Celebrating 60 years of Star Trek with a nostalgic view of the USS Enterprise model, an open book, and a themed drink, blending classic sci-fi adventure with modern fandom.

Star Trek aired three years before I was born, yet it has had a significant influence on my life. The only thing more profound and more influential has been my faith and salvation in Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.

To me, Star Trek has long served as an earthly role model. It is more than a story or a television show. It is an aspiration for how a fallen world might come together and work for the common good. The ethos of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets represents an ideal that a world or species might pursue on its own, if there were no grand Savior.

By that ethos, I mean the hopeful idea that people from many worlds, cultures, and backgrounds can serve together for something greater than themselves. It is built on exploration, peace, sacrifice, reason, mercy, discovery, and cooperation. It is the belief that humanity can rise above its worst instincts and become better than it is now.

I want to mark 60 years of storytelling, especially those deep episodes that ran in reruns every week when I was a kid and a teenager. What prompted this reflection, of all things, was a gift from my sister. For my birthday in April, she gave me a special Parade release dedicated to Star Trek’s 60th anniversary (see image below).

Celebrating 60 years of Star Trek, this Parade Collector's Edition honors the iconic heroes, villains, and strange new worlds that transformed science fiction forever.

The franchise that started on September 8, 1966, inspired many real-life ideas during the 1960s and 1970s space race, and it continues to spark imagination today. I have not always agreed with the direction the franchise has taken, but with few exceptions, the United Federation of Planets and the Star Trek ethos remain largely unchanged.

Star Trek has shaped part of how I see the world, alongside my faith, and that combination still matters to me. I want to see AI grow into something like the Star Trek computer, and I look forward to seeing more of its science fiction technology come to life in ways that help humanity.

So today, on Star Trek Day, let’s boldly go where no one has gone before and celebrate the series and its ideals.

#StarTrek #personal #tv

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TiVo Plans to End Free Automatic Commercial Skipping in November, Tests Paid Premium Replacement Service By Luke Bouma · via Cord Cutters News

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TiVo, there is a name I haven't heard or thought about in a while. I used to love the hardware and platform. I thought I was the coolest tech-savvy person, and that TiVo was the way to watch TV. The tech was just so cool.

At one point, I had three of them. Most were the OTA version, though I had the cable version once with a CableCARD. That was an adventure to get working.

Over-the-air (OTA) TV has come a long way and now has so many channels. Yes, they are mainly old shows, but they are still worth watching, and it is all free. There are commercials, but I look at those as snack and bathroom breaks.

In reality, I do not watch nearly as much TV now as I used to. Most of what I do watch is through OTA, Plex, or streaming. OTA is mainly for news and the little, if any, live sports I watch. Most of the time, the TV is just on for background distraction.

So when I saw this article from Cord Cutters in my RSS feed, my first thought was that they must be desperate if they are trying to charge for their main feature, skipping ads. They do not even make hardware anymore. How and why are they still in business? I have not seen a TV with TiVo software in it.

It is one for the history books: a company that was much respected at one time, now realistically gone, or at least just a shell of its former self.

#personal #technology #tv

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Thursday, I had a silent hard drive crash. It could have happened before then, but I didn't notice it until Thursday. The drive was there last week, but Windows 11 would not recognize it. I tried it in two different computers to rule out bad cables or a motherboard issue.

I didn't realize the drive was 10 years and 3 months old until I removed it and looked at it. It is kind of like a washer, you don't think about how old it is until something happens. I had a stale backup, so I probably lost 5 to 10 percent of the stuff that was not backed up.

Then, to add salt to the wound, I got a message from someone on social media. It didn't really bother me, but it kind of did. It seemed like a gentle, polite, maybe funny attempt to sympathize and lighten the situation. At the same time, it was basically saying this is what you get with a 10-year-old drive and that I had it coming. due to its age and that was playing with fire.

With hard drive shortages and prices going astronomical, I had to buy another drive. I ordered a brand-new 10TB Western Digital drive from Amazon. When it arrived, I noticed it had been manufactured in January 2026. I installed it, but it didn't work. I tested it in two different computers, and it would not initialize at all.

So I started a return through Amazon. They offered me $80 to keep it. I spent well over $300 on the drive, so why would I want $80 to keep one that doesn't work? I need a working drive. I said no.

I know the offer was automated, but come on. Why offer me a discount to keep a dead drive? I need the drive, not the discount.

Today, I received the new drive to replace the replacement drive. It was manufactured in November 2025, and it worked fine. It worked exactly as I expected it should.

While all of this was happening, our upright freezer went on the fritz. We almost lost probably $1,000 worth of meat and frozen vegetables. Now there is another expense and another problem to deal with, all while prices are sky high.

At this point, I can only wonder what will be next.

#hardware #personal #technology

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Celebrating 25 years of blogging with gratitude, reflection, and a sweet slice of success surrounded by creativity and joy.

August 6, 2001, 25 years ago. I started blogging. I had a website made by Microsoft FrontPage and hosted on GTE (now Verizon) in the homepages they offered back in those days for residential customers. In fact, your ISP provided everything for you. You had so much website space and an ISP-provided email, which you lost if you changed providers. That's foreign today.

But I started on Blogger before it was owned by Google on this date in 2001. Hard to believe it's been 25 years since I started blogging. Here is my first post ever. It's even harder to imagine I've been doing this for that long. I think blogging helps me get stuff off my chest, though very, very few people read it. I like to vent, review, or just get my thoughts down about different subjects. I like to think not only have my website and my blogging improved, but my knowledge has improved. Here's to 70 more years of blogging. I hope to be blogging and to have a website of some kind, no matter how they may change in the future. So Happy Blogiversary to me.

Related posts: 20 years

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#blogging #personal

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My vision is improving, but my eyes aren't fully healed. My right eye, the first to be operated on, just hit the one-month mark. The left is about two weeks behind. I have one more doctor visit to get a prescription for reading glasses and maybe fine-tune my distance vision. Distance seems okay, but reading and intermediate vision are tricky. The intermediate could use some fine tuning, and my short-distance vision is definitely worse and needs more correction. With this better vision, I'm trying to blog more, get more done, and make progress before the next hurdle.

Catching up feels overwhelming. I keep trying to do five things at once, so I need to slow down and focus. On top of everything else, I have a backlog of podcasts to listen to or watch and a pile of unread items in my RSS reader. I'm slowly whittling the list down.

I'm trying a new program called Wispr Flow to compose this post and see how it works. I've always wondered if composing this way, using my voice, would be easier than typing and then refining. I'll give it a shot for a little while and see if it helps me focus. If it goes well, I might use it more for quick drafts.

#blogging #personal

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I remember being introduced to Google Voice when Mr. Dvorak and Leo talked about it on a show. I can't recall the exact show or episode, but Mr. Dvorak talked about how he and his son used it to save on phone costs. If I remember correctly, it helped with long-distance charges, though I'm not certain. I also remember reading the articles he wrote for PC Magazine.

What I didn't know until he passed was that he came from a semi-famous family, the inventor of the Dvorak Keyboard (never used one).

It's getting to the point where some of the pioneers from the internet era are starting to pass, and that's a sad reality. I knew of John C. Dvorak more than Om Malik, even though Mr. Malik and I were closer in age. These losses feel like the end of a chapter.

Praying for his family to have strength and resolve.

#personal #technology

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A man reflects with quiet satisfaction as he reviews positive echo results, surrounded by reminders of gratitude, strength, and progress in a warm, sunlit room.

I wanted to share a long-overdue health update about what has happened this year and why I can finally talk about it. I recently had my second Camzyos cardiology echo and doctor’s visit of the year. I normally go every six months, and this visit gave me my best numbers yet.

On Camzyos, my obstruction is much better controlled. My echo looked fantastic, so I included a table below comparing my results before and after starting Camzyos.

When I first started Camzyos, I was not getting my refills consistently because of REMS requirements and the timing of my echoes and doctor’s visits. This created gaps in treatment. Once my refills became consistent and those delays stopped, the treatment began working much better.

So yes, I am in a much better place. My heart is working with far less obstruction than it has in years. Between Camzyos and taking Metoprolol ER 200 mg twice daily, I am cautiously optimistic that I can remain on this path.

These results do not mean that my hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is gone, but they do show that the treatment is doing what it is supposed to do. After years of seeing much higher numbers, I am grateful to finally be able to share some genuinely encouraging news.

#faith #health #personal

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Celebrating 70 years of USF's rich history and vibrant campus life, where tradition meets innovation under the open skies.

As you get older, anniversaries and milestones hit you differently. I don't know why. I don't regret anything in my life, but I do feel nostalgic sometimes. The other day, driving to work, I learned that the University of South Florida is celebrating 70 years this year. That surprised me, because the first founding class attended in 1960, so the 70th anniversary is actually a few years off.

I attended USF from 1987 to 1990. I didn't graduate; I would have had about two years left. 1991 would have been my graduation year, but I was taking it nice and slow. Most people were taking five years, so 1992 would have been my year if I had stayed on track. What would have been my degree? Hold your chair and keep seated, but it would have been Music Education with a minor in Florida History.

Money ran out, I was loaned out, and I decided to join the workforce. Funny enough, I never moved very far from USF. I now work at a non-profit hospital on the USF campus, so for almost my entire adult life I've been connected to the university in one way or another. Technically I guess I can't call myself an alum, but in every other sense I am one.

Here's to USF, 70 years, and all the good you've brought to the community. Go Bulls! 🤘

#history #local #personal

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At a pivotal crossroads, a nation contemplates its future between the pursuit of wealth and industry or the call to civic duty and democratic engagement.

I turn 57 this month, and with everything going on in the world, it almost feels like an afterthought. This year feels worse, more doom and gloom than others. I am not entirely sure why, but it is not just politics. The economy has been rough too, with gas prices staying high, in my case over $4.25 a gallon, along with rising costs across the board and ongoing tech hardware shortages. It all adds to the sense that things are off.

I have never seen as much upheaval as I have this past year. I have also never witnessed in my adult life companies and wealthy individuals fawn over a President to this extent, while much of the media seems complicit. Then they wonder why their trustworthiness is at an all-time low. I believe in a neutral, fact-based media, but in reality we have never truly had one in this country except when it suited particular interests.

What do I mean by that? Yellow journalism is a term that emerged in the late 1800s, around the time of the Spanish-American War. It was fueled in part by sensationalized reporting about the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898. At the time, many blamed Spain, though the exact cause of the explosion has never been definitively determined. That kind of reporting helped push the country toward war. Personally, I think we probably should have kept control of Cuba at that time and eventually made it a state or states.

I also know corruption has existed across parties. The Watergate scandal during the Nixon presidency is one clear example. At the same time, leaders from other parties have had their own issues. Franklin D. Roosevelt had people around him who benefited from proximity and influence, a kind of cronyism that shows up in different forms across administrations, including more recent ones.

The real root of the problem, in my view, is something I do not think the Founders fully anticipated or addressed well, and that is political parties. They formed quickly after the Constitution was ratified, but there were early warnings. George Washington, in his Farewell Address, warned about the dangers of political factions and how they could divide the country and put party loyalty above the public good. That warning feels more relevant now than ever.

Now it feels like everything is driven by one party trying to outdo the other. In the United States, this seems more ingrained and entrenched than in many other countries.

I foresee, and I could be wrong, a large Democratic wave coming if elections are conducted fairly. But if that happens, Democrats need to be cautious. People are tired of endless investigations and political theater. They want action. They want real solutions, not lip service.

That means actually addressing things like immigration reform in a lasting way and strengthening Social Security. Some issues may even require constitutional amendments to address structural weaknesses that recent events have brought into focus.

At the same time, do not spend all the energy trying to impeach Trump again. Focus on limiting his power through legislation, oversight, and where possible, overriding vetoes. Hold members of his administration accountable where appropriate, using every lawful tool available, and where warranted, pursue impeachment in cases where it clearly applies. There should be real consequences, including barring individuals from future federal service when justified. That kind of accountability would act as a genuine deterrent. If people know the long-term consequences outweigh any short-term gain, they are less likely to go along with wrongdoing, regardless of pressure or job security.

The broader goal, to me, is making Trump politically irrelevant by not allowing him to dominate every moment or control every outcome. That would likely be more effective than impeachment, because it removes the attention and influence he relies on.

I am hoping this year ends better than it has started. I am usually upbeat during my birth month, but so far this year I am just not feeling it. Here is hoping things turn around.

Luckily, I do not rely on politics or economics for my ultimate happiness. We are just sojourners on this planet, and Easter reminds me of that. Time to shake off the doom and gloom and focus on what actually matters.

#personal #politics #currentevents

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A cluttered desk overflowing with DVDs, game controllers, and a computer setup highlights the challenge of balancing a busy to-do list with the pursuit of better health and productivity.

I haven't blogged lately for several reasons. I have been feeling much better from my Obstructive Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (I have blogged extensively about it in several past posts). I will just say my Camzyos and Metoprolol 200 mg ER twice daily seems to be working. I am sleeping at night and I hardly feel my heart symptoms anymore. The only lingering negative is a high heart rate most of the time, even when sleeping. But I have more energy, and that is actually why I haven't been blogging as much.

I know what you are thinking: if you are feeling better, why aren't you blogging? Well, it is because I am catching up on backlogged personal projects I have wanted to get done, and spending too much money in the process. Ever since AI came on the scene, I have been getting up to speed and, with its help, doing things I have wanted to do but didn't have the knowledge or know where to look. For instance, I have over 2,000 discs (DVDs, CDs, and Blu-rays) from over 30 years of accumulation that I am finally archiving and getting into my Plex server for my home. I had no one to ask and couldn't find resources, so I just had the discs sitting around, many never opened, as I relied on streaming services. But I have been on a purge of subscription services since early last year. I am also finding approximately 100 DVDs that have either disc rot or are scratched. That last one really hurts, as most of the disc-rotted and scratched discs have never been opened. So there has been a renewed sense of urgency on my part to get these things archivally backed up.

All the while, I have been using Windsurf AI IDE and other tools to make software that I want to use and customize for myself, like a Personal Poster that posts to all my social media platforms and a separate blog poster program to post to all my different sites without having to worry about cutting and pasting.

Then there is continuing to build out my homelab and home server setup, and again, thanks to AI. I ask and it helps and puts it in a way I can understand. It is a resource I have never had before. I have also been trying to stay ahead of the negative side of AI causing prices to spike on computer hardware so that I will not have to have a computer subscription like the one recently introduced by HP (windowscentral.com). I refuse to rent a PC. I have never leased a car and will not lease a PC. At what point do companies take subscriptions too far? Personally, I think we are there.

So with all of this, plus working so I can afford to buy and pay for everything, I have been rather busy. The only things I want to write about and express my feelings on lately are my other health conditions (which I may do) and politics/economics, which are driving me crazy and I am trying to stay away from because I don't think anyone cares about my opinions on these matters.

All that said, I am still here and I have not gone anywhere. I just have a lot on my plate right now. Hopefully I will be back to writing more regularly soon, and I will have plenty to share about what I have been working on.

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#personal #productivity

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