Star Trek Convention, Las Vegas: August 2010

Wednesday.

I decided that after the long drive, I'd unwind for a moment in my hotel room and perhaps take a look at the view I was promised (it faced their emerald-green golf course), but the thing I most wanted to do was swim in the hotel's pool.

I can't remember the last time I swam in a pool. We didn't have a swimming pool at our house growing up, but I had a cousin who did, and in those days being a welcome house guest, I'd visit him frequently and, consequently, would swim often.

I was a pretty good swimmer in my youth. I wasn't bulky enough for football, and while I had some skill at basketball, I frankly didn't much care for organized sports. Swimming was an invigorating, solitary experience: being an astute fellow who paid attention to science class, and filled with the knowledge of the human body's relation to it, I felt as if I was conquering the very element of water itself.

In my adult years, most of the pool parties I was invited to were instances of me indulging in the "party" part of the event, and I have since left the "pool" aspect of it for the brave and the fool-hardy.

[Things I purchased for this trip: extra toothbrush, travel-sized deodorant, "medicinal" tea bags, and swim trunks]

But of course, planning on making the first evening in Vegas a serene and calm one was an exercise in futility.
I walked into my room, tossed my bags on the bed, looked out the window (and ho hum'd the "emerald-green" golf course, as I'm not an avid golfer), put on a fresh shirt, and went to the casino bar Space Quest, which is situated near the former location of the much-lamented Star Trek: The Experience.

There was to be a meet-up with other folks who used social networks (i.e. Twitter), and who listened to Trek-themed podcasts (i.e. Trekcast), and a good time was to be had by all. I knew about this meet-up in advance, and expected to attend.

I had Heineken beers to drink that night, and stayed away from the hard liquor. And I got tipsy faster than usual, because, after close to two decades of constant drinking and philandering, I hadn't had a drop of alcohol for two months prior to this trip, and the booze now buzzed around my cranium like so many irritated bees. So much for the pool...

Indeed, I decided this is as good a place as any to start this journey into the Blogosphere, where years of me splashing around in an altogether different sort of liquid have taken its toll; where I realize that the years ahead of me are more than likely shorter than the years behind; where I will probably reveal more of myself than some might expect; where I recognize that while other men my age have their pre-midlife crisis filled with young women, fast cars, and martinis, I seem to be having mine filled with sci-fi conventions, genre movies & television, and a gradual shying away from the world-renown Los Angeles night life.

And so it begins.