Earl in the Shadows

 

Mark Lenard: The Lost Conversation

Today Sylvia and I went to Leduc to check on Mom's house and take care of some estate matters. On the way home, perhaps because my mind was already occupied by loss and regret, I told Sylvia the story of my conversation with Mark Lenard, a well-regarded character actor best known for playing Sarek, father of Spock, in one episode of Star Trek, two of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and three of the feature films. 

Except there is no story--at least, no story I remember. 

In the late 80s and early 90s, I attended a number of science fiction conventions in Edmonton and Calgary. On one such occasion, Mark Lenard was a guest. I definitely attended one of his panels, but it was in between convention events that I had a laid-back conversation with the man. 

The conversation took place in a niche with a couple of tables and chairs on one of the middle floors of Edmonton's Chateau Lacombe--or so I believe. The conversation took place in the late afternoon; the niche was dimly lit, but the sun shot beams of radiance through the windows, casting stark shadows. 

Mr. Lenard and I weren't the only ones present; I believe there were at least one or two acquaintances from the Edmonton Star Trek Society (now known as the Edmonton Speculative Fiction Society). 
 
Mr. Lenard was charming, soft-spoken, and self-effacing, and the conversation wasn't about Star Trek or acting, but friends, family, work, and the like. 

And that's all I remember. As a student of film and television and a huge fan of Star Trek, you'd think I'd have that day fixed in my head with all the clarity of an IMAX film, but . . . 

Mark Lenard is gone now, like Mom. And now I wonder how many things I'll forget about her, and curse myself for it. 

We’ll Be Right Back

User Interface Update

Note for readers: I have updated the "Most Popular," "Book, Film, Television, Food, and Concert Reviews" and "Short Stories" link columns down the side of The Earliad. 

The Leaning Streetlight of Edmonton

It was a windy day in Edmonton today, and while out on errands I spotted this precariously positioned streetlight right on our street. I called 311 and a fellow named Steve assured me a crew would head out right away to fix the problem. I'm sure the situation has been straightened out. 
 

55 or 551?

For my 55th birthday, Bing showed me this vision of the future: a snapshot of my 551st birthday taken (or will be taken) on February 25, 2520. Sylvia and I will obviously really benefit from the nanotech revolution, and it was super nice of Superman and the Enterprise to fly by for the party. 
 

Bad Friday

Left Sylvia's food at the drive-through after paying for it, got high-centred and stuck in the snow just before getting home (some folks came to rescue us after about 20 minutes), and then overcome with nausea and other unpleasant symptoms from a new medication. A less-than-ideal start to the weekend. 

And We're Back!

For reasons unknown, my domain name somehow wasn't connecting to the actual address of my blog, so anyone who's tried to visit for the last three days has encountered an unfortunate DNS error. Something to do with Google, I guess? Who knows. 

On to happier business. Here is Fallout's Mysterious Stranger, painted this weekend by Yours Truly. As far as human figures go, I'm happier than usual with this one. 

Trapped Behind the Walls of Blogger

 I am writing today's post from an unusual angle. Normally I visit earljwoods.com to fashion each day's post, but today I get a "This site can't be reached" error. However, if I just go to Blogger, all of a sudden I can access the blog's content management system, which is how I'm posting this. 

Has anybody seen my blog today? Comment below! And if you have any insight into the problem, please let me know. I know my earljwoods.com domain is current and paid for. 

No Longer Awaiting Moderation

 Today, for the first time in years, I explored Blogger's back end and found a moderation tab. Curious, I opened it to find several comments from readers awaiting to see if I'd allow them to be published. I wasn't even aware that I'd turned on comment moderation; indeed, the vast majority of comments are posted unhindered. But for whatever reason, about a dozen comments have been awaiting my approval. Some are days old; some are years old! One of them was even from France. I've now approved them all, save for a couple that were clearly spam. 

My apologies to the commenters, and my thanks for your thoughts! 

Progress

 This afternoon and evening I filled a garbage bag full of junk, emptied a filing cabinet to create space for good stuff that's lying around exposed, and managed to straighten up my office enough to move around with greater efficiency, which should make this entire decluttering project go much faster. Huzzah! 

One Point Six Three Million

I haven't looked at the analytics of this blog for a long time. Google changed something so that they now pop up right away when I start a new post. To my surprise, apparently The Earliad has gathered 1.63 million views since its inception. That seems like a lot to me, but maybe it's par for the course for blogs; I really have no idea. And apparently, only a small fraction of the views are from bots, at least if I'm reading the more detailed analytics correctly (certainly an open question).

Maybe even more pleasing is that people have generated almost 3,700 comments over the years, and I've only posted a little over 4,000 times. What can I say except that I'm baffled and grateful? 

Blog Housekeeping 2019

As you can see if you're reading this between today and the next time I change the blog theme, The Earliad looks a little different. Aside from refreshing the theme, I've also started a bit of cleanup, removing some dead blog links and updating a few of my sidebars to include fresher content. Sometimes I berate myself for posting a lot of fluff, but I think some small percentage of it is entertaining or educational in some way. One hopes!

Enjoy. 

Video: Guardian of HiQ

If you think about it a little, the Guardian of Forever could show you any television episode ever made, even the lost ones. Would this always be a good thing? Well...

The Wheel of Knowledge

I'm taking some time off to declutter my home office, and in the process I'm coming across all kinds of oddities. Here's a Wheel of Knowledge from The Zoo (which zoo?). This thing is probably over 40 years old, which means I've carried it around with me from move to move most of my life. Sorry, Wheel of Knowledge; while I appreciate your 1970s charm, I don't have room for you anymore. 

One Mess at a Time

Today I spent several hours straightening out my office, determined, once and for all, to declutter it. As I wind down and take stock, I see that I've managed to fill one recycle bag and one garbage bag full of junk. My nemesis, the closet, remains defiantly untouched. My desk is clear and there's a reasonable path to it, but I've fallen far short of what I'd hoped to accomplish.

All this stubborn debris. But I haven't given up. Back at it tomorrow. 

Losing Containment

During a quiet moment at work this afternoon, I tried to entertain a colleague by telling her an amusing story about Jeff throwing up. Said colleague cried for help from another colleague, who, in her best kind mom voice, said, "Earl, contain your personality."

I thought that was pretty clever and funny. It was also effective!

Search My Blog!

Did you know that Blogger includes a search function? I just discovered it now, despite having curated this blog for...zounds, over a decade! You can search The Earliad by typing your search terms into the little window in the upper-left corner of your browser, as illustrated above. This'll make it easier for me when I'm attempting to follow up on old posts!

My Favourite Words, 1992 Edition

A couple of years ago I posted a list of my favourite words. Such tastes evolve over time, and thanks to Ron and his Freedom BBS there's a record of my favourite words as they stood on May 7, 1992, at 7:39 pm. Here's the list as I posted it back on Ron's BBS back in those halcyon days before the World Wide Web:

Earl's favourite words: 

mannequin
accident
yeti
bag
hammer
clowns
fistfight
shiskebab
pipe
escalator
wheelchair
defenestrate
wound
pain
gut
finger
disembowel
teeth
smash
launch
jab
bubblegum

Yikes! This list appears to reflect the angst I was internalizing during my underemployed, girlfriend-less post-university years. The newer list is much more diverse, not to mention more reflective of my current taste. Still, this is an interesting look at where I was at back in my early 20s, and I'm grateful to Ron for keeping an archive of our writing during those years. 

The Voice of Gravel

I wound up on TV again today, captured in one of those man-on-the-street interviews that sometimes capture unwary pedestrians innocently wandering about in search of lunch. When the CTV crew approached me I was sure they were going to ask about the election, a topic on which I could have expounded with a reasonable degree of eloquence.

But to my surprise, I was asked if I noticed the gravel in the streets.

"There's gravel in the streets?" I thought. Sylvia would have loved this, because she knows I'm the last person in the world to notice disorder of this sort. The reporter asked me what I thought about the condition of the roads, and somewhat nonplussed I answered "Well, there are a few potholes, I guess..."

Clearly I wasn't delivering the desired soundbite, so the reporter helpfully prodded me in the right direction with a couple of leading questions about street sweeping and dings in my windshield. I dutifully allowed that yes, the streets would look better once swept, and I did indeed have a crack in my windshield.

A couple of friends saw the story on the news, but I haven't seen it myself. I'd be interested to know what narrative they spun out of my responses. That's the magic of editing...