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Well, I finally did it…. I joined a Star Trek fan Club, well… actually I joined two. I decided that since the cost of membership was relatively low(about $15 each)  it couldn’t hurt. The two clubs that I joined were the International Federation of Trekkers(or their new name The Federation) and Starfleet International.

I have been thumbing my way through the first issue of “Voyages” the club magazine for The Federation and it has been great to read so far. I am not half way through it yet and if it wasn’t for work interfering I would read it all in one sitting. The one down side is there is not a local club to me… Well, technically there is one just the other side of Toronto but that is a bit of a drive from Waterloo.

I have yet to sit down with the magazine from Starfleet International. I also believe I have to wait to get my username and password in the mail before I can access the members only sections of the website. They do have a group that meets closer to me in Guelph but the website for that group has not been updated in a while so I am not holding my breath. Over the next couple of days I will be updating the website with the thoughts that I have between the two different organizations.

I finally cancelled my WoW account after not playing for an extended period of time. I have gone in and reactivated my STO account and give that a try for a while. I am hoping that it is exciting with the new changes and now that I am not paying for a WoW account there is nothing to draw me away from it. I think that I will be changing fleets once I have the ability to log in. There is an interesting Firefly themed fleet that looks like it might be fun. Right now I am not too sure how many people are left in the fleet that was formed out of my co-workers.

Right now I am still waiting for my account to go active so I will be able to log in when I get home tonight. Though it might be after a quick stop by future shop to get firefly on Blu-Ray.

You may notice that this entry is not being posted right after the con. This is due to a couple of reasons. First by the time I got home I basically fell right into bed and stayed there for the rest of the night. As for Monday, I had to try and get laundry done before heading into work and then had an event after work that I had to attend so that broke Monday, and yesterday I was knocked flat on my back sick with a back that was giving me problems so here we are 3 days after the con has ended and no post. I am remedying that now.

The third day of the con is when I was able to see two people on the main stage and get autographs from two people as well.

The first person to hit the main stage was Ethan Phillips. He was great, he interacted with the crowd and always had a story when there was a lull in the questions that were being asked. He mentioned how he has always been fascinated with acting from even a very young age. All in all it was a good presentation.

The second person to hit the main stage was Alaina Huffman. You could tell that she has not done many conventions, she had a short 15 minute talk and then opened it up for questions. She was very honest and very friendly about the questions that were asked, but when there was a lull in the questions she was not interjecting funny anecdotes. This lead to the same people asking a lot of questions but they were all good questions in my opinion.

From there it was off to the autograph sessions. Much to my surprise there was not much of a lineup for autographs on the Sunday afternoon. I was able to get right in line for Alaina Huffman but while there was a special needs gentleman ahead of me to go see Mark Sheppard since there was no one in line for him. Pleasant guy, the only downside is I was spaced out a little and had to be reminded to pay. But other than that it was a good day all around.

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the closing ceremonies due to needing to get on the road and back home. But they have already announced a guest that I would like to see for next year. Armin Shimerman, so thoughts are high that I will be going to Polaris 25.

Well, day two has come to a close and the only thing still running is the Saturday night dance. Still not sure if I am going to partake in the festivities. It was an eventful and fun day, it started off with the breakfast buffet and then a quick dash to get a picture taken with Ethan Phillips. I was surprised that he remembered me from the night before and was very friendly while the picture was being taken. One thing that surprised me is after the photo was taken he asked for a fist bump. That totally made my day.

I was able to attend the Q and A with Mark Sheppard and it was good, he spoke of his experiences with the shows that he has been on, Firefly being cancelled, and why Battlestar Galactica was able to have a full run (the difference between a cable network and a major network). One of the fun comments that he made was he mentioned he was reminded of a Canadian joke. “How do you get 100 Canadians out of a pool? Could you please get out of the pool.” There is something lost in the writing down of the joke and the context in which it was told.

After those two events I just chilled in the hotel and spent way too much in the dealers room, but what the hell, I think I made good purchases. Then it was off to have my picture taken with Mark Sheppard. He wasn’t as nice as Ethan but as I mentioned in my last post I had quite a long conversation with him. I was then off to the autograph room to get my picture with Ethan signed. That was a straight forward process and he had a few people waiting.

After checking out the dealers room for a second time it was time to get a picture taken with Alaina Huffman. I must say…. TV does not do her justice, she is much prettier in person, she was great and friendly another photo that made my day.

Plans for tomorrow? I am going to go and attend the Q and As for Ethan Phillips and Alaina Huffman. Then it will be off to the autograph room to get the  last two autographs that I want. Am I planning to stay for the closing ceremonies? Still not sure on that one. I would like to avoid the rush of when everyone else leaves and try to keep my car from overheating on the drive home. I guess I will try and gauge when others leave and make my plans from there.

Well, the first day of Polaris has pretty much wrapped up. The only thing left happening is the Klingon Karaoke (and yes there are some Klingons there). It was pretty good for my first day at a con ever. I went to the opening ceremonies and the host was pretty funny, there wasn’t much content basically just going over the events of the weekend. It was a nice primer for what to expect.

The first session that I went to was Emergent Internet A.I. The main panellist for the session was Robert J. Sawyer the writer of "Flash Forward” the talk was excellent as the topics that were covered was the total amount of storage needed to have an artificial intelligence develop on the internet, how would it manifest itself, what would the reception be, and then there were some questions about how it would be used and if it would be given free reign over its own existence.

The second session that I went to was Kirktinuity and that was discussing the nature of Star Trek cannon in regards to the new movie vs. The Original Series. It started off not too bad but it was starting to get to be to much of a geek fest and I decided to leave early and go to the Blastoff party.

I paid extra to attend the Blastoff party. All of the multi-day guests are contracted to be there. I was able to speak with Robert J. Sawyer, Ethan Phillips, Mark Sheppard, and Kai Owens. To be honest I haven’t had a chance to see torchwood, but the conversation between Kai Owens and Mark Sheppard was excellent, they were discussing the season format between North America and England. The comparison of the 6-12 episode seasons of England vs the 22-24 episode seasons that we are used to here in North America. I never really understood the difference until I was able to hear this discussion. It makes complete sense to me now where they only have one story arc for the season.

I was able to discuss Smartphone technology with Robert J. Sawyer and Ethan Phillips, we were discussing the iPhone and the droid and some of the different features. We discussed how Research In Motion is a Canadian company and try as I might I was not able to get a plug in for the BlackBerry.

I need to look at the schedule for tomorrow and finish selecting the panels that I want to go to. Just trying to make my life easier.