As a break from my usual topics I am going to talk about what I did over the weekend.

I am a huge star trek fan, so me and my wife Laura went to Destination Star Trek, a convention held in London. This is a picture of us in costume, my wife created a tribble costume (A tribble is an alien race that just consists of a ball of fur) and I am wearing an original series captains uniform. We had a great time.

There are several things that made this trip special.

• Friends : After the last convention I remember thinking how much better the convention would be with a group of friends. Shortly afterwards I started listening to the trekmate podcast, eventually this lead to me helping out with their website and making friends via twitter with many of the hosts. This weekend was the first time I met up with them and it was great to put faces to names (or twitter names)
• Writers and Directors : Star Trek has a great philosophy. In the future human beings will put their differences aside and work together to explore the galaxy, this is one reason why Star Trek is so popular even after almost 50 years. This philosophy has been created by the writers and other creative staff over the years. My favourite Star Trek film is Wrath of Khan which was directed by Nicholas Meyer, this weekend I got my DVD signed by him and was able to tell him how I still enjoyed that film over 30 years after it was made. He said that he really appreciated me saying that. Listening to his talk later on, it was fascinating to hear his insights into making my favourite film. It is the writers and directors that make our favourite characters who they are, the actors themselves aren’t allowed to ad lib, all they do is flesh them out with a bit of emotion or a mannerism, it is the writer that create our favourite lines or situations that we remember.
• Seven of Nine : During my teenage years I had lots of posters of Seven on my walls. Seven of Nine was the ex-borg that walked around the ship in a skin tight catsuit, but she was also highly intelligent and continued to explore what it was to be human. It was great to have my photo taken with her, even if it was rushed due to the large number of people that wanted their picture taken.
• Trivia : On the Friday of the convention, Laura took part in the beginners trivia challenge, she won. On Saturday I took part in the intermediate trivia challenge, I did really badly only got 3 correct, On Sunday I took part in the captain level challenge and I won. I really wasn’t expecting that, after I did so badly the day before. Thanks Marc Stamper and Destination Star Trek for organising that it was great fun, and also fun to meet the other trekkies who I had been competing against via twitter.
• Party! : On Saturday night we went to a party, we had Romulan Ale to drink, we had some of the actors performing songs (James Darren was particularly good), and some of the actors mingled with fans, it was great to see the actors relaxing and if you were lucky you could chat to them, I asked Vaughn Armstrong how he was enjoying the music, he loved it.

This is just a taste of what I got up to, there was lots more, like seeing alien costumes, listening to talks, sitting on a mockup of the bridge. Only one way to end this post, Live Long and Prosper!