Leonard Nimoy

When I was a kid – this was probably the summer of 1974 – my dad sat me down in front of the television (or so I remember it) and said, “You might like this.” This was Star Trek: The Animated Series. I don’t remember much about watching it back then, except being compelled by the episode “Albatross”.

A few years later, a friend and I would play Star Trek on the jungle-gym in our yard. He was Captain Kirk, and I was Mister Spock.

After seeing Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, I eventually realized (although it would take some years) that Star Trek was fundamentally about Captain Kirk. (One reason among many why none of the later Star Trek series worked for me.) But like, I imagine, many engineering types, I still identify more strongly with Spock than with Kirk as a personality.

Yet more years later, in my days of arguing Star Trek: The Next Generation on USENET, my main sparring partner made an observation that Leonard Nimoy was the only actor on the original series with much of an acting range. While I think this sells many of his co-stars short, it’s clear that Nimoy’s acting was a big factor in bringing Spock to life. With any other actor the character would, at least, have been quite different. Heck, even with Zachary Quinto doing his level best to imitate Nimoy’s performance, his version of Spock in the recent films feels considerably different from Nimoy’s.

Today Leonard Nimoy has died at age 83. And, as is usually the case when someone passes – in this case, a man I never met, whom I only really know through a fictional character he played – I don’t know what to say.

How about this: I always thought it was great that back when the original Star Trek was bring produced, Nimoy and William Shatner became good friends, and stayed friends for the rest of their lives. Considering that Shatner was cast to be the series’ star, but that Spock was the breakout character of the show, it’s easy to see that they could have instead been rivals and not gotten along at all. I think each of them came away with a lot of baggage from the show, but in a way I think their lasting friendship is as powerful a lesson as any of the morality plays that Trek threw up on the screen.

A Week Vanishes

It’s been a hectic week-plus around here.

Last weekend we drove up to San Francisco to go to Borderlands Books since they announced they would be closing in a few months due to San Francisco’s new minimum wage ordinance. We wanted to see it once more, buy some books, and also buy some commemorative hoodies they’d had made. Since then, they decided to try instituting a sponsorship program, which brought in the needed amount of money for this year in just two days, so they’re going to be open through at least early next year. Which is great news!

Last Monday I got some nachos at the cafe at work, and they didn’t sit well with me. Tuesday morning I woke up feeling kind of woozy, but I got my act together and went to the gym anyway. But once I was sitting at my desk in the office I just couldn’t move forward, so I went home. And proceeded to spend most of the next nineteen hours dozing or sleeping with some sort of stomach bug. I blamed the nachos at first, but apparently there’s been something going around the office, so it was probably a coincidence. I felt better on Wednesday, but still pretty out of it, so I stayed home again. I basically spent the day quietly reading in the living room, and by about mid-afternoon was feeling much better.

Anyway, losing two days out of my week is a pretty weird experience.

Debbi was very nice and brought me soup and crab-apple juice (which I was in the mood for), and looked after me while I was sick.

And Roulette was delighted that I spent a whole day on her favorite couch, where she loves to snuggle with me every Wednesday evening for comic book night.

Thursday and Friday were back to work. I continue to chip away at making calls on behalf of my mother, about which I will likely write a longer entry at some point.

Saturday a couple of friends of Debbi’s family were in town – a woman who lived near where Debbi grew up, and her daughter. They were having what sounded like a great vacation in San Francisco, and drove down to see our house, and go to lunch. Then we drove out to Livermore wine country for a wine tasting. Our go-to winery these days is Thomas Coyne Winery, although we learned on this trip that the rustic barn where their tasting room used to be has been sold (I guess they were renting it), so now they’re in a less-picturesque light industrial zone. However, their wine and their entertaining tasting staff are still intact, so we’ll be sure to return. Our visitors seemed to have a great time, too.

I’m not quite sure where Sunday went. I did some yard work, we went for a walk, did our grocery shopping – and suddenly it was dark and time for dinner.

And now it’s Monday again somehow!

Summer at Disneyland in February

We’re back from a long weekend at Disneyland! This was a slightly different trip for us, as we’ve never gone in February before, and we also flew down rather than drove. When you factor in getting to the airport early, flying is not a huge amount faster than driving (though if they close the Grapevine into L.A. as they did last time we went then it is quite a bit faster to fly), but it is nice to not have to do the driving ourselves, and it really does shave at least an hour or two off of the travel time. We also had a hilarious driver of our SuperShuttle from the Orange County airport.

We stayed at the Carousel Inn, which we were less impressed with. Aside from the extremely small bathroom and the tub drain getting clogged, it has a weird mix of old/new technology: Ancient lights with push buttons which are nonetheless wired to modern wall switches, and an old air conditioner with a modern thermostat control. It was like the ultimate half-assed remodel. At least the beds were comfortable and things basically worked, but it’s not a place we’ll be in a hurry to return to. Of course it’s also very close to the main entrance to the park, which is why we chose it (well, that and several other hotels were full by the time we booked).

Anyway, we bought 3-day passes for the parks since we got there early enough on Saturday to enjoy a half-day. Quite a few attractions were closed as they’re refurbishing many of them in preparation for Disneyland’s 60th anniversary which starts later this year. The two I missed the most were Soarin’ Over California and the Disneyland Railroad. Well okay, I also missed Muppet*Vision 3D, which is temporarily displaced by a Frozen musical theater.

Disneyland Main Entrance

Since we usually go to Disneyland during the holidays, this was a – for us – rare opportunity to see the Haunted Mansion in its standard, non-holiday configuration, which I appreciate more than the holiday version. I’m not a big fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas (I prefer The Corpse Bride), and the bright colors and less-detailed figures of the holiday set-up I find less appealing overall. I particularly enjoyed seeing the “bride’s attic”, which lead me to learn that Wikipedia has an enormous entry on characters in the Haunted Mansion. You’re welcome.

Though we were getting a series of rain storms at home when we left, it was bright, sunny and warm in Anaheim while we were there, and I wore shorts on Sunday and Monday, and was glad I’d brought them. Honestly I almost wish it had been a bit overcast like it was on Saturday, since it was maybe too warm for a few hours at midday otherwise. (I’m sure all our friends who are snowed in in the northeast are really sad to hear that.)

We spent a chunk of time in Downtown Disney, which now features what may be the largest Starbucks I’ve ever seen:

Ginormous Starbucks in Downtown Disney
(click for larger image)

And we spent chunks of two evenings in the Hearthstone Lounge for cocktails, and one night for dinner since we were not very hungry (having chowed down on fried chicken for lunch) and just had some of their bar snacks for dinner. This lounge is becoming my favorite place to end a day once the parks are winding down.

We rode a bunch of rides multiple times, including the recently-refurbished Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. And while the Radiator Springs Racers is a fun ride, we only rode it once because of its long lines. And honestly, as I remarked at one point, the best thing about the Racers is that it sucks crowds away from California Screamin’, which to my mind is the superior ride.

Debbi also bought some Disney pins. I don’t think she’s going to go full-on into pin trading, but she did have this experience: We were in a store on Main Street and she saw a Tigger pin (Tigger is her favorite character) available for trade. The cast member (employee) working the counter said she could buy a pin off the wall to trade for it, so she told me to pick a pin for her. I picked a Stitch pin, and she made some comment about not liking that pin. (I thought it was fine, actually, but not one I wanted to own myself.) The cast member said, “You know whatever pin you picked would have been the wrong one.” Yeah, I did. So, Debbi traded for the Tigger pin, and the cast member took the Stitch pin to put on the board to trade. And just after he did, a maybe eight-year-old girl came up and said that she’d been looking to trade for that Stitch pin all day! So I guess I did choose the right pin!

Oh, and along the way I also took this picture of Debbi:

Debbificent

Hee-hee!

We and our tired feet flew back on Tuesday, and got home early enough to run some errands and settle in.

Debbi was intent on not running us ragged on this trip, and I think we had a good mix of doing stuff, standing in lines, and just hanging around. I think the only things we really missed were seeing fireworks, and riding Star Tours (we opted to ride Space Mountain a second time instead).

And I’m sure we’ll go back sometime during the upcoming 60th anniversary, too.