As the subtitle on the webpage states, there are two guys for this blog.  My apologies for the delay in getting my inaugural blog posted.  Life has been busy, but in a good way.

Where to begin???  Man, it seems like such a long time ago that I hated every single aspect of Star Trek.  Couldn’t stand it, for many of the same reasons as RedShirt stated.  When I was a kid, I wanted to watch anything BUT Star Trek.  I remember vividly that my older brother was a big fan and he wanted to watch it, while I wanted to watch something stupid like the Brady Bunch or Gilligan’s island on Channel 56.  Being the older brother, he got his way of course.  I never fully understood why it was such an issue because we had several TVs in our house.  Why didn’t I just go down to the playroom to watch Buddy Hinton make fun of Cindy’s lisp until Peter knocked his block off?  Anyway, I remember being scared to death of the Gorn (and that was before he even had the ability to blink…ahh the Remastered Episodes) and whenever “Arena” was on I would hide behind the couch and peek out to see if the guy with the funny voice would be able to beat the lizard monster. Then I would see friggin’ Dr. Sevrin and his band of dolts singin’ “Headin out to Eden” and that reminded me why I thought the show was lame.

Jump ahead to Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  My home town of Nashua NH used to have a run down, crappy movie theatre on Main Street called The Brandt Theatre. What a freakin HOLE!!!  WICKED DIVE!! Probably would be condemned with today’s rules and regulations. Anyway, for some strange reason, The Brandt got the rights for ST:TMP instead of the much nicer General Cinemas at the mall.  I think the night I went to see TMP was the only time there was ever a line wrapped around the building.  They had big spotlights out front and it was quite the spectacle.  That was when I started getting hooked by the Star Trek bug, and I haven’t looked back since!

For me, Star Trek is the ultimate escape.  No matter what is going on in life, I can feel better by tuning out the world and watching a couple episodes of Star Trek.  My favorite series is by far Deep Space Nine.  If you are able to get past the first two seasons, I don’t think there is a better written series than DS9.  Unlike Voyager, an episode doesn’t go on for 48 minutes and then get wrapped up in 30 seconds simply because the writers couldn’t figure out how to end a storyline.  I loved how something trivial in Season 1 could have substantial consequences in Season 7.  The continuity of DS9 made it so enjoyable for me, and the characters, conflict, passion and attention to detail made it my favorite series.  Yes, season 7 had its flaws, from Worf/Ezri to Odo/Kira, but if you put aside the attempts of romance in the shows final season, I think it sparkled and gave one of the most memorable seasons in TV history.

Back in the early 2000’s I went through a very traumatic incident in my life.  My own stupidity caused me to lose just about everything.  I literally had the barrel of a gun in my mouth, ready to end it all, but thankfully I didn’t do the ultimate stupid act.  Thinking back on those days, I remember times when I was at my lowest, in my house with all the blinds drawn, I would throw in a VCR cassette which has hours and hours of DS9 taped from Channel 50.  The next think I knew, 6, 10, 12 hours had gone by and I didn’t know where the time went.  It was spent in Gene Rodenberry’s universe, allowing me to forget my life for awhile and enjoy the 24th century.  My life is better than it ever has been now, and I thank God everyday that I didn’t let myself pull that trigger.  My road to recovery was helped by Star Trek and as silly as that may sound, it was one of the factors that literally saved my life.  If Gene were alive today and I were to have the opportunity to meet him, I would shake his hand, explain it all to him and thank him for all that he has done.

I am proud to call myself a Trekker.  I am proud to have built friendships because of that fact.  How many people can get as excited as me when I pull my Enterprise putter out of my golfbag when I am playing a round of golf with my family or friends (I’ll have a pic of that beauty next post).  Redshirt and I have been quoting lines back and forth for years now.  All I can say is that “The Botany Bay was totally under the Enterprise, man!”