HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANIEL!!!!!

Know Your Medal of Honor Recipients:

Lieutenant Colonel William Joseph Donovan (US Army) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on October 14-15, 1918 near Landres-et-St. Georges, France. His citation reads:

Lt. Col. Donovan personally led the assaulting wave in an attack upon a very strongly organized position, and when our troops were suffering heavy casualties he encouraged all near him by his example, moving among his men in exposed positions, reorganizing decimated platoons, and accompanying them forward in attacks. When he was wounded in the leg by machine-gun bullets, he refused to be evacuated and continued with his unit until it withdrew to a less exposed position.

Corporal Patrick Doody (US Army) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on June 7, 1864 at Cold Harbor, Virginia. His citation reads:

After making a successful personal reconnaissance, he gallantly led the skirmishers in a night attack, charging the enemy, and thus enabling the pioneers to put up works.

Coal Heaver William Doolen (US Navy) received his Medal of Honor for his actions on August 5, 1864 on board the USS Richmond. His citation reads:

On board the U.S.S. Richmond during action against rebel forts and gunboats and with the ram Tennessee in Mobile Bay, 5 August 1864. Although knocked down and seriously wounded in the head, Doolen refused to leave his station as shot and shell passed. Calm and courageous, he rendered gallant service throughout the prolonged battle which resulted in the surrender of the rebel ram Tennessee and in the successful attacks carried out on Fort Morgan despite the enemy's heavy return fire.


Happy Birthday to my little boy Daniel!!!!! I love you buddy!


The I’m just sayin… Kid Show of the Week

Star Trek is a science fiction franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. The franchise also includes eleven feature films and a bunch of other stuff. The interesting thing (to me, at least) is that the original series was for all intents and purposes a failure (at first). It only lasted three seasons before having its plug pulled. It was much bigger in reruns than it was the first time around. I remember watching reruns of the original series and watching a decent amount of the Next Generation. I’ve seen all of the movies, but I haven’t seen any of the other Star Trek TV shows. So this is mainly focused on the original series and the Next Generation.

The original Star Trek followed the interstellar adventures of James T. Kirk and the crew of an exploration vessel of a 23rd century galactic "United Federation of Planets"—the Starship Enterprise. This series debuted in 1966 and ran for three seasons on NBC, after the network rejected an initial pilot film "The Cage" with a mostly different cast, though this pilot is now routinely packaged with the original series. Following the release of other series in the franchise, the Kirk-led series was retroactively referred to as "Star Trek: The Original Series". These adventures were continued by the short-lived Star Trek: The Animated Series and six feature films. As I mentioned before, four more television series were eventually produced, based in the same universe but following other characters: Star Trek: The Next Generation, following the crew of a new Starship Enterprise set a century after the original series; Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, set contemporaneously with The Next Generation; and Star Trek: Enterprise, set before the original series, in the early days of human interstellar travel. Four additional feature films were produced, following the crew of The Next Generation, and, most recently, a 2009 movie reboot of the franchise featuring a young crew of the original Enterprise set in an alternate timeline. I wasn’t sure I would like this movie at first, but it has kinda grown on me.

Star Trek stories usually depict the adventures of humans and aliens who serve in Starfleet, the space-borne humanitarian and peacekeeping armada of the United Federation of Planets. The protagonists are essentially altruists, whose ideals are sometimes imperfectly applied to the dilemmas presented in the series. The conflicts and political dimensions of Star Trek sometimes represent allegories for contemporary cultural realities: Star Trek: The Original Series addressed issues of the 1960s, just as later spin-offs have reflected issues of their respective decades. Issues depicted in the various series include war and peace, the value of personal loyalty, authoritarianism, imperialism, class warfare, economics, racism, religion, human rights, sexism, feminism, and the role of technology.

After Star Trek's cancellation, Paramount Studios, the company that bought the show's original production company Desilu, sold the syndication rights to Star Trek to help recoup the original series' production losses. Reruns began in the fall of 1969 and by the late 1970s the series aired in over 150 domestic and 60 international markets. This helped Star Trek develop a cult following greater than its popularity during its original run. The series' newfound success led to rumors of reviving the franchise. Development began on a new Star Trek: Phase II series in May 1975 in response to the franchise's newfound popularity. However, work on the series ended when the proposed Paramount Television Service folded.

Following the success of the science fiction movies Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Paramount adapted the planned pilot episode of Phase II into the feature film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The film opened in North America on December 7, 1979, with mixed reviews from critics. The film earned $139 million worldwide, below expectations but enough for Paramount to create a sequel. The studio forced Roddenberry to relinquish creative control of future sequels. The success of the critically acclaimed sequel, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan reversed the fortunes of the franchise. While the sequel grossed less than the first movie, The Wrath of Khan's lower production costs made it more profitable. Paramount produced Six Star Trek feature films between 1979 and 1991. In response to Star Trek's movie theater popularity, the franchise returned to television with Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) in 1987. Paramount choose to distribute it as a first-run syndication show rather than a network show.

As I said before, The Original Series tells the tale of the crew of the starship Enterprise and its five-year mission "to boldly go where no man has gone before." The original 1966–1969 television series featured William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James Doohan as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, George Takei as Hikaru Sulu, and Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov. While the show had low Nielsen ratings, it was highly popular with science fiction fans and engineering students. The series later became popular in reruns and found a cult following.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, also known as "TNG", takes place about a century after The Original Series (2364–2370). It features a new starship, the Enterprise-D, and a new crew led by Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes). The series introduced alien races new to the Federation as crewmembers, including Deanna Troi, a half-Betazoid counselor played by Marina Sirtis and Worf as the first Klingon officer in Starfleet, played by Michael Dorn. It also featured Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher, LeVar Burton as chief engineer Geordi La Forge, the android Data portrayed by Brent Spiner, and Dr. Crusher's son Wesley Crusher played by Wil Wheaton. The show premiered on September 28, 1987, and ran for seven seasons, ending on May 23, 1994. It had the highest ratings of any of the Star Trek series and became the #1 syndicated show during the last few years of its original run, allowing it to act as a springboard for ideas in other series. Many relationships and races introduced in TNG became the basis of episodes in Deep Space 9 and Voyager. It earned an Emmy nomination for Best Dramatic Series during its final season. It also received a Peabody Award for Outstanding Television Programming for the episode "The Big Goodbye".

The show's cultural impact goes far beyond its longevity and profitability. Star Trek conventions have become popular among its fans, who call themselves "trekkies" or "trekkers". An entire subculture has grown up around the show earning Star Trek the honor of being the highest-ranked cult show according to TV Guide. The Star Trek franchise inspired some designers of technologies, such as the Palm PDA and the handheld mobile phone. Michael Jones, Chief technologist of Google Earth, has cited the tricorder's mapping capability as one inspiration in the development of Keyhole/Google Earth. It also brought teleportation to popular attention with its depiction of "matter-energy transport", with phrases such as "Beam me up, Scotty" entering the vernacular. In 1976, following a letter-writing campaign, NASA named its prototype space shuttle Enterprise, after the fictional starship.

Beyond Star Trek's fictional innovations, one of its greatest and most significant contributions to TV history is its creation of a cast of different races and cultures in the sets. This became common in television shows in the 1980s such as L.A. Law but was controversial and daring in the 1960s. On the bridge of the Enterprise were a Japanese helmsman, a Russian navigator, a black female communications officer, and a Vulcan-Earthling first officer — among other members. Also, controversial at its time (in the episode Plato's Stepchildren), was Captain Kirk's kiss with Lt. Uhura which became a defining moment in television history as it was believed to be American TV's first scripted interracial kiss.

Honestly, the show is probably more political than most kids shows I recommend on here, but it’s still great to watch. If I had to choose, I’d go with one of the first two (the original or the next generation). You can give the others a chance if you want… I just never have. The movies are great but since this is more about TV, I decided not to put much about them on here. As always, you can find this information and more on Wikipedia. There are also some shows on the History Channel (I think) that talk about the show and the impact it had on technology. Let’s face it… the nerds who work for NASA and design computers and phones are the same people who love Star Trek. So it’s not hard to see how the show could inspire these people. You can find all of the shows on DVD.