Going to Phily with Sam and Dave

Only three days to go to "Microwave Update 2007" in Philadelphia, and yes I AM going with Sam and Dave, but not the ones you might imagine from the Stax label in the '70s. This is no convention for lazy chefs, nor kitchen appliance salesmen, but my first experience of a North American Amateur Radio convention and a first trip to Philly. My Aussie mate described it today as "three days with a bunch of guys with big antennas"....rather unfair, but from a man who refers to Americans as "Seppoes" (Septic tanks, Yanks, geddit?) hardly surprising.

Not my first trip to the USA, having been there 3 times this year already on business, but my first as a tourist since 1990. Hopefully it will not confirm my worst fears about American culture ("Land of snap decisions, Land of short attention spans") and I will be pleasantly surprised. I was not encouraged when I read the reviews of the hotel, but it really can't be as bad as some reviewers wrote can it? The US is supposed to be the homeland of customer service so if it is bad, I intend to act very non-British and actually complain, in the hope that I might get something done about it!

Readers of this and the last blog entry might now be getting some hint as to the blog's strange title. I never intend to actually cook any of my my three moggies, but I suppose I should introduce them. Maxwell the blind ginger tom you have already met, overfed and undersighted, the "grumpy old man" of the cat world. Faraday is a black lap-cat, and Florence (his sister) comes home every now and again when we can extract her from the local sailing club which she seems to prefer to our house. Florence is basically a psycopath. She is the "loveable little black cat" to the children at the sailing club, but actually survives by raiding rabbit warrens in a blood lust.

I fear she might get her come-uppance she stays away throughout the winter.