Hello World!

We having a very nautical week. On Saturday we went to Baltimore, where the HMS Bounty was visiting. This is the Canadian-built replica of Captain Bligh's vessel that was built in 1960 for the Marlon Brando Mutiny on the Bounty, and it also appeared as the pirate ship in the Spongebob Squarepants movie, which is of far greater interest to my kids. After touring the ship we walked to the National Aquarium, where the dolphin shows were cancelled because Nani had a calf two weeks ago, and because of this the auditorium was open for people to walk in and watch the dolphins just hanging out and playing with the trainers in a way that rarely happens in the crowded aquarium when shows are going on. Then we decided to walk through the Chesapeake, Atlantic, polar and jungle exhibits on the way to the rainforest, and because it was less crowded than usual we saw a lot of animals we sometimes can't get close enough to spot -- a caiman, a marmoset, a tree sloth, a viper and numerous birds.

Sunday we drove to Solomons, where we went to the Calvert Marine Museum, which in addition to a lighthouse has a ray and skate tank, a fossil-digging pit, several exhibits on local archaeology and paleontology, an otter tank, a boardwalk over a salt marsh, an exhibit on the Patuxent River and the War of 1812, a display of locally-manufactured ships and ship parts, a history of shipbuilding in Calvert County and an aquarium with local fish, jellyfish, seahorses, crabs and plants. The lighthouse was lovely -- there were four stories, all open to the public and all restored to 1906 condition when the granddaughter of one of the last lighthouse keepers who endowed the exhibit was born there. The nearby region is home to both thousands of fossils and a nuclear power plant surrounded by a wildlife preserve and state park, so the area is exceedingly beautiful. We walked half a mile to the beach through the woods, where little frogs and birds can be seen in abundance, and the beach itself is famous for the ease of finding shark's teeth, bone fragments and shell fossils. The Chesapeake Bay was very warm - by late afternoon the air was actually cooler than the water - so we spent nearly two hours swimming, wading and looking for sharks' teeth.

Last night we took the kids to hear Beethoven's Ninth Symphony performed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. We got a treat - something I had not known to expect - because they opened with Beethoven's "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage," which I have never heard performed and although I cannot understand the lines by Goethe, it's quite obvious that the "calm sea" is actually stagnant and creepy while the quick rocky pace of the second part represents the prosperous journey. The program notes said that the choral conclusion contains seeds of the Ninth Symphony's finale and I see what they mean, although the dark notes don't creep back in the way the minor key themes recur at points in "Ode to Joy."

And tomorrow we're going to the Naval Museum in Annapolis.

Trek BBS Today

Below are some of the topics currently being discussed at the Trek BBS:

-What piece of DS9 would you most like to own?

-Shatner's "Rocket Man" online!

-Ice lake discovered on Mars!

More topics can be found at the Trek BBS!

Trek Two Years Ago

These were some of the major news items from July 2003:

• Billingsley Is Happy To Be Phlox
  Hoping for a long Enterprise run, John Billingsley (Phlox) said that he had plenty of ideas for Phlox's development and was keeping busy in the off-season contemplating theatre projects.

• Star Trek: The Experience Assimilates the Borg
  Paramount announced that in spring 2004, visitors to Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton would be assimilated by Borg Invasion 4D, a new environment with a combination of live actors and special effects to create a scenario in which visitors touring a futuristic research facility are pursued by Borg drones bent on assimilating them.

• 'Voyager' On DVD In 2004?
  At the Video Software Dealers Association, word leaked that seasonal sets of both Star Trek: Voyager and the original Star Trek would be released on DVD in 2004. The original series had previously been released in two-episode pairs per single disc.

More news can be found in the archives.

Poll Results

Below are the results of the most recent TrekToday poll:

What's your favourite Scotty moment? Trading the formula for transparent aluminum for parts in 'The Voyage Home' 33.1% - (649 Votes) Defending the Enterprise in 'The Trouble With Tribbles' 24.7% - (484 Votes) Getting the alien drunk in 'By Any Other Name' 12.9% - (253 Votes) Discussing scotch with Data in 'Relics' 8.7% - (172 Votes) Playing the bagpipes at Spock's funeral in 'The Wrath of Khan' 8% - (158 Votes) One of his many other wonderful scenes 7.1% - (139 Votes) 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!' in 'Friday's Child' 4.8% - (95 Votes) Coming back from the dead in 'The Changeling' 0.2% - (5 Votes) Total Votes: 1955

Please vote in our new poll on whether "These Are the Voyages..." was, in fact, a TNG or Enterprise episode or whether it's not worth worrying about!

Happy Birthday!

Today is the birthday of both Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and David Warner, who played Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Wheaton is 33; Warner is 64.

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