Today I had a bit of a win with money conversion.
Air New Zealand recently came out with a frequent flyer card called the onesmart card. Its really good and has some fantastic features.
On the face of it, it looks like a mastercard. In fact it is to a degree. Its actually a debit card. While you can do lots of fancy things with airpoints etc the one that was REALLY good for me it the fact that you can have your funds in different 'wallets' in different funds. So today, while the exchange rate for the USD is very favourable, I converted all the money I'm going to need to ship this thing, into US dollars at a great rate. Its saved me a considerable amount of money. Thanks AirNZ ! What a great thing !
Also:
I think I now have a handle on what the TSA requires. I finally found a NOTAM that applies. The FAA system for this isn't great. NOTAMS in this area seem to get superceded all the time with no real trace if which ones have. I was trying to find an old NOTAM mentioned on the TSA and FAA website that had been deleted despite the reference stil existing. It seems they are about 4 or 5 updates further on but havent changed their references. Added to this, it seems not many US pilots understand this part of their own rules. I guess it isn't suprising but its funny how many said the don't read this "crap". It might bite them one day!
Anyhow, while the end result isn't quite how I would like it, I think I should now be ble to get it to work well enough. It just means I'm going to need to have my flight plans organised well in advance. Not ideal for VFR but that will have to do. I'm sure Derwood and I can make it work.