To boldly go...

...and get the stuffing beat out of it. That seems to be the usual fate of the movie version of the good ship Enterprise.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture - minor damage by the initial attack by V'Ger.

The Enterprise about to get smacked in the nose by a V'Ger torpedo.

Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan - pulverized by the USS Reliant in a truly epic example of good old fashioned space opera. Kaaaaaahn!

Enterprise takes a hard hit to the port side...

...and gets in a little return fire.

Star Trek: The Search For Spock - further pulverized by a Klingon Bird of Prey.

Self-destruct!

Bird of Prey captured, reamed Bounty, used to terrorize fishermen and save whales, among other things.

Star Trek: The Voyage Home - USS Enterprise-A did not appear to the very end of the film and was thus safe. For once.

I wonder how many movies I'll survive?

Star Trek: The Final Frontier - pulverized by another Bird of Prey. BoP destroyed by God. Yes, really.

The Klingon Bird of Prey.

Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country - further pulverized by yet another Bird of Prey. BoP destroyed by trick torpedo.

Lock weapons on target!

Star Trek: Generations - The Enterprise-D destroyed by - wait for it - another Bird of Prey. BoP destroyed by trickery and torpedo; Enterprise main hull lost in warp-core breach, saucer section crash landed.

The Duras Sisters put some pain on the Enterprise-D.

Saucer section reentry.

Note the combat record here. Klingon Birds of Prey put some serious hurt on the various incarnations of Enterprise. General Martok was right to stick with the Rotarrin.

Star Trek: First Contact - Enterprise-E taken over by Borg but for once not pulverized.

Rumor is that the Millenium Falcon is among the combatants.

Star Trek: Insurrection - Enterprise-E pulverized by two Son'a battleships, saved only by timely warp-core ejection.

A second ago, there were two Son'a battleships in this scene.

Star Trek: Nemesis - Enterprise-E pulverised by Romulan battleship Scimitar, which was destroyed by...ramming.

Scimitar, meet Enterprise.

And things don't get much better in the alternate timeline.

Star Trek - pulverized by the future-Romulan mining ship Narada (which had earlier destroyed both a large squadron of Klingon BoPs and a big chunk of Starfleet), then further damaged by a black hole. Escape was by yet another timely warp-core ejection.

Enterprise and Narada face off over Vulcan...

Star Trek Into Darkness - pulverized by the Federation battleship Revenge.

...and confronts the Federation dreadnaught Revenge in the Neutral Zone.

And there is your Trekker post for the day. Enjoy!

Movie Review: Star Trek Into Darkness

Much better than expected, with epic property damage on the ground and lots of shout outs for us old-time fans but also making it clear that this is an alternate timeline and Abrams is free to take the series in unexpected new directions. Southern Man had carefully avoided reviews and spoiler posts so he was delightfully surprised by The Reveal. This was also Southern Man's first foray into IMAX 3D, which was pretty awesome but left him with something of a headache. Perhaps the excessive lens flare had something to do with that.

Why, yes, the USS Enterprise does get pulverized. As usual. Also, smoke In Space!

Southern Man Rescues A Turtle

Southern Man saw this good-sized common snapping turtle (chelydra serpentina) trying to cross six lands of traffic...

He was a Beast, easily capable of taking a finger. Southern Man managed to get him by the tail and put him by the side of the road. Yes, Southern Man knows you're not supposed to do that but it was all he could manage at the time.

And then Southern Man found a box and transported The Beast to The Land. Here he is near the dock pilings.

The Beast wasn't too happy about having been moved by his tail and then scooped into a box but The Land is and always will be a turtle and snake sanctuary. He'll make a fine home down there in the bottoms by the lake.

Choral Concert

It's time for Teen Daughter's Spring Choral Concert - why, yes, she does have a solo part - so Southern Man and Southern Mother made the drive Up North to see her.

Southern Mother in the crowd.

Yes, Teen Daughter is right in the middle of this photo. Not that you can tell.

Dinner at Twisters.

Drop-off at school the next morning, where Teen Daughter (as she often does) declined to be photographed.

Of course there was geocaching. Southern Man snuck in a couple after dropping off Teen Daughter and before heading back to the hotel for Southern Mother.

One was in this beautiful park.

Another was near the town cemetery.

And now for that long drive home...

Mothers Day 2013

The ever beautiful Southern Mother.

Southern Father unloads conduit from The Titan.

Stella is a Good Dog!

Singles Dance

It's the once-monthly singles dance! Whoo hoo!

Hey, why aren't you dancing?

Pool Sharks

As before none of the actual dance-floor pics came out, and few of the low-light shots. Southern Man must wean himself from "auto" and actually learn how to use his fancy new camera.

Probability and Statistics

So Southern Man is hanging with some church-singles friends and a game of Yahtzee broke out. Yeah, we're wild and crazy like that. Southern Man's first five plays were:

Large Straight (one roll)
Small Straight (one roll)
Full House (one roll)
Yahtzee in 6s (two rolls)
Yahtzee in 5s (three rolls)

That's 195 points in only eight rolls. What are the chances of that ever happening again?

Capitol Caching

With duties at the soon-to-be-former job completed for the day Southern Man had several hours to kill before his evening class so he wandered up the road to the State Capitol (which he'd not visited for many years) to see the sites and do a little geocaching.

Capitol exterior. There is a geocache inside the building, tucked away in a corner of the library.

The State Seal.

Under The Dome.

The Guardian.

The nearby Battleship Oklahoma memorial, which pretty much gives away the identity of Southern State for any reader that hasn't yet figured it out.

Honors

As very nearly his last official act at his current employer, Southern Man presided over the Fifteenth Initiation of Upsilon Pi Epsilon, the international honor society for the computing and information sciences.

The stage is set.

Honorees and attendees.

The Faculty read their parts.

Official UPE 2013 Photo.

Southern Man is pleased to be a Charter Member of this chapter of UPE. Girl Programmer was running the show back then. Thanks, GP!

Happy Fibonacci Day!

Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (1170-1250), known today as Fibonacci, was one of the most talented mathematicians of the Middle Ages. He was instrumental in introducing the Hindu-Arabic number system to Europe through his book, Liber Abaci or the Book of Calculations. One example in this book is the sequence that today bears his name and begins 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 ... in which each term is the sum of its two predecessors. Thus 5/8/13 has been dubbed "Fibonacci Day."

The Fibonacci Sequence and the Fibonacci Spiral appear throughout nature.

The Fibonacci Sequence was first used to model rabbit populations.

The Fibonacci Sequence is often seen in flowers and other plants. This daisy has two rows of petals; eight in front and thirteen behind.

The Fibonacci Spiral also describes many forms found in nature, such as this nautilus shell.

Hurricane Irene in the form of a Fibonacci Spiral.

Spock vs. Spock

This is quite possibly the greatest car commercial of all time: with Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto.

Clap...clap...clap...

Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time
Once when you were mine
I remember skies
Mirrored in your eyes
I wonder where you are
I wonder if you think about me
Once upon a time, in your wildest dreams...

Cinco De Mayo!

Lured by the promise of Mexican food, unlimited margaritas, and "hot, beautiful women" (yes, that's a quote, sort of) Southern Man wandered Down South for a Cinco De Mayo party.

Of course he did a little sightseeing and nabbed a couple of geocaches on the way...