Good morning from NJDavids studios in NYC. After a wonderful brekfast at the Pierre (Courtesy of Rudi), we've come in out of the soaking rain to say hello.....Rudi? Your turn:

well protected by the new Sherifff Catman (courtesy of Old Gold) - GRUEZI ... Gisela?

gruezi mitenand (hello all togrhrt) .... and Catman?


Hellos and MIAUS and thank you NJDavid and Rudi and Gisela for all of your hospitality and friendship.

HAVE A MEOWY WEEKEND!

Like reading a post by Sybil.

Have wonderful time!

Have you tried afternoon tea at Pierre? I had first date with my wife at Pierre over afternoon tea. How can I forget about Pierre.

P.S. Please thank Rudi for me. I was able to use the upgrade certifcate on last trip, SEA-IAD.

------------------
Dan
"It is not doing the things we like to do, but liking the things we have to do, that makes life blessed." - Goethe


[This message has been edited by dilbert (edited 09-10-1999).]

[This message has been edited by dilbert (edited 09-10-1999).]

This is not LIVE but from the home office of the Catman in Jerrsey City with Yaz refusing to get off his daddy's office chair.

SIT DOWN, GRAB A PEPSI OR FAVORITE BEVERAGE AND READ... THIS IS A LONG STORY!

It's so nice first of all not having to go to work on a weekend. The day starts with me meeting up with NJDavid at the Pierre for breakfast. Rudi and his lovely wife Gisela arrived with their friends Enid and Marty a little while later (NYC traffic is horrid.) We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast where we all talked about our FlyerTalk adventures and how everyone was doing.

Rudi then passed on to me some nice gifts from Old Gold: A FLyertalk luggage tag with my name on it and a sheriff's badge since I am also COMMANDER CATCOP!!! I was stunned, and thank you Old Gold for thinking for me! Hope to meet you soon to personally thank you.

The bad news is the rain went down like cats and lions. We treked in the monsoon for a quick tour of where NJDavid works. (thanks for taking the time Dave!) When we got out, the rain was worse so Gisela and Enid went one way and the guys went to do a little walk in the rain.

We all got relatively drenched but Rudi has the best attitude of it: you must make the most of it so having my Brooks Brothers white linen pants and shoes soaked because irrlevent to the fun time we were having.

A stop at 21 Club where Mr. Stuck up Nose raised a fuss because Rudi and his friend has no jackets *required. Rudi has a nice Swiss vest on, I saw no problem with it but the men put on jackets and we had sidecars which were good. Mr. Stuck up Nose was going into hysterics because people were walking in with no suit jackets.

After I showed them my shortcut through Rockefeller Center and teh rain eased a bit we decided to go to the U-S Open and see if tennis would resume. Luckily we did.

It was the women's semifinals and it was my first visit to the OPEN. Yes, the prices of everything are astronomical. But the real treat was seeing two awesome tennis matches which could have gone either way:

Lindsay Davenport Versus Serena Williams: Lindsay was the crowd favorite but Serena held her one. Some lucky shots and Serena edged out Lindsay for the finals.

the second match was tennis history in the making: the very beautiful and talented top seed Martina Hingis versus Venus williams. crowd split on both but both women showed why they're among the best in the world. Martina moves like a cat prouncing across the court and quickly took the first set but Venus rallied in the second and her serve moves like a 7-47. The third set could have gone either way, it was Martina leading, then Venus build up a great lead and then ran into some problems (including corn rolls falling off) Martina ended up staying the course and winning.

Saturday's final: Serena takes first set but Martina rallies for the win.

After the OPEN off to Smith and Wollensky for their excellent steaks and some more talk. I was sorry to see evening end but as Rudi said we would see each other again in Hawaii.

And it was great meeting the Martel's friends Marty and Enid. very friendly and I suggested they too join Flyertalk.

So thanks everyone for a wonderful Friday and many great memories!

great report, Catman.

While you were at the Open, I was watching you & Rudi on TV!! I think the women's final will be great. I'm watching the mens semi now... Agassi just took a 2 sets to 1 lead from Kafelnikov.

OMNI: I called the Westin in SEA & they are running behind on the Heavenly Beds...won't have them until Oct/Nov. Looks like you may luck out staying at the new W in SEA.

[This message has been edited by shadow (edited 09-11-1999).]

Hi Shadow! Did you see how well dressed my good friend Rudi and I were at the OPEN (Rudi in a fine tennis sweater and the cat in a very special Hawaiian shirt, courtesy of www.hotshirts.com I previewed it for Rudi since it will be part of my official wardrobe for the PIP!!!

But the cat is very sad. His sweetheart Martina lost so right now I'm crying in my PEPSI

Catman, I share your pain...

I too was hoping the lovely young Swiss Miss would win also. She was just outplayed.

Looking forward to our meet in SEA on the 24th.

...Some pictures of this event (as well as some recent others) are posted on the Candids page of the Flyertalk Photo Gallery.

I've been way behind in updates, but now that i'm back from vacation and business trips, I can catch-up

Catman- Stragely enough I was just around the corner from you (2 blocks) while you were at S&W last night. We were at Zarela's (2nd & 51st) before heading downtown for the festival of San Gennnaro!

Glad you all got to see such fine tennis!

NJDavid,

Thank you so much. I know this has been said before, but the service you perform in maintaining the "Gallery" does so much to enhance the community, that you deserve all the kudos, applause and congratulations we can send.

Thank You so VERY MUCH!!!!!!!

Seconding Punki in thanks for maintaining the Gallery!!!

Just one comment - I don't mean to be ungrateful, and I'm suspect you may have thought of this already and just not gotten around to it yet, but is there any chance of breaking up the Candid's page into several pages? Over a modem, with all those great photos, it takes FOREVER, for all of them to download (and unfortunately the newest ones are the last to load!)

Thanks. Yes it has dawned on me that there's a better way......

I've just got a time crunch that has my ideas way out ahead of my execution.

As you can see from one of the last new candids, Rudi, Catman and myself have completed the necessary paperwork to give Randy Petersen a gift - Very early on, wwe reserved "flyertalk.com" as a domain, and will officially present it in person in the near future. The Inside Flyer team will (I'm told) shortly be developing the "Flyertalk community" concept, including places to better display photos of our meetings. So for now, I don't think I'm going to be making too many more changes, other than displaying any additional candids on a "next page" link.

. . . or you could get a cable modem -- these pages load in less than a second!

Thanks NJDavid for posting those and thanks to all the FTers for attending--great to see some friendships take flight.

yes, thank you David.

Now, about that photo of Catman & I at Ruth's Chris in NY...did he ever give it to you?

Hi Shadow! I gave NJ David BOTH photos: one of us at Ruth's and one of us saluting Ruth's picture on a steak well done.

Dave's been swamped with work I'm sure so I know he will get that pix (and several others including pixs of the future KIT KAT KASINO & KLUB) on the boards soon.

Thanks for your patience and your friendship!