He Lived Long and Prospered: RIP Leonard Nimoy

The weather is gray today here in Texas. But, something tells me that it’s gray for all geeks and nerds everywhere. The light of logic and wisdom has dimmed down a bit, because we lost our most beloved Vulcan today. Leonard Nimoy passed away from COPD at his home, and all of the geeks and nerds around the world are heartbroken.

I feel like I’ve lost a second father. Star Trek was so inspiring and amazing to me during my formative years. It helped me grow up and opened my mind to diversity and allowed me to feel like less of a freak because of my wildly overactive imagination. Spock in particular taught me the value of logic and humanity. When I was hurt by bullies or life in general, I often pretended I was Spock until I could get myself to a private place where I could be angry or sad or just feel horrible in peace while I processed whatever had happened to me. I could relate to him as the outsider in the group of cool kids. He made me realize that, even though I was a nerd and and outsider, I could make friends that were amazing and true and worthwhile.

As an adult, I’ve come to respect Mr. Nimoy for more than his role as Spock. He was a writer, a photographer, a voice actor, and so many other things. Talent overflowed from him and inspired hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

I’ll miss him. I never had the opportunity to meet him, but I’ll miss him terribly. He added so much to my life, and the lives of those around me. I can only imagine how much his passing impacts his family, friends, and fellow cast members.

Rest in peace Spock. We love you.

Upcoming Projects and Why I’ve Been Gone

Please pardon my absence over the last year. I haven’t forgotten about my blog – I’ve just been swamped with life. However, life is lightening up a bit and I’m going to get back on building up my writing.

But first – a recap.

2014 was a rather insane year for me.

I transferred jobs and got some rather insane assignments that had me working 60 hours a week, which is the primary reason my writing disappeared. Between work and school, I simply didn’t have the time.

My ex-wife and I had separated in September of 2013 and ended up finalizing our divorce in late May of 2014. The whole thing was amicable over all, but it was quite stressful at the time nonetheless.

I finished my Associate of Arts in Journalism from Austin Community College, and then got enrolled at Texas State University. Currently majoring in Journalism with a minor in History. I expect to graduate in Fall 2016 or Spring 2017, depending on some choices I make next semester.

And I graduated with a 3.76 GPA. I’m rather proud of that “Scholastic Leadership” sticker on the bottom right corner of the degree.

 

I met a wonderful lady after the divorce was finalized and we eventually moved in together late last year. It’s been absolutely wonderful. She’s beautiful, geeky just like me, incredibly intelligent with her Masters in Spanish from Purdue. She’s taught Spanish at Purdue at a university in Chicago and currently works for an advertising firm here in Austin as a bilingual proofreader.

Brandee and I out for dinner on Valentines Day 2015. We went to a little Irish restaurant called The Emerald near Austin.

 

But now, on to the meat of the story.

I’ve got a few projects lined up that I’ll be putting on the blog.

The first project is something near and dear to my heart. Gaming stores. Stores that carry everything from board games to roleplaying games – otherwise known as RPGs (think Dungeons and Dragons) – to collectible toys and handmade awesomeness. Austin, TX has a plethora of these stores, and my plan is to track them all down and post a review of them. The stores will be ranked by category, using dice icons. A four sided die will indicate a low score for a given category such as variety of products, selection of comic books, staff, etc, while a twenty sided die will indicate an exceptional store for that category. I’m hoping that it helps people new to Austin find people that share similar hobbies and places to come together with friends, while helping those stores get a bit more exposure. If you have a suggestion for the project, be sure to post it in the comments below.

The second project has already started to some extent. Over the years I’ve had several blogs in a variety of places throughout the internet, and I’ve recently imported all of those here, deleted the stuff that was absolutely irrelevant to what I want this blog to be about (writing, geekery, and creativity). The next big step is to go through and touch up each of those entries to make sure they’re in a format that works with my WordPress template so that they’re readable and flow well. So, take a gander at the rest of my posts and see what new tidbits you might find to your liking. I’m on WP daily at this point, so I’ll make sure to respond to any comments you leave.

There are a few conventions coming up that I’ll also cover in the blog. One of the first ones is AllCon 2015 coming up on March 12-15th. Then Hero Con here in Austin on June 6. Plans are also in place to attend Sherwood Forest Faire and the Texas Renaissance Festival this year. So, I’ll be covering each of those within a day or two of attending. I’m hoping to get a bunch of pictures to share. I’m hoping to see a bunch of Avengers, Star Wars, and Superman vs. Batman costumes at the cons.

Take care of yourselves, and let me know what you’ve been geeking out about in the comments.

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The Road Goes Ever On – J.R.R. Tolkien

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains of the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.