Today I HAVE TO be a geek. 40 years ago today Star Trek premiered. If you've read this blog at all you know the influence the show has had on my life. It has brought me hours of entertainment, expanded my imagination, brought some amazing people into my life and done a lot to make me the person I am today.

It is somewhat amazing that something that is "just a TV show" can have that kind of an impact on a person's life. But probably no more amazing than a kid who loves baseball wearing his team jersey to school and playing games in a sand lot was me, in my youth, wearing the cheesy Star Trek windbreaker that looked like a uniform and running around an open field with a toy phaser and communicator imagining I had just beamed down to an alien planet. It is no more amazing that a football fan would know statistics for every team in the NFL and I could name all 79 episodes in order. No more amazing that the Shriners or Elks jam into hotels all around the country for their conventions and we fans do the same thing just as often.

If you'd like to see a neat tribute to the show, a friend of mine in California put one up on YouTube. Enjoy and watch the show sometime today.

On the personal level......thanks George and Robin.

Thanks Nichelle, Majel, Grace, Harlan and David.

I miss you Jimmy, and Angelique.

Oh, yeah! Thanks for everything, Gene!