So, how does one meet Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner?

By saying hello, thank him for coming to the convention, get the picture, thank him again, and move along.

So, in restarting this blog page with a new theme, who else could I have started sharing our experiences with other than Mr. Shatner?

I try not to get starstruck when I meet the many stars who attend all these scifi conventions, but occasionally I get, shall we say, near to an anxiety attack myself. I have to reach deep inside myself for that peaceful place and regain my composure.

So it was with William Shatner. Naturally, I'd heard the stories of how he was at conventions and with fans (not all were nice stories, by the way), but preferring to err on the side of caution because, after all, we WANTED that picture with him, we kept it short and professional. It was a surprise to see him seated on a stool rather than standing (as every other photo we've had done professionally with stars they were standing with us), but it did make for a memorable photo... I kinda felt like Mr. Spock standing behind the Captain.

On stage, however, he was a hurricane of energy and self-depricating humor. He was warm and entertaining, even despite one idiot asking a stupid question about the death of his last wife (whom he just ignored and went on to the next question without missing a beat, and the audience panned the idiot). I could spend a lot of time retelling the story he told which left us laughing so hard we were in tears... but why spoil it for someone who might get to hear that story in person one day later?

There's so much ado of nothing regarding whether Shatner/Kirk will appear in the next Trek movie. While I would enjoy it as much as the next fan, I don't see how it would be possible canonically. Kirk did not survive his arrival on Veridian 3, and Picard buried him on a mountaintop. Now, unless we want to make the Shatner "Kirk" novels part of reality, in which Kirk was reanimated by the Borg, I don't see how it could happen...

But then, anything is possible in science fiction.

Regardless, having the chance to see William Shatner in person was, for us, a genuine treat for us as the casual convention attendee. The moral of this story is: Don't believe every Shatner rumor you hear...

(See our picture with William Shatner at www.gannons.com... click on the Scifi button to go to our conventions gallery!)

...After being gone for several months, I'm finally back here... first, I do maintain a regular journal over at Jack's Day, and while I have a MySpace page it's solely to keep up with a few special friends who only have a page there... but what's the point in maintaining multiple blogs talking about the same thing? And, while my original idea was to use this page to share my science-field favorite stories of the day, it did require a little bit of searching and reading, and my days get very very busy with little external effort.

But if I am to maintain this page, it needs to be unique... and ideas just haven't been forthcoming... until this weekend. Coming up in just a couple weeks is our next SciFi convention, and what an idea to come forth: reflections on our visits with all the stars we meet! All the stars we've met and had photos with are posted at The Adventures of Jack and Mendy (scifi button link), but the stories are not. So, I will now use this page to reflect on our moments with the various stars we meet.

So, thanks for coming by over the months... and I hope you enjoy the upcoming stories!

A rather interesting piece I found on the celebration of New Year's Day... so as you prepare to celebrate the arrival of 2007, why don't you enjoy this article as much as I...

"Happy New Year!" That greeting will be said and heard for at least the first couple of weeks as a new year gets under way. But the day celebrated as New Year's Day in modern America was not always January 1.

ANCIENT NEW YEARS
The celebration of the new year is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. In the years around 2000 BC, the Babylonian New Year began with the first New Moon (actually the first visible cresent) after the Vernal Equinox (first day of spring).

Story continued at:...

http://wilstar.com/holidays/newyear.htm

Human Scent Tracking Nothing to Sniff At

By Greg Miller
ScienceNOW Daily News
18 December 2006

A surprising new study suggests that people can track a scent across a grassy field--at least if they're willing to get down on their hands and knees and put their noses to the ground. The findings are unlikely to put hunting hounds and drug sniffing dogs out of work, but they may earn a little respect for the poorly regarded human sense of smell.

Humans are widely believed to be poor at tracking scents, especially when compared to other mammals such as dogs and rodents. But few had ever put that idea to the test. A research team led by Jess Porter and Noam Sobel at the University of California, Berkeley, dipped 10 meters of twine in chocolate essence and laid it in a field to form two straight lines connected at a 135° angle. Then they blindfolded 32 undergraduate students and had them don earmuffs, thick gloves and kneepads to prevent them from using sensory cues other than smell. When set loose in the field, two-thirds of the subjects successfully followed the scent, zigzagging back and forth across the path like a dog tracking a pheasant, the researchers report online 17 December in Nature Neuroscience.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2006/1218/2