It's Monday and an hour ago I just got an email

from another ham in Azerbaijan. 

He ran a special event station out of there and I made a QSO with him this past June. He requested $3 for postage and I sent him five because I know what it is like running a special event out of one's own pocket.

He just got his cards printed up and let me know he will send me one as soon as he gets back to Russia.

That's another one that is bringing me closer to my goal of 200 entities.

There is a Kuwaiti that sent me his card and paid for the postage out of his pocket because I made him laugh.

A while back I was battling my way through a pile-up with some guy in California. I didn't really need a California contact or anything but was simply battling my way through a pile-up for the exercise.

The cat jumped up and flicked the VFO knob with his tail changed frequency on me. I found myself in the middle of a pile-up over a Kuwaiti station.

What the hell, I figured. One pile-up is as good as another so I started in and managed to get another Kuwaiti entity in my logbook. 

I didn't need a QSL card from Kuwait on 20 meters so I didn't send for one. However, I did email the other ham and told him of the circumstances regarding our QSO. He thought it was pretty funny and ten days later I got his card without asking for it.

Many of these hams overseas are well traveled, educated men and he and I swapped a few emails. We laughed over Alaskans arriving in Kuwait City in parkas and Arabs in traditional garb landing in Minnesota in January. 

One thing we both chuckled at was how Hollywood has influenced the world. I sent him a link to the old (1925) version of The Thief of Baghdad with Douglas Fairbanks, senior.

We both shared a laugh. While it is pretty inaccurate, it still really is a pretty good movie.

He was pretty quick to rightly point out that the American stereotype is the American Cowboy.  He hit that one on the head.

I told him if I ever get to Kuwait I'd show up dressed like one. Complete with a can of Copenhagen in my back pocket, a Bull Durham string hanging out of my shirt pocket, red bandanna, 10 gallon hat, jeans and boots. 

He suggested I leave the six-gun home, though.

I don't drag politics into it, though. So I didn't say that I could picture the Duke walking into and ISIS camp with a shotgun and telling them, "They'll be no beheading so long as I'm the marshal of Dodge."



To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY