Starfleet Academy
So it’s been just over two months since I last posted anything here. If it makes you feel any better, please feel free to imagine that I was otherwise occupied by grand adventures involving spies and dinosaurs. Actually, it would make me feel better if you thought that’s what I was doing, so again, please feel free.
What I’ve actually been doing is somewhat less Spielbergian than all that, but exciting in its own right I suppose. Anyway, here’s a few of the meatier tidbits, in no particular order:
Red Derby
Meredith and I have been working for the past couple months, putting together an advertising agency down in Savannah. For no particular reason, we decided to call the thing Red Derby. It’s a distinctive enough name that people will be intrigued, but not so much so that they’ll actually be inclined to inquire about it. Starting up the business has led to two other bullet points, as detailed below.
Moving Back to Savannah
Being a partner in this whole deal requires that I move down south once again. So, at the end of this month, I’ll be packing up The LeMousine and heading back. I’ll be staying at Meredith’s until I have sufficient funds to rent a place of my own, among other things.
It’ll be good to see all my “peeps” in Savannah again. (There, I’ve officially used up my Hip Rations for the day.) Of course, the drawback to moving to Savannah is having to leave everyone here in Iowa. But, with any luck, I’ll be able to make The Catawba Paradox a reality more often than not.
Celestial Convergence in the Garden of Good and Evil
In the course of starting Red Derby, I took a week-long trip down to Savannah at the beginning of December. While I was there, I was able to see pretty much everyone I knew down there, through a series of events here-to-fore unexplainable by science. All of which culminated in a particular occurence that brought one certain chapter of my life to a brilliant conclusion. But let’s start at the beginning, which, as Julie Andrews once reminded us through song, is a very good place to start.
I had every intention on seeking out my Savannah friends while I was there. For the record, that would be Ethan, Kelsey, Wayne, and Noel (aside from Meredith and Christie, who I was staying with already). As luck would have it, though, I didn’t have to. First off, Meredith and I were at the Oglethorpe Mall, and by coincidence happened to run into Wayne and his girlfriend, Nicole. After a chat, and thinking it to be a kind fluke of circumstance, we went on our seperate ways.
That night, Meredith and I decided to make cheeseburgers. Of course, to do so, it’s helpful to have hamburger buns… which we didn’t, so I walked to Kroger to get some. On the way there, the thought occured to me that since I had seen Wayne at the mall earlier, wouldn’t it be weird if I somehow saw Ethan and Noel at Kroger. Weird, indeed… As I approached the store, I looked in through the large glass windows and, as if conjured from my very brain, Ethan and Noel were inside.
Weird, indeed… but that was not the end of it.
A few days later, I went to Ethan and Kelsey’s apartment for Ethan’s birthday party. Wayne, Nicole, and Noel were there as well. Employing his birthday perogative, and through encouragement from the rest of us… (”the rest of us” being me, mostly, as I recall)… Ethan brought out the Star Trek: The Next Generation Interactive VCR Board Game. The premise of the game is that the players try to re-claim the Enterprise from one Captain Kavok, a rouge Klingon bent on starting a war between the Federation and the Klingon empire. At various intervals, Kavok will shout at you from the included video tape, as he monkeys around with stasis fields, turbolifts, and orders players to experience a sort of un-defined Klingon practice known as “Bij” (beej)… which involves drawing an appropriately labeled Bij card. “Bij” apparently means “punishment” in Klingon, but I would have figured Klingon punishment would involve more… I dunno… pain than simply drawing a card. Maybe they’re figuring on you getting a paper cut or something.
At this point, I should intervene and interrupt my own story, in order to properly set up the background details. During our time at SCAD, we devised an amusing verbal skit of sorts amongst ourselves. It all grew, frighteningly unchecked, out of the mangling of Noel’s name by the telephone directory system at the Weston/Dyson House dorm complex, where we were all living at the time. The basic gist of the skit is based on the oft-repeated scenario on Star Trek (The Next Generation especially), wherein that week’s headstrong visiting scientist robs the Enterprise of a shuttlecraft, and flies it into the nearest nebula, wormhole, exploding star, or other space anomaly in order to prove whatever headstrong point or experiment they had been antagonizing the crew with throughout the entire episode. After hearing of how the Weston/Dyson phone system had destroyed Noel’s name, we came up with our little skit, which goes something like this:
CAPTAIN PICARD: “Computer, locate Noel Schornhorst!”
COMPUTER VOICE: “No-el Scorn-horst-er… is no longer aboard… the Enterprise.”
LT. WORF: “Captain, a shuttlecraft has been stolen from Shuttlebay Three.”
CAPTAIN PICARD: “On screen.”
On the main viewscreen, the shuttlecraft can be seen speeding away from the shuttlebay doors. Suddenly, Noel’s face appears on the screen.
NOEL: “You can’t stop me, Captain! It’s too much fun!!”
This little skit was somewhat of a staple joke for us all over the years, making it’s way into our permanent repitoire.
Now, keep that in mind as we continue…
Back at Ethan’s birthday party, we were all well in the midst of Captain Kavok’s hijinx, as he toyed with us puny humans. Along the way, Kavok thought it would be hilarious to his Klingon sensibilities if he gave certain members of our crew Klingon nicknames. Noel was one of the lucky ones to get an endearing pet name. Many of Kavok’s other orders were preceded with “You! The player who is moving now…!” or something to that effect, which, if it was currently your turn, meant that his following instructions were meant specifically for you. At one point, he gave such instructions to Noel, whose turn it happened to be. Captain Kavok informed Noel that he was going to allow him to leave the ship via a shuttlecraft if he so chose. And Noel, being a) a heartless opportunist and b) somewhat bored by the whole exercize, I think, took the opportunity and left the ship, leaving the rest of us to try and defeat Kavok without him.
As the rest of us did our galant best, Kavok barked out another order, directed specificaly at Noel again, whom he called by his Klingon nickname this time. Noel began to respond, but then we remembered he wasn’t on the ship anymore.
Then it dawned on us, slowly… as the eternal glow of enlightenment shone down on us all. You’ve probably already guessed why.
“Noel Schornhorst is no longer aboard the Enterprise.”
