I was tailgating at the Albuquerque Ham Fest in the early hours on Saturday. Lee Maisel, the owner of the HMMWV pictured above, told me about the Ham Fest tailgate party, which, unlike the traditional “before the game” tailgate party with crowds of rowdy fans, loud music, and kegs of beer, was quiet and orderly, with mostly older ham operators walking around sipping coffee and munching on breakfast burritos while looking at ham radio equipment and shootin’ the bull.

Besides being a ham, Lee Maisel owns and operates Albuquerque Laser Engraving. I had him engrave an iPad for a retirement gift earlier in the year, and he did a fantastic job at a very reasonable price. Besides precision engraving, his laser equipment does precision cutting, so he showed me a wide variety of projects he had finished and waiting to be picked up that involved engraving or cutting or both. All the work was very high quality and professional.