T-shirt #81: Starship Enterprise Schematics

T-shirt #81: Starship Enterprise Schematics & Friends

Friends are important.

One thing I have learned (and I often feel that I have not learned very much at all in life) is that people are drawn together because of similar interests.

Pictured here are my friends Jeff Waldeck and Steve Curl on the occasion of Jeff's 50th birthday.

Not pictured is Timothy Travis, with whom we met the night before and I was too intoxicated to remember to have a picture taken. Sorry, Tim. Next time.

I am wearing a T-shirt displaying  a cutaway schematic of the Starship Enterprise. The shirt has been worn by the character of Sheldon (Jim Parsons) on the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory. My wife gave me the shirt as a gift for Christmas in 2012.

Of the many things we four all have in common, we share the love of Star Trek. We all own the original Enterprise blueprints published in the 1970s (or at least Jeff and I still own ours, Steve owned them at one time, and Tim was not part of that discussion, so I cannot claim that he owned them though surely he knows what I am talking about and has at least looked at them). After all, Tim, Jeff, and I programmed Star Trek and Super Star Trek text-based games in BASIC on the Altair 8800 (or was it the IMSAI 8080? There was some debate on this point of order) in high school, ultimately teaching the computer programming class together as we had in a short time learned more than our teacher.

The four of us gathered Saturday night June 8th for some reminiscing and drinks. We all still share the same interests that brought us together in the first place: science fiction movies and TV (such as Star Trek and Star Wars), role playing games (we all played D&D together in the '70s and '80s), live action role playing (which we did in the 1970s before it was called LARP), and a variety of other things including blowing up stuff. Jeff and Steve re-met through the Burning Man community, once again drawn together by common interests, though only corresponding as online avatars until one dropped a location clue (Kalamazoo) and they exchanged actual identities.

I have been interested in re-connecting lately, in large part due to the subject I explored deep within the entry for T-shirt #77. Jeff and I have been trying to connect for a few years as he lives in Idaho, but he returns to Kalamazoo at least once a year to see his family. I had been searching for Tim Travis off and on for the last five years, and only recently scored a successful search via Facebook. I have no good excuse for not seeing Steve Curl more often, as he lives in the greater Kalamazoo area. The crazy life stuff, work, family, and just the chaos of day-to-day living sometimes distract us too much. Now, we are all back in touch, and at least, I can see Steve on a more regular basis. Plans are already afoot to gather more of our cronies  for a D&D reunion game session next year. I intend to make this happen. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I have blogged about Star Trek so much that I hardly that I hardly need to generate more content about the great SF TV and movie franchise. Instead read  T-shirt #39, T-shirt #13, T-shirt #11, T-shirt #4, and T-shirt  #72.

It should be self evident as to why we were all fascinated by how the Starship Enterprise works and the layout of its decks, corridors, shuttle bay, and engine room.

Jeff and I played many games of an early version of Star Fleet Battles with tiny ship miniatures, 360 degree compass targeting, and string when in high school.

We also blew up stuff, which now Steve and Jeff can do without breaking laws at Burning Man.

It's good the reminisce about such things.

Friends are important. It's cliché, but it's also true.

- chris tower - 1305.10 - 7:42