Your favorite 'Star Trek' cartoon

One of your favorite "Star Trek" cartoons to watch on DVD was the episode "Yesteryear." The story was about Mr. Spock as a seven-year-old, undergoing a major test...which an older Mr. Spock who's traveled into the past must help him with.

While it was a well-written episode, as a preschooler I doubt you liked it for the finer points of its plot and character construction! I suspect you enjoyed it because the main character was a little boy, just like you, and you could identify with that character!

You also like the first "Star Wars" movie, "The Phantom Menace" a lot because it was about a little boy, a young Anakin Skywalker. And Jonny Quest - the story of a young boy and his faithful friend, Hadji - also were your faves to watch!

I'd love to hear your memories of what "Yesteryear" was about - your favorite scenes, the memorable images from it! Here is some more about the episode.

My email to you for June 8, 2013

Here is my email sent to you on June 8, 2013, in case you do not receive it:

Hi Kieran,

How are you doing today? I’m doing fine, though I miss you more than anything! I am looking forward to seeing you in just two weeks, on June 21. We also should be able to start seeing each other every other week after that.

How has your first two weeks of summer school gone? What stuff is the teacher covering in our classes? Have you read any interesting books in class? Are many of your friends back in summer school, too? Do you have new classmates for summer school? So many questions, I know! But you are the most important person in the world to me, so I want to know everything about you!

I purchased some new fun “Star Trek” stuff for us to play with when we get together. Some of them are the Lego characters. Another is a set of models of the spaceships from the show. The models snap together, and we should have a lot of fun building and playing with them. Have you seen the new “Star Trek” movie yet?

There are a whole bunch of great movies coming out this summer that I’d bet you love to see. “Monsters University” (the follow-up to “Monsters Inc.” – remember when we used to go on that ride at California Adventure?) comes out on June 21. “The Lone Ranger” (Remember when we used to play Sheriff Jack and the Deputy?) comes out on July 3. Finally, “Disney’s Planes” (It’s like “Cars” except the main characters are airplanes!) comes out on August 9. Hopefully, you will get to go to each of these movies, as they all sound like lots of fun.

Now that’s summer here, I bet you’re enjoying spending time outdoors! I didn’t receive a response to the email I sent to you last week, so I will have to ask again how the bicycle riding is coming along? I bet you’ve got it down already! If not, don’t worry – you’ll get better with practice. Be sure to wear a helmet when you go bicycle riding, though; if the bike crashes, and you don’t have a helmet on, you could get hurt!

I will be outdoors a lot as well this summer, hiking trails in the Northwoods. My latest hiking book is doing well, so I’ve decided to write a follow-up to it. There are some neat trails that go over ancient volcanic rock, to waterfalls, and past beautiful lakes and rivers in the Northwoods. I always liked going hiking with you in the Angeles National Forest when we were together and sure wish we were allowed to be together this summer to explore all the neat places Minnesota and Wisconsin have to offer.

I found a new book you might like to get from the library! It’s called “Interrupting Chicken” by David Ezra Stein. It’s all about this young chicken who keeps interrupting everybody! Do you know of anyone who interrupts someone? It’s not very nice of them, is it?

Well, that is all for now. I miss and love you very much and can’t wait to see you on June 21!

Love,

Dad

My email to you for June 1, 2013

Here is my letter from June 1, 2013, in case you do not receive it:

Dear Kieran,

How are you doing today? I am doing fine, though I miss you a lot! I have very good news: We will be able to see one another more often – every two weeks in fact. It may take a while to get it all arranged, but soon we will get to visit one another every other week. I’m very excited about getting to spend more time with you and about all of the fun we will have.

How was your first week of first grade? What did you learn about in your first week? Do you like your new teacher? What is your new classroom like? Does your teacher have any fun field trips planned for the summer?

I recall you telling me last fall about learning how to ride a bicycle, but you had to put it off until spring. Have you gotten out the bicycle and mastered pedaling and steering yet? When I was a little boy your age, our local John Deere tractor shop also sold bicycles. While the clerk was helping my dad, I got on one of the bicycles to figure out how it might work. I started pedaling, and the bicycle took off through the store! Zip it went past the shelves of tractor parts. I didn’t know how to stop the bicycle, though, and crashed into the front counter! After that, the store clerk always kept his eye on me whenever I came into the store. By the way, don’t ever do what I did in the John Deere tractor shop. Not only was it very naughty of me but my elbow hurt like heck for the next week because it hit the hard floor.

Do you have any trips planned for the summer, such as the zoo or the fair? I will be traveling around Wisconsin promoting my book and researching hiking trails for my next one. Some of the places I’m going to are: the St. Croix River, which has neat rock formations on it; Big Manitou Falls, which is as tall as 16 houses stacked on top of one another; and Lake Superior, which is one of the largest lakes in the world (It would take days to drive around it!). I’m looking forward to going to all of these new places but sure wish you could come with me to see them.  

What did you get to do for Memorial Day? Did you go to any ceremonies? Memorial Day pays honor to soldiers and sailors who died in battle defending our country, and often there are special programs at cemeteries and parks. You’ve had many ancestors and relatives who served in the armed forces. Your Uncle George served in World War II, which was the biggest war the world has ever seen. He fought in France and Germany against the Nazis. Your Grandpa Ed (who you are named after) also served during that war and played a very important role in it; you’ll have to ask your mother to tell all about him.

How are your “Star Trek” Lego toys holding up? Hopefully they haven’t come apart! If they do, maybe you’ll be able to put them back together using the instructions I put in your bag. You always can bring them with you when we get together, and I’ll help you put them back together. I will bring some more character packets when we next get together (June 21 at the latest), and hopefully we will get the Gorn!

Well, that is all for now. I miss and love you very much and can’t wait to see you again!

Love,

Dad

Pictures from our May 24 visit

When we were together on Friday, you said I should put the pictures from our visit on my computer. I'm not quite sure I fully understand what was meant - Did you mean post them on Facebook? Maybe place the pictures on my desktop? Possibly post them here? Or just store them? My hope is that now that you have a computer that you might be able to see this site. At the very least, I know that soon you will be able to read and use a computer just as well as (probably better!) than an adult, and you'll be able to see these pages and learn the truth about what has happened. So, I've posted here a few of the pictures from our visit for you to see!

The photo you took of me!

Winning the Scooby Doo game

Playing with Star Trek legos

Playing with micro cars

Enjoying Grandma's cookies

My email to you for May 25, 2013

Enjoying Grandma Bignell's chocolate chip cookies
on May 24, 2013.

Here is my letter for May 19-25, 2013, in case you don’t receive it:

Dear Kieran,

How are you doing today? I’m doing fine and very happy because I got to see you again yesterday! I had so much fun – but then you’ve always been a great kid to be around!

I’m glad you liked the football player action figures. I shall have to look for some more of them, especially since you like the Chicago Bears and there are a couple of their players that you can get as action figures. I’m sorry to report to you that one of those players, Brian Urlacher, has retired and isn’t playing next year. That’s good news, though, for my favorite team – the Green Bay Packers – because Brian Urlacher was very good at tackling our quarterback!

Playing the Scooby Doo game was great fun, too! You were quite good at tapping out the bricks. It reminded me a lot of our Don’t Break the Ice game. I bet you remember the Scooby Doo haunted house that we used to have. Maybe I should look for that and get it for the next time we’re together.

I think I most liked the Cat in the Hat card game that we played, though. You were excellent at walking like a penguin, and thank you for showing me how to skip properly! I will bring that one with me next time!

The “Star Trek” transporter Lego set is neat with how the light flashes and then our character sins around so it looks like he’s beamed down to the planet with the Kirk Rocks. There aren’t too many “Star Trek” sets left to get, but I will look for more packages with characters – hopefully we will get the Gorn! Maybe you also would like a Lone Ranger Lego set?

I liked playing “zombie” with the finger lights, too! We used to play all the time with those and the “Star Trek” lights we got out of cereal boxes. We’d sneak through our green house in Lancaster, pretending it was a wrecked ship that we searched for survivors, hoping no monsters attacked us. But they inevitably did – and turned one of us (usually me!) into an alien zombie.

Playing with the micro cars was a good time, too. They fit perfect on that fold-out van set, didn’t they?!

I’ve been a little surprised that you haven’t wanted to read books the last several times that we’ve gotten together. We used to read books all the time together. Is there a reason you don’t like to read books anymore?

I know that you want to see me more, and I want to ensure you that I also want to see you more. I love you more than anything in the world and want to see you every day and have fun and new experiences just like we always did. Let me assure you that I am working very hard at ensuring that happens.

Well, that is all for now. You take care – I next will see you June 21 (and hopefully even sooner!)!

Love,

Dad

List of new 'Star Trek' Lego-like toys

Transporter (w/Scotty and Klingon)

I'm looking forward to seeing you today, Kieran. It is the highlight of my month when we can spend time together, if only for a couple of hours.

I will bring more of the "Star Trek" Legos for us to build and play with, including some characters. When we were together, we used to look online at all of the "Star Wars" toys that were coming out; so in advance of our visit, I thought I'd list all of the "Star Trek" Legos (They're actually not made by Lego but a competitor known as Kre-o) sets:
>>Transporter (w/Scotty and Klingon) HAVE
>>Dive Doors (w/Kahn, Captian Kirk) HAVE
>>USS Enterprise (big set)
>>Jellyfish ship w/stand
>>Klingon ship w/stand HAVE
>>USS Enterprise w/stand HAVE
>>USS Kelvin w/stand
>>Klingon Bird of Prey (w/characters)
>>Shuttlecraft (w/Sulu and Spock)

Which ones will I bring? You shall find out today at 2:45 p.m.!

Remember your X-wing fighter?

Another one of your favorite toys when a preschooler was the Star Wars X-wing fighter - it was the rebel ship that Luke Skywalker and his companions flew when trying to destory the Death Star. It came with an action figure pilot (not Luke, though) and an R2D2.

The ship often came in for a landing at the rebel base that we'd "make" on the living room endtable by using the Batcave as a command center and some other Star Wars action figure accessories like computers and communication tables. We always had action figures and robots performing maintenance on the ship!

Other times we'd take it and the Star Trek shuttlecraft on flights through space as they explored new planets. Inevitably, those planets included Pillow and Blanket monsters that tried to caputre our heroes and destory their spacecraft!

When we were at City Park in Lancaster, in the areas with steering wheels we'd sometimes pretend to instead be flying the X-wing fighter as we attacked the Death Star!

My email to you for May 18, 2013

Here is my email to you for May 18, 2013, in case you do not receive it:

Dear Kieran,

How are you doing? I’m doing fine, although I miss you very much and wish we could spend every day together. The good news is that we get to see once another again in just six days, on the afternoon of Friday, May 24! I can’t wait to see you again!

I put together the Star Trek transporter Lego kit for us to play with when we get together. It’s really cool. One side is the transporter room. You can put your Lego guy on the transporter pad; when you press a button, a blue light flashes, and the pad spins around to the back side, which is a scene from the planet he just beamed down to! There are some more Star Trek Lego characters I can pick up at the toy store, so I will make sure that we have some of them to put together and play with on the transporter kit!

We used to have lots of great Lego kits to play with when we lived in California. A few were from Harry Potter, a couple form Pirates of the Caribbean, and most were from Star Wars. Not only were they fun to put together but to later incorporate into our playtime with all of the neat Lego figures we had. I still have most of the Lego figures and will make sure to get them out for you once we’re back together again.

How is school going? You’re almost done with kindergarten and will soon be a first grader! What interesting books have you read? What are you learning about in math (I was so impressed that you could add 52 and 5 to get 57 when we were last together! I couldn’t do that in kindergarten!). Are you still studying oceans or have you moved on to a different topic in science?

I don’t remember too much about was taught when I was in kindergarten, but I do remember playing a lot. We also got to do a lot of arts and crafts stuff (like painting) that I didn’t have the materials for at home, so that was a lot of fun. I recall that for “aprons” to keep the thick paints from getting on our clothes, we wore our dad’s used shirt backwards so that the button side was on our back. It worked! Most of my friends and I had paint all over our dads’ shirts – but not on our good school clothes!

Have you read any good books lately? I have. It was called “Who Was King Tut?” by Roberta Edwards. The book is the nonfiction (or about real people and events) story of the famous Egyptian pharaoh King Tut. He also is known as the “boy king” because he ruled all of Egypt even though he was a boy. The book told about the mummy’s curse – it was said that bad things would anyone to who disturbed King Tut’s tomb (where he was buried). So did bad things happen to the scientists who found King Tut’s tomb? You will have to read the book and find out! You probably can find the book at your city library or a bookstore – be sure to look for it when your grandmother or mom take you there!

Well, that is all for this letter. I shall see you in just six days – on May 24. I love and miss you very much!

Love,

Dad

My email to you for May 11, 2013

Here is my email sent to you on May 11, 2013, in case you did not receive it:

Dear Kieran,

How are you doing? I’m doing fine. I had so much fun with you yesterday! I can’t wait to see you again in just two weeks on the afternoon of May 24.

Thank you for introducing your stuffie penguins to me! They look like they’ve received lots of love and affection from you, and that’s cool. I remember how much you enjoyed the penguin cartoons that you would watch on the DVD player when we made those long drives from Palmdale to San Diego. It was always a great pleasure of mine to hear you laugh and giggle from the back seat!

Putting together the “Star Trek” legos was a lot of fun, too. You did a great job of following the instructions. We still have the Klingon ship and the transporter to build. There were a couple of other “Star Trek” lego models at the toy store, so I shall pick them up for the next time we get together. I think there were some other characters we can get as well. They also had Lone Ranger Lego sets, so maybe we’ll do those when we run out of “Star Trek” kits!

Is your wooden car model holding up well? If the wheels ever fall off, you just have to use some wood glue to put them back together. You did a very nice job of painting the car!

You were very good at playing War! I shall have to find some additional games for us to play. Have you ever heard of the game “Operation”? You have to pick up little pieces out of a “body,” but if you touch the body it buzzes and you don’t get the piece. Whoever has the most pieces at the end wins. I bet you would like that game. Speaking of the body, the next time we get together I also will bring the human body book with the skeleton that we can put together.

I am glad you enjoyed the book about Egypt, too. It had a lot of interesting pictures, didn’t it? One of your favorite places to go when I lived in Encinitas/San Diego was the Museum of Man, which had a whole section of Egyptian mummies and sarcophaguses as well as a great children’s area for learning about Egypt. We’d take the trolley there, and on the walk over from the trolley stop would look around in the sculpture garden and sometimes have lunch in the open air cafeteria next to it. Their gift store was a lot of fun, too – if I remember correctly, we got you some Egypt and Darwin toys, there. Anyway, the museum was one of your favorite places, and you’d even beg me to go there!

We had so much fun that we didn’t have time to do everything, like play with the Hot Wheels car, the map puzzle, or the sticker play book. Maybe next time!

Well, that is all for now. I love you and miss you like crazy. I’ll write again next Saturday and will see you on May 24!

Love,

Dad

Our Star Trek movie action figures

With the new "Star Trek" movie coming out in a few more days, thought I'd share with you some memories of the action figures we had from the last movie. You had all of them!

You liked the Uhura and the Captian Kirk action figures the most for some reason. The pony tail broke off our first Uhura, and it took a while for me to find a replacement one, but we did! Then I think our Sulu or Captain Kirk broke, but I was able to tape him back together.

The belts never stayed on them, but we the phasers did a fairly good job of being in their cupped hands. Sometimes we taped them in place to keep them there!

There were both tall and short ones, so we had two of each character! Usually we played with the small ones, though, because they fit with the transporter and the bridge play action action we had. They also were closer in size to our Star Wars action figures, so we were able to have the two interact.

I think the above picture is of the tall ones, because Chekov is missing, and he wasn't in the tall set.

We had lots of other Star Trek movie tie-in toys, too, and I'll have to bring them up in future entries!

My email to you for week of April 21-27

Here is my weekly letter sent to you on April 27, 2013, in case you do not receive it:

Dear Kieran,

How are you doing today? I am doing fine, though I am sad that we were unable to get together on Friday as planned. I want you to know that I was not the one who cancelled our visit and that I was looking very forward to seeing you. I miss you every day, and there’s not an hour that goes by in which I don’t think about you. The good news is that we are scheduled to get together again on Friday, May 26, and that we will see one another again before then, though the exact day has not been worked out yet.

How is school coming along? Have you finished your unit on oceans? What new things are you learning in math? What interesting books are you reading? You are almost done with kindergarten – that must be exciting, knowing that you’ll be in first grade next year! I saw a children’s book at the book store called “First Grade, Here I Come!”, and I think I will pick it up for you so we can read it at one of our visitations during the next month.

The weather finally has turned nice, and I bet the last thing on your mind the past couple of days has been sitting in a classroom. There are lots of exciting outdoor places to go in the Twin Cities that mom and your grandpa and grandma can take you now that the weather is nice. I bet you can’t wait to go back to Como Park Zoo with the penguins. Although I bet the penguins don’t like the warm weather!

Now that the days are warm, I plan to do a lot of hiking, just like we used to do when we were together. I am writing books about the places I’ve hiked. There are many interesting places near the Twin Cities to hike. At one of them, you can walk across basalt (lava rocks) that are 1.1 billion years old! At another one of them, you see an interesting rock formation that looks like an old man’s face. Another park has a waterfall that is 168 feet high! So far, I’ve written four hiking books and three books about being a writer. Each of them are dedicated to you, and you are on the cover of two of the hiking books!

Since the snow is still melting in some spots, I probably will run into mud during my hikes. In fact, I recently read a great book about mud, which I bet you would like as well. The book was called “Mud” (What else would it be called?) by Mary Lyn Ray. It has lots of colorful pictures of people walking through mud. Each of them must avoid stepping on the blades of green grass that increasingly pop up in the mud with each turn of the page. I bet you can find the book at your school or city library.

I am getting very excited not just about hiking but the new “Star Trek’ movie. It comes out May 15. No one knows who the villain is in the movie, but there will be Klingons in it. Of course, with a new “Star Trek” movie means there will be new “Star Trek” toys! I can’t wait to go to Toys ‘R Us and see what the new toys are for us to play with.

Well, that is all for now. I love and miss you very much! I hope to see you within a few days.

Love,

Dad

 

Our last visit to the Mojave air show

A year ago today, we attended our last air show at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif. We usually went to it every month, though sometimes we'd skip the ones during the hottest months of summer and coldest months of winter.

This show was neat because they hosted a robot competition in which college students built robots to do tricks. You enjoyed watching them! You also got to sit in a lightweight experimental aircraft and to see the first privately owned spaceships!

I always enjoyed going to the air shows with you. We had a lot of fun at them learning about airplanes and spaceships and even got to meet some interesting people, like the actor who played Worf on "Star Trek."

Here's a whole bunch of pictures from our adventure!

Hiking Vasquez Rocks four years ago

"Kieran to Enterprise..."

Four years ago on Saturday (April 20), marked the second time we hiked Vasquez Rocks (which you called the "Kirk Rocks"). Four different "Star Trek: The Original Series" episodes were filmed here, most famously the episode where Captian Kirk battles the Gorn.

We'd gone hiking there before in January 2009 but didn't really know our way around! So I did tons of research and found where all of the show sequences were filmed and mapped it out.

We started by going to the "Friday's Child" episode rocks then we did "Gorn Rock" where the famous fight scene was filmed. We brought along our "Star Trek" toys to take pictures of at each sight!

Here's a bunch of pictures from adventure in 2009!

My email to you for April 6, 2013

Here is my email for you, sent April 6, 2013, just in case you don’t receive it:

Dear Kieran,

How are you doing? I am doing fine, with the exception that I miss you very much. I have great news, though: We get to see one another a couple of times this month! We will be getting together the afternoons of April 12 and April 26. That’s next Friday (April 12) and then just two weeks after that! I can’t wait to see you again!

The snow is beginning to melt and the weather to warm up, so I think I am done snowshoeing for the year. But that means I’ll soon be able to start hiking again! I always enjoyed the great hikes we took to the tops of mountains, through desert canyons, and to cool places like Vasquez Rocks (You always called them the “Kirk Rocks”!).

Speaking of the Kirk Rocks, did you know that there is a new “Star Trek” movie coming out? It will be released in May, and you even can see it in 3D at IMAX theaters. I can’t wait! In the meantime, I’ve been reading lots of “Star Trek” books to satisfy my hunger for Captain Kirk’s adventures.

How are your reading classes going in school? You must have gotten through most of the alphabet by now. Have you read any interesting stories? I always liked reading to you when you were a preschooler. You’d curl up on my lap in the comfy living room recliner, and I’d read to you a whole bunch of books we got at the library and a few that we purchased at the book store. Some books you liked so much that you wanted me to read them over and over! You always enjoyed flap books, too.

Grandma and Grandpa Bignell say “Hi”, and so do Uncle Chris and Aunt Susie. They all have some Easter gifts that I had planned to give you March 29 when we were to last get together. But since the date for Easter changes every year, what’s the difference if you get them on April 12 instead? J They all are looking very forward to finally being able to meet you in person and enjoy looking at old pictures I have of you.

On Easter, Grandma Bignell gave me a whole bunch of old pictures she had of you when you stayed with them in 2008 and of when you were a baby. I’d never seen most of the pictures before! I’ve scanned them all into my computer and will have to show them to you sometime.

I recently read a very good book that had a lot of very pretty pictures in it. It was called “Bear Wants More,” by Karma Wilson. One day Bear wakes up and realizes that he slept all through winter and that it’s now spring! And you know what a bear who has slept all winter is when he wakes up? He’s HUNGRY! So all of the animals of the forest try to help Bear find enough food to eat so he won’t be hungry anymore. Do you know how they do that? You will have to read the book and find out! Maybe you can find the book at your school library or at the city library when you mom takes you there.

That is all for now. I miss and love you very much and can’t wait to see you next Friday!

Love,

Dad

Another favorite TV show of mine

You've probably gathered by now that "Star Trek" and "The Six Million Dollar Man" were my favorite show when I was a young boy like you. But there were a lot of other shows I liked, too!

One of them was "Welcome Back, Kotter." It was a comedy show about a teacher and his classroom full of difficult students (called the "sweat hogs"). Each student had some funny thing they'd do in every episode, which was hilarious at first but I suppose grew a bit tiring week after week, so the show didn't stay on the air for very long, maybe two or three years.

The show also had a great theme song that is one of my favorites, "Welcome Back" by John Sebastian. John Sebastian was a big rock star many years before in the 1960s, and his theme song got me interested in his earlier music, which is among my favorites today.

What are your favorite TV shows?

The importance of a pet

I am so glad that you have a pet. Besides being great companions, they can teach much about being responsible and compassionate toward others. A lot of people will ut on a good talk about the importance of being responsible and compassionate, but until you actually take care of an animal or another person, you may not truly understand what it means or how it can make you feel good.

Since I grew up on a farm, I've had lots of pets, both cats and dogs. As an adult, I had a couple of cats, and I've written about one of them, Winnie, in a previous entry.

My very first pet was a border collie named Scotty. My dad named him that because border collies are common in Scotland, but as a little boy, I thought he named him after the chief engineer on "Star Trek"! Anyway, Scotty and I had lots of great adventures playing ball and just wandering around the yard together. While I was little too young to really take care of him (as I did with my later pets), I did learn how to feed and water him and helped give him baths.

In what ways do you take care of your pet cat, Yoda?

My favorite book about spaceships

You might have gathered from all of the astronaut and space stuff I always purchased for you and all of the cool space and air ports that we visited when together, that I really like spaceships! That's why today I'm sharing with you the cover of one of my favorite books.

It came out in 1977 or so, and I begged my mom to order it for me. It was called "Starlog Spaceships" and had pictures of cool spaceships that appeared in movies and TV shows. It also included a little information about each one.

Why did (do?) I like spaceship so much? Well, I grew up at the time when we were trying to reach the moon, so rockets and spaceships like Gemini and Apollo (and then the space shuttle) always were on television. My favorite TV shows were "Star Trek," "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "Planet of the Apes," and they all had spaceships in them (Or did I like the shows because they had spaceships in them?).

One of your favorite books as a toddler was "Spaceman Sam", which was about a little boy who pretended when he got up in the morning that he was in a spaceship! It had all of these wonderful tabs that could be pulled so you could pretend you yourself were running the spaceship just like Spaceman Sam. I still have the book and can't wait to show it to you!

My very first model kit ever

While going through lots of old photos, I found this one that brought back lots of good memories from my childhood - and reminded me of you!

It's the cover for the box to my first ever model that I bought and put together - the "Star Trek" exploration set. It included a communicator, a phaser and tricorder that you could put together. They were great toys to play with as a kid (I was 10 and bought it the summer of 1976)...except eventually my communicator flip top broke, my dog took the phaser in his mouth and carried it off (crushing it in the process), and the tricorder I later put a radio in.

Later in life I replaced all of those toys with better quality models - models that you also loved to play with as a toddler and preschooler! You'd pull the tricorder over your shoulder and carry around the phaser in one hand and the communicator in the other. We'd go on a "landing party" of our own and play "Star Trek" in the house!

'Star Trek' book makes me think of you!

This past week I've been reading a most wonderful book about a mother and her two sons who all became "Star Trek" fans and the lessons in life they learned from the TV show. They discovered a lot about themselves, their love for one another, and the world around them as they watched the show together and went to places like "Star Trek" conventions to enjoy their newfound common interest. The book was called "Love Letters to Star Trek."

In many ways, their adventures reminded me of stuff we had done together. For example, we'd go to Vasquez Rocks (which you called the "Kirk Rocks") and climb around where the Gorn and Captain Kirk fought or where our intrepid captain fought the Klingons. Another time we went to the air show in Mojave and met the actor who played Worf (He signed your Worf action figure!).

And of course we played and played "Star Trek," taking our action figures on adventures, sometimes playing "monster" that attacked our crew members, other times having them explore strange new worlds.

I can;t wait until you're a little older so we can discuss the finer points of "Star Trek" and go on even more adventures together!

Getting together on Wednesday nights

One year ago today we got to spend the evening together. It was a Wednesday night, and I picked you up after preschool. I was living in the house off of Avenue K in Lancaster at the time.

We had a great time playing with all of the new toys we'd picked up since Christmas; I remember us having adventures with the "Star Trek" action figures and the Sheriff Jack cowboy set we got at the Hart Ranch gift shop. We also built play lasers out of the old wooden and plastic tool kits I'd bought for you long ago.

While being with you always brightens my day, that night us getting together was particularly nice. Jane had just spent the previous week with me, and I dropped her off at the airport that morning so she could head home. It was a bittersweet morning, but at least I had you to look forward to later in the day. Thanks for being such a wonderful son!