reports Balkan Hat Trick

Dear Mr. Secretary,

Just returned from an amazing trip through the Balkan, where I managed to fulfill my personal Balkan hat trick: drank Albanian beer in multiple stoney cities in this mysterious country, enjoyed local Montenegro wine and "Gorska Crna" in Ulcinj and Podgorica, and swallowed a couple of refreshing Pivo Skopje in a heat-wave plagued Macedonia to mitigate temperatures of well over 40 Celsius. Happy to hereby have joined the elite five, and don't forget: 'objects in the mirror are closer than they appear'....

Yours truly,

Bob

v/d Z on the March! Sempliner and Chapman Inch Forward

Mr van der Zwaan rang to announce visits to Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro in the past two weeks. Details of qualifying acts are forthcoming. v/d Z has now tallied 22 Country Visits since joining three short years ago. Mr Sempliner has moved house and is now resident in Cambodia where he has had "more than a few drinks" in the past week. "More [countries] will follow in short order". Yours truly did some tidying up in his own backyard by visiting nearby Luxembourg this past Sunday by motorcycle and taking a junior sip of a Jupiler.

Denominator Modified

In June 2006, Montenegro was admitted as a member state of the United Nations, thereby increasing our denominator to 193. In keeping with our long tradition of being utterly up to date, it is my pleasure to announce that the denominator was, today, adjusted in all relevant documents of The Country Club.

v/d Z confirms Jamaica

Mr van der Zwaan reports "a good time drinking Red Stripe in Jamaica, and a conference in June in Thessaloniki should enable me to drink my way through a couple of Balkan countries, satisfying my short-term appetite for passing the bar of 70."

Van der Zwaan Creates Three Way Tie For Fifth

Details are not yet in, but reliable sources report that Mr van der Zwaan visited Jamaica, joining Messrs Warshauer and Heart in a three way tie for fifth place. Meanwhile, your Secretary visited Malaysia, toasted Mr Warshauer who was kindly present for the occasion, and sipped a Tiger! Surprisingly, your Secretary, with 18 countries visited, is tied for the lead in Asia with Messrs Karam and Hovig.

Take that, Mr. Heart!

Very pleased to move back up into fifth place with Mr. Heart via my recent holiday in the Dominican Republic. I can report that the North Coast (on the Atlantic Ocean) is striking and still only very partially developed. Also, even in quite remote places, the local brew, Presidente, is always served muy fria!

I'm planning an investigation of Scandinavian donors soon, and that will certainly require multiple site visits, so yes, Mr. Chapman, you should be looking over your shoulder......

Congratulations and thanks again to our esteemed Secretary for this superb Blog!

Modifications to the Club Ladder

Three modifications were made today to the Club Ladder to correct previously unknown errors. Ms van Herksen now has 44 countries, up from 42, with the additions of Luxembourg (a visit during her university days) and Portugal (a visit during her youth). Mr van der Zwaan now has 67 countries, up from 66, with the addition of Liechtenstein (a visit during his youth).

Mr Warshauer vs Mr Heart

Undoubtedly, one of the great battles in The Country Club is for fifth place. Mr Heart holds it now, but senior Country Club officials have indicated that Mr Warshauer is poised for an attack in the upcoming week. Stay tuned!

The Founder Founders

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Chapman
To: Greeley, David P.

David, you are one of the very last to gain the capability to post items to the Country Club website. What's up?

From: Greeley, David P. (WS) Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 9:36 AM
To: Steven Chapman

I tried and I was told that opening this account from my computer
violates Merck policy 37 and that access has been denied. I guess you
didn't think of this when you set up the system.
I will try to open up an account from my wifes computer but that will
take me a couple of days.

Members: Want to Post Something to the Country Club Website?

Simply:

1. go to www.gmail.com and open up a free gmail account

2. send your secretary the address; you will then receive permission to post to the website

3. that permission will be sent to your gmail account (give me a day to do this). Open up the email from Blogger and there will be a link in it. Click on that.

4. go then to the country club website and click on "sign in" on the upper right.
you'll then be able to blog with the rest of us!

Four of our members have already done this. Don't be the last!

VTY, Your Secretary

OHHHHH-MAN

Marriage has, surprisingly, accelerated an accumulation of countries. We just returned from a lovely 5 days in Arabia, full of scuba, sand, and sun in Oman. Filled with wonder, I kept exclaiming "O Man" at every amazing vista, and gurgled it to myself as we finned past 100lb sea turtles. Flavia has organized a trip to tick off 3 new countries this summer. This notice is merely an "ameuse geule". Must admit, however, that I'm not too happy about the position of our Founder's right hand on my 19 year old niece in Rio.....
Yours in search of a century. DANA

Having the obligatory drink in Zanzibar, which unfortunately is not on the UN country list.
Oh well, there are some compensations for being here.

Correspondence from Our Founder, 17 February 2007

This is too good to be true. Not only is it my first blog (now I know what it means) but it is a work of art of our esteemed Secretary, Steven Chapman. I think a reunion is called for in a country that none of us has been to, to celebrate the Club and to salute our Secretary for the great work he has done. In the meantime, thanks Mr Secretary and have a great weekend (so long as it is not in a new country).

Correspondence from Mr Warshauer, 17 February 2007

Huzzah!! This blog looks great! Thank you, Mr.Secretary. Makes me want to get on a plane...
-Will

Proceedings: February 2007

Dear Members,

Welcome to the new face of The Country Club Proceedings! Please take a moment to review the List of Countries Visited (see link on your right) to check if your total is up to date and, if not, then simply click on the link on the upper right hand corner and post an update! (I'll update the spreadsheet and Club Ladder shortly thereafter). You will be asked for your username, which is the email to which Club Correspondence is usually sent; send me a note if that is not obvious and I'll update you.

Let's make our Proceedings worth checking! Post often. Photos encouraged.

Secretary,
The Country Club