'Twas a nice day.

Thanksgiving 2009 was a nice day. The weather was decent and actually on the warm side for late November. We were supposed to go over to my sister's house for dinner; but it seems my brother-in-law has come down with the flu (or something). My sister was kind enough to advise us of the situation; so we switched gears and had our Thanksgiving Dinner at a restaurant with my wife's brother and his wife and my mother-in-law.

The food was buffet style and was terrific! There were shrimp, oysters and garden salad to be enjoyed before the main course. Of all the food available for the taking, I had turkey (of course) but also some duck and some chicken. So in a way, I had some turducken, even if it wasn't cooked that way. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a turducken is a chicken stuffed inside a duck, which is then stuffed inside a turkey. They are cooked together for one massive piece of poultry heaven. It's a Southland specialty and I've been wanting to try that for the longest time. This is the closest I've come without actually consuming a turducken. There was also sweet potatoes, turnips, cranberry sauce and the obligatory stuffing. There were many other things to try; but I held off and stayed with the poultry today. Dessert was pumpkin cheesecake - wow! The food was out of this world; and I didn't have to cook! How can you beat that!

The disappointment today was an eBay mishap. I missed out on the sale of Acers at Target; so I found what appeared to be a good deal on eBay. I was outbid at the last moment; but when I came home to check my e-mail tonight, I saw I was made a "Second Chance Offer", as the winner changed his mind and no longer wanted it. I paid up via PayPal sooner than you could say "Jack Robinson". Still stoked an hour later, I received an e-mail from the seller that he had refunded my money because the winning bidder had changed his mind once again and submitted payment. C'est la guerre, I guess. I did check with PayPal and my money was indeed refunded; so at least there's no problem there.

My disappointment was slightly mollified by good band conditions on 40 Meters tonight. Since it's a holiday, the cause of my neighborhood QRN problem must be away and for once, there was no noise to speak of! I managed to work both Foxes in the 40 Meter QRP Fox hunt tonight and that's the first time that has occurred in a couple of years!

This weekend is the CW WW DX contest - CW portion. I only need five more new countries to qualify for QRP DXCC. You know I am going to try my darnedest to root up five new ones to finish this up. I am not in the contest to participate in any big way other than to have fun and find five new ones. They don't have to be exotic - they just need to be new to me via QRP.

Wish me luck!

73 de Larry W2LJ