A couple of bonny lassies on the way home that evening find him, and wondering if its true that real Highlanders never wear anything under their kilts, decide to pick it up, take a peek underneath, and find out for themselves.

When Angus wakes up in the morning, he discovers that a pretty red ribbon has been tied gently, but securely, to a delicate part of his manhood with an elaborate and decorative knot.

“Aw, laddie, now where were you off to last night without telling me?”

I’ll be ok. Aside from the unknowns about calcium, we actually got to the root cause of my heart pains: An idiot primary care physician stopped one of my heart meds a few months back, which was a blinding revelation when the cardiologist told me yesterday he was prescribing it. That doc literally put me in the hospital messing with my prescriptions.

But I love the OR nurses for their sense of humor. Ever gotten home after a procedure, especially something involving the femoral artery, and found yourself the proud owner of a pubic mohawk? Or even more artistic topiary? That happens to me about half the time, and it cracks me up every time I discover it. What a sly sense of humor!

Yes, I do have that scar, but it healed nicely (smearing on lots of vitamin E once it had sealed up).

Mine was a genetic disorder, where my aortic valve had only two leaves, rather than the normal three. Well, a stripe of calcium got the two stuck together and the valve no longer closed, which had the blood pumping back and forth for a bit, nearly killed me. fortunately, I was at work at the time and someone thought to call an ambulance.

Doc said my aorta had blown up like a balloon and had to be replaced (PVC plumbing). A genuine project and a half. My surgeon said he had never seen such clean arteries in such an old patient before (I wonder if that’s believable…).

Anyway, all plastic parts with pacemaker, followed by six months of recovery, but I’m up and doing fine now, going to work and getting out to the library now and then for some serious writing.

Get better, Robert. We can’t do this alone, ya know.

Tracking is a bit jerky, but a beautifully rendered piece.

Not that there’s anything wrong with pornography; a little bit in moderation is harmless, perhaps even healthy; only when it obsessively substitutes for the real thing, can it be considered pathological. And in this case the sexual connotation seems to be subdued in spite of all the visual metaphors. For Trekkies, the return to the Enterprise HAD to be a big moment in the film, something they had been waiting for for years, something that needed to be savored and prolonged as long as possible. The drought had finally broken! I know I felt that way when I watched it, even if half way through it occurred to me the sequence had been extended a bit too much. For the Trek fan, we were home, after a long, long time, it was wonderful.

I’m a sailor, and I am familiar with the idea of your ship being a home, of sorts. You live there, eat there, sleep there, your work and your friends are all there. And unlike the sense of mature and practical feminine security and stability a mere house provides, a ship takes you places, it offers masculine adolescent adventure and opportunity. And it is always on the move, and always in motion. Years after my discharge from the Navy I ran into my old ship again (docked in Puerto Rico) and I couldn’t wait to go back aboard. None of my old crew remained, and as a civilian I was not allowed to go past the quarterdeck and explore below, but the rest of the ship flooded back in memory, the smells of sun-baked paint and stack gas, the roar of the ventilators, it all came back in a mad nostalgic rush. Every welded seam, every rivet and bolt in the deck, every fire hose and its polished brass fittings folded neatly on a bulkhead rack was just as I had left it. Even the stenciled messages on each door and hatch were familiar. It was like I had never gone away. I was totally unprepared for the emotional effect it had on me.

That film was filled with that sort of nostalgia, a nod to the fans, of course, but carried out with sensitivity and taste. The opening sequence of the Klingon Birds of Prey engaging Vger was simply breathtaking. And the long flyby of the Enterprise along the length of the alien ship was, I think, the best representation Hollywood has yet come up with to communicate the wonder of an encounter with alien technology. If we ever meet THEM the perception will be different, but I bet the feeling will be just like that.