New members, introduce yourselves here!

[justTripn]

Wow! There's a testimonial: a near death experience made you reevaluate your life, and you decided you needed more Triaxian Silk!!! Whoa!!! Good choice, at least for us.

[enterprikayak]

As long as no one's hurting anyone else, why shouldn't one do the things in life that one loves? *I* don't know why I like to put on prosthetic ears and go to Star Trek conventions. I just do.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Hello there, marchale and welcome!

[marchale]

Thanks for showing us your home. I imagine it must be very convenient for you being on the ground floor.

I thought this picture was calling out for a caption:

http://marchale.fotopic.net/p56809488.html

Having watched the new 'blu ray' discs for several hours, Mittens frankly couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

rotflmao! I loved your caption about Mittens, thank you so much! You're more than welcome, sorry my apartment was a mess at the time, I was still in the process of getting unpacked and had a few friends and relatives online who were anxious to see my apartment - but I've since upgraded it with a brown couch my sister 'sold' to me for a spaghetti dinner and a case of pop (that was a steal and she wanted to get a new couch anyway so it worked out good for her too) and leopard print homemade polar fleece curtains to cover the patio doors and windows (I bought the material at a fabric store and put it up using T'Pol's great-great grandmother's gift to humanity, velcro - because Minnesota winters suck big time and I didn't want to spend another winter freezing my butt off in here like I did when I first moved in back in February of 2009).

Yeah, I love living on the ground floor, not only because of I've got a bad fear of heights anyway, but it makes it nice for guests visiting to not have to go through the main doors (it's a security building, so if you don't have a key, you have to buzz the apartment to get in because we've been repeatedly warned by the management not to let anyone in the building if we don't know who they are) and too, while my emphysema isn't that bad yet (I now only need my walker if I'm walking further than a block or so), it's nice already being in a handicap accessible apartment for when I'll need the walker to get around inside my apartment in the future. It was just luck of the draw that a ground floor apartment was the only one that was available when I moved here, but they only let folks using walkers and wheelchairs stay living on the ground floor permanently, folks who are temporarily living on the ground floor (who don't have a 'mobility issue' as they call it) get moved to another floor as soon as they can get an opening for them. But yeah, I know I got a few strange looks when I moved in here, sometimes they seen me with my walker, sometimes not - using it (at this stage of my emphysema) just depends on how far I have to walk somewhere; if I'm just going down to the lobby to get my mail or over to the library next door (where there's chairs to rest in when I get there) then I don't use it, otherwise I need it if I'm going anywhere else though. Anyway, it's because of my emphysema I can keep my apartment, which I love - having a patio is cool too (I get alot of neighbors visiting because of that), and it would've sucked having an apartment with a balcony when I've got a bad fear of heights anyway, LOL!

But as far as convenience in general goes, I'm living in the most convenient subsidized apartment building in the whole Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area in my opinion. It's on one of Fridley's main streets, with my bank, medical clinic and the police/fire/rescue department across the street, a public transportation bus stop two blocks away, a Walgreens drugstore on the bus's northbound side of the street and a small outdoor shopping mall (including my favorite restaurant) on the bus's southbound side - and if you hop on the bus going south, there's a major grocery store and a CVS Pharmacy less than a mile down the road, a SuperTarget less than a mile from that and a second major grocery store about a mile south of that, and if you stay on the bus, you'll reach downtown Minneapolis in about a half an hour. And on the northbound bus, there is a Walmart a couple of miles north of here, a SuperTarget a block north of there and in between the two of them on the other side of University Avenue is a major indoor shopping mall with a little outdoor shopping mall a block east of there (thats where I bought that Star Trek magazine Valentine's issue), so it's super convenient for those of us (like me) who can't drive; although I wouldn't need a car anyway because there's a weekly bus (equipped with a wheelchair lift) taking those of us who need a ride grocery shopping every week and a weekly mail truck so we don't need to go to the Post Office to mail packages, and there's also Metro Mobility buses that'll take you anywhere else you need to go, so you don't need to use the public buses two blocks away (I don't use that MM myself, but its nice to know its there for those who need it, or in case of an emergency like if I had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night and didn't want to bother my sister for a ride up there, its alot cheaper than cabfare - not to mention many of the seniors and disabled here are unable to walk to the public bus I do all my non-grocery shopping transportation on with my walker). Not to mention how really convenient it is having a library next door too - though thanks to discovering Triaxiansilk, I sure won't need to go to the library anymore, thats for sure!

Anyway, thanks again so much for your reply, it was great hearing from you again and that Mittens caption made my day!

[marchale]

Look at all the fabric patterns! Love yer wardrobe!

Hello again there, fellow artist - it's nice hearing from you again! I gave my sister your compliments on my wardrobe as it's all "hand me downs" from her (except for those caftans I bought on Ebay). My sister is a major clothes horse who's favorite hobby is shopping. Luckily though, for me, other residents in my building and even our aunt's church sometimes, she shares her obsession with us, so she's done alot of good with what she gets rid of occasionally to make room for more clothes; and being her sister, I get first dibbs on whatever Laurie decides to donate. Laurie's probably the best known non-resident here at Village Green though, because in addition to her donating alot of clothes to the residents here, she does the same thing with her magazines after she (and I) are done reading them. And before becoming disabled herself two years ago, she had worked for 19 years as a cashier at the grocery store closest to here (and which the Traveler bus takes us to on Wednesday mornings), so she knows alot more people who live here than what I do. Actually, I don't think hardly anyone outside of the people who work here and a couple of friends I made even know what my name is, I'm just called "Laurie's sister" and it's really kinda weird how so many folks here seem to know who Laurie is.

[marchale]

Wow! There's a testimonial: a near death experience made you reevaluate your life, and you decided you needed more Triaxian Silk!!! Whoa!!! Good choice, at least for us.

Awww, thats sweet of you to say that, thank you - and it's real nice hearing from you again! Actually, I did a double take when you used the term 'near death experience' there to my wondering if I had cancer for that week. (I'm one of those 'weirdie' semi-New Age-rs who would be utterly fascinated by having the classic definition of a 'near-death experience' - you know, the kind where you briefly are considered clinically dead and you float above the scene before going through a tunnel and see this bright light and maybe even talk to a spirit in the hereafter before being rudely tossed back here to finish living your life in this world. Well, skeptic here isn't sure thats what really happens or if it's just a hallucination caused by your brain shutting down when you die; but I've known two people who had that happen to them and they swear its true and I'd love to have an NDE (of that classic definition) so I could find out for myself whether there really is a hereafter or not. (The paranormal fascinates the hell out of me, and even if I'm not sure how much of it I really can believe in, I sure hope they are right about it).

Anyway, what happened to me wasn't anywhere near as fun as a classical definition of an NDE would've been, LOL! I just had an abnormality show up on a regular mammogram, so I had to run across town to where it was examined further in a diagnostic mammogram (they were thereafter planning to follow that up with an ultrasound and a biopsy, and if it was cancer, a cat scan to see if it had spread elsewhere) but fortunatly they could determine from the diagnostic mammogram that further testing wouldn't be required because they could see from that that it definatly wasn't cancer and the radiologist was even nice enough to get a second radiologist to confirm his findings before he even gave me the good news there. It just took a week to find it out because they called me on a Wednesday and didn't have an appointment open till Monday but then we got a snowstorm on Sunday so I had to re-schedule that because I wasn't sure if the roads were even going to be plowed in time for my appointment, talk about fun - not!

And, it was just kinda extra scary for me to wonder about because both my parents died of cancer, I knew I'd had alot more exposure to harmful things than they did, stupid here hadn't had a mammogram in years so it could've easily had time to spread elsewhere too, being in poor health anyway it complicates things and lessens a person's chance of survival, and all these scary thoughts were going through my mind till I practically had myself convinced it was cancer and I was going to die of it shortly. So, trying to prepare myself for possibly hearing that worst case scenario - I did a bunch of really stupid stuff like calling to find out what a cremation costs, asking the American Cancer Society what the odds on survival were at the various stages of breast cancer detection, trying to decide which possessions to leave to whom, you name it. I did that for a while but then luckily the former philosophy student in me emerged from that kind of morbid thinking and I got a real hard cold "Wake Up!" call that made me not a happy puppy when I started looking at my life seriously and thinking of how much time I wasted being "asleep at the wheel" in my life and just generally didn't like where it was going. Anyway, then I got really angry at myself for being such an idiot and wasting so much time on pointless crap that didn't really matter and all those things I "could've,would've,should've" done that I was going to do "someday" and someday is a sad and frightening concept to think about when you think you might've just run out of somedays. Anyway, I just about had had enough by that time and thought fine, I'm going to die, so what? We're all going to die, nobody's getting out of this world alive - all we can do about it is to live as best as we can and to make the most of whatever time we have and to try to live as much as possible by my Grandpa's motto of "live each day as if it were your last". Now I can't live that as well as he did it, but I thought screw this idea of wasting time being scared and feeling sorry for myself and thought "get off your ass and start having some fun, moron!" Thats all we really can do anyway when you think about it. Socrates once said that the unexamined life is not worth living, but it took a cancer scare to teach me that my unlived life wasn't really worth examining, LOL! You know that expression "get a life"? Well, I needed to, badly! I wasted way too much time on stupid crap, it was time to start having fun again.

Anyway, finding out I didn't have cancer after trying to think through what I should do with the rest of my life if I did was better than winning the lottery, it really was. (Money's great, but all the money in the world can't buy you more time) and it has been such a huge revelation about how to start living that, wow - I can't put into words how grateful I feel to just to be alive and not "asleep at the wheel" here anymore. It really was a badly needed wake up call to get out there and have a blast and enjoy life and live it alot more fully. And what better way to enjoy life than to do the things that really matter to you and make you happy, which is how I wound up here. I've really missed the fun I used to have with trek stuff and talking with other fans - and to find other TnT fans here at such a fantastic place, it doesn't get any better than this in my opinion, this is definatly the cream of the crop!

[marchale]

As long as no one's hurting anyone else, why shouldn't one do the things in life that one loves? *I* don't know why I like to put on prosthetic ears and go to Star Trek conventions. I just do.

I think you're absolutely right about that, you gotta get all the happiness and enjoyment out of it while you can - I found that out the hard way, LOL! And I bet you look darling as a Vulcan - got any pics of that you'd care to share here?

[marchale]

Hello there, marchale and welcome!

Thank you, I'm sooooo happy to be here, you wouldn't believe!

[enterprikayak]

(I'm one of those 'weirdie' semi-New Age-rs who would be utterly fascinated by having the classic definition of a 'near-death experience' - you know, the kind where you briefly are considered clinically dead and you float above the scene before going through a tunnel and see this bright light and maybe even talk to a spirit in the hereafter before being rudely tossed back here to finish living your life in this world. Well, skeptic here isn't sure thats what really happens or if it's just a hallucitation caused by your brain shutting down when you die; but I've known two people who had that happen to them and they swear its true and I'd love to have an NDE (of that classic definition) so I could find out for myself whether there really is a hereafter or not. (The paranormal fascinates the hell out of me, and even if I'm not sure how much of it I really can believe in, I sure hope they are right about it).

Oooo: ever read anything by Jane Roberts or Robert A. Monroe? Guarantee you will love it. Seth Speaks and Far Journeys are the best. I'm the other semi-"new-ager" around here although I avoid religio-labels if I can. (Do you think the photoshoppiong heads onto stuff has a relation to it? Curious.)

We also have atheists and Catholics and a bunch of others round these parts. Mostly we all play nice, but every now and then there's an interesting spat.

[enterprikayak]

As long as no one's hurting anyone else, why shouldn't one do the things in life that one loves? *I* don't know why I like to put on prosthetic ears and go to Star Trek conventions. I just do.

I think you're absolutely right about that, you gotta get all the happiness and enjoyment out of it while you can - I found that out the hard way, LOL! And I bet you look darling as a Vulcan - got any pics of that you'd care to share here?

My "signature" is actually photos of the last 2 "cons" I went to....

2008 Elessar and Distracted and me and our husbands went to "FedCon" in Dallas Texas, which was CANCELLED 1/2 way thru, which actually gave us the rare experience of seeing John Billingsley and his wife Bonita Friedericy crowd-control a whole Hyatt ballroom of disappointed-trekkies-with-bat'leths and force the powers-that-were to at least answer every single one of our questions before turning us out on our ears. Then Elessar and Dis and me and our husbands had a picnic in elessar's hotel room and watched lotsa Lost. Distracted was dressed as MU T'Pol and looked bitchin. I was a nauseous pregnant lady, so I didn't dress up up that time.
left half of my sig Photo: John Billingsley and his wife Bonita Friedericy and Connor Trinneer as they are in the act of being harassed by me in the restaurant at the Dallas Hyatt. It looks like Connor is calling for security. but us pregnant chix get away with whatever we want to whenever we want to.

2010: Not really a con, but....Elessar and Starwatcher and JustTripn and me and my husband went to Washington DC on Oct 29 2010 for various reasons and so we converged upon one another and had an amazing time!
right half of sig Photo: L-R Starwatcher, Elessar, me, and JustTripn at lunch in Washington DC. Prisocisor (my husband) is taking the picture.

[teacake]

Well here's my intro.. I'm beaming in from trekbbs where I'm the same username.

::waves slowly to all::



One of my favorite pics of Trip..still with T'Pol's lipstick on his face as he watches her wed.

[enterprikayak]

welcome! where'd ya find us from?

I always thought it was a LOT of lipstick for one quick kiss and wondered just how many takes they did.

[teacake]

John O. invited me, I don't know what his name is here!

I'm a big ENT fan

[enterprikayak]

he's elessar, aka the Fearless Leader.

[teacake]

:lol: he's elessar, aka the Fearless Leader.

OMG! The High Command!

off to browse..