Here was the e-mail to some friends who helped me get my Ham Radio license. I was reporting to them the success in pulling a joke on another friend who didn't know that I was getting my license.
From: ikluft (Ian Kluft)
Subject: Joke pulled off without a hitch
To: krs (Kris Stephens [Hail Eris!]), steven (Steven Swinkels),
karl (Karl Rowley), gll00@[...] (Gil Larish),
galahad@[...] (Mike Polkinghorn),
lker@[...] (Lowell Voelker),
pmulcahy@[...] (Pat Mulcahy),
cyber@[...] (Erik Berls),
dlegare@[...] (Daniel LeGare)
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 92 22:59:44 PST
Cc: nomad@[...] (Mike Larish),
bhsteel@[...] (Ben Steel),
gilligan@[...] (Tuka Gafari)Just about everyone receiving this message knew about this joke ahead of time. It took 2-1/2 months to arrange and this is a report of its success.
Background: (for the Amdahl people on the list that just knew I was pulling a joke on a friend) The victim's name is Mike Larish. He sometimes goes by his CB handle "Nomad".
The conspirators: "Operation Pin-the-tail-on-the-Nomad"
Ian Kluft KD6EUI
Lowell Voelker KC6SBJ
Mike Polkinghorn
Audry Fahey (signed the award but couldn't make it for the pizza)
Pat Mulcahy
Erik Berls (joined last minute - we told him what was going on when he ended up coming along in the Bronco for the pizza)Everyone deserves a lot of credit for 10 weeks of spectacular acting and keeping a straight face when they had to.
Since November we've acted like I have no interest in ham radio when, in reality, I was studying for and getting the license. Today's culmination of the joke has been planned for weeks.
All day today it has been difficult to keep a straight face but everyone did. The joke was to be pulled off just before all of us met for a pizza. Lowell went along with Nomad in his car to make sure he monitored the right ham repeater. The rest of us went there in my Bronco. We stopped around the corner from the pizza place and I got out and made a radio call that Nomad did not expect...
Me: KD6 Charlie Tango Zulu, KD6 Echo Uniform India [This means I'm calling him but he's never heard my callsign before.]
[no response - Lowell was monitoring the repeater and pointed out "someone's calling you" and then had to turn around because he could no longer keep a straight face.]
Me: KD6 Charlie Tango Zulu, KD6 Echo Uniform India [repeating the call]
Nomad: KD6 Charlie Tango Zed [He hates using "zulu" for Z :-) ]
Me: If you can guess who this is, you'll get an award.
Nomad: I know who this is but I can't figure out how you're doing this.
Me: We'll be there with the award soon. KD6EUI clear.
[looooooong pause...]
Nomad: KD6CTZ clear. [sounding very confused]
[We burst into laughter at the sound of that...]Then we drove across the parking lot and parked next to him. We gave him a fancy laserprinted award saying:
Operation Pin-the-tail-on-the-Nomad
presents this award to
Mike "Nomad" Larish KD6CTZ
on
February 1, 1992
for having no idea what was going on for so many weeksIt was signed by everyone in the operation. Lowell and I also listed our callsigns. Everyone else put some sort of number (Social Security, Drivers License, "3", etc.) in place of a callsign.
Nomad's going to frame the award. :-)
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