HyperDrive

Happy birthday, Jami. :( ~HD

That show's still on? :D (And no, I haven't bothered looking for any rumors. I haven't watched an episode of Enterprise in months.) ~HD

Lamborghini. I like the doors. :lol: New or used?

I'm a big fan of Star Wars... and slipstream technology makes better sense (and is more believable) than a warp bubble... So that's how I got my name. HyperDrive. :lol: Now, on to the character names... Hewitt Demore was a name I made up "on the fly." I needed a character that had a first name starting with an H and a last name starting with a D (because people tended to just call me HD in sims). Lleyton Hewitt was also a popular rising tennis player a few years ago, so I took the name Hewitt. "Demore" just kinda came about. :lol: Christie Farron came about in a much more interesting (freaky?) way. On my best friends first name is Christina (but we all call her Christie), and I decided to name the character after her. They're actually kinda similar, though I didn't plan on them to be. The last name Farron came from one of my friends who moved out to California a few years back. I spelled it differently than she spelled her last name, though. But, the name came from her. ;) So, Hewitt Demore just came into my head. Christie Farron was putting two of my friend's names together. :D ~HD

Oh, and I'll go on my Microsoft rant real quick. ME didn't work right... died all the time. Win98 (first edition) stunk... it didn't even have all of the features it was suppose to have. Win98SE locked up too much for me. Win95, although I liked it, ran too slow. (I really hated Win98, because some features it was designed to do didn't work.) I use XP at home, because that's what was loaded on my computer when I got it. If I had my choice, I'd duel-boot Win2000pro and RedHat 9. :P ~HD

Of the most recent operating systems, I enjoy Win2000Pro the best. We use it on the school servers without problems [from the operating system]. (Our last district technical leader enjoyed playing with the usergroup settings too much... it was insanely confusing to figure out who belonged where.) But, I really miss Win95 (and even more, I miss 3.1). :P I use XP Pro at home (and XP Home, depending on which computer I'm on). I've used a Mac one time in my life, and actually kind of liked it. There are a few around our school, but only for Journalism/Newspaper kids. :D As a server OS, I greatly prefer Linux. It gives more options to the user on the remote end, and is generally more easy to configure. (However, Linux is also easier to crack unless configured properly.) So, I have mixed feelings about what my *favorite* OS would be. I use too many of them. :P ~HD

Peggy's Cove Ok... how about a picture of transparent aluminum? (I'm serious. :P ) ~HD

Welcome, Sketti. :) ~HD

Welcome back to the forums, Will. :mellow: ~HD

Thanks, everyone! :P ~HD

Oy vey... How about a quick lesson on Communism, ah? Form? The government gives full power to the people, and no one is left in charge to make decisions for the whole. All people live in harmony, and share everything equally. Problem? People aren't equal, and most don't want to be. Human reaction is to "be better than someone else." In a Communistic rule, people cannot strive to do something more for someone else. Example? One farmer has 3 children, all of whom work on his father's farm for 10 hours a day. They each get the same amount of food. Another farmer down the road has 12 children, all of whom work on his father's farm for 4 hours a day. They get the same amount of food as the farmer and 3 children mentioned above. Fair? No. These families must also be trusted to take the same amount of food every time, and not add to their meal. In pure Communism, no one would be with the food, dispensing it in equal portions. Everyone must be trusted to do this on their own. Another problem is that, in a Communistic rule, a Leader is put into office around a small group of political leaders. This leader is suppose to give up command of the nation when "the nation is ready to run on it's own". If you were in charge of the Soviet Union, would you want to give it up? No... it is a major political power on Earth. (It wouldn't have mattered... Soviet Union never hit the point to be pure Communistic.) Finale? Not all people can be trusted. Because of this, pure Communism cannot ever be reached until all people can actually be equal (which would not only be impossible, but would also essentially cease future inventions of anything). In a sense, Communism would seem like the perfect government. However, every world case of Communistic rule on Earth has been corrupted from the inside-out... proof that it just can't work for the common peasant. ---- Now, on to what I think about the Moon... I firmly believe we went to the Moon. There were simply too many witnesses to the event for it not to be true... (do you really think any government can pull off such a large event with thousands of actors not knowing the truth, and millions who just nod and agree? No.) The reason there even was a Space Race was because the Soviet Union and the United States competed for *everything* during the Cold War. Each wanted to be #1 in the world. (Story: A boat race was ran between two ships... one from the USSR, and one from the United States. The one from the United States won the race. Printed in the Russian newspapers was this: "Soviet's finish 2nd, U.S. finishes next-to-last.") The Cold War was, for the most part, propoganda... with war/conflicts along the way (Korea, Vietnam, and others). ("Cold War" is actually just the type of war that was fought... 50 years of propoganda, with bloodshed about every 15 years in between. A "Hot War" is a war that has massive bloodshed, and doesn't last near as long.) The Space Race was due to propoganda, and each government needed the personal satisfaction of winning. (To add to BluRox, the USSR lost almost 150 Cosmonauts in the Space Race, while the United States lost less than 10 astronauts.) Now, here's my answer: Yes, we went to the Moon. (The only question I ever wanted to ask that went against us actually landing on the Moon was this: "Who put the camera on the surface of the Moon if no one had been there before?" :P I have a feeling that the first Moon-walk we ever saw was actually, ah, the second. But, that hasn't been proven. :) ) ~HD

A few people within STSF already know of this, but I feel I should go ahead and make it public. Neither of my COs or XOs know about this hard decision I have been faced with, and this will be the first indication of it. When I can, I will stop back in to sim, but for the time being, my health has forced me to go into a Medical Leave of Absence. Both of my simming characters (Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Hewitt Demore & Ensign Christie Farron) will be on a leave of absence, or possibly (depending on my downtime), I will have to quit both my Sky Harbor Aegis sim and my USS Manticore sim. On Saturday July 6, 2003, I suffered a seizure. Over the night of July 6 through the morning of July 7, I performed a CT scan. At our local hospital, the doctor in ER thought that, by one of the images he saw on the CT scan, I had suffered a stroke. Fortunately, this was not the case. However, I did suffer seizure. The doctors could not find out why I had suffered the seizure, and I was sent to Louisville for better doctors, and better testing. It was here that I received an MRI/MRA. I did this around noon today, and I got the results back about an hour ago. I went from [what was thought to be] a stroke (but it wasn't), to a seizure (which it was), and finally (after the MRI/MRA) came to what I actually had: a brain tumor behind my right temporal lobe. It took 2 days for the doctors to finally figure out what it was. I should find out within the next few days (after a biopsy) whether the brain tumor is benign or not. I hate asking people to feel sorry for me, but I do ask for prayers and hopes through this troubled time for myself and my family. Thank you all. Sincerely, Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Hewitt Demore Ensign Christie Farron

For those of you who really want to know... One year from surgery, and all is well. :D Thank you all for your prayers. I've been doing MRIs every few months, and the internal scar is continuing to get smaller. I'm on 2.5 pills of Keppra twice a day, but other than that... I'm remaining pretty normal. For me, life has (for the most part) returned to normal. Thank you all! -Garrett

Lieutenant Hewitt Demore Chief Engineering Officer Sky Harbor Aegis 50407.14 It was doubtful that Demore's imagination was getting the best of him. He was actually quite sure, as of now. The fact was, too many things had gone wrong in too short of a time for coincidence to be the most probable event. It was speculation, but Demore felt... insecure. The station's systems, his systems, had been continuously going offline. The sensors, which were partially working about an hour ago, have sense had another complete failure. Ensign Zhu has managed to map out the failure locations around the station. There were too many for a simple outage, and not enough for a cascade failure. The most likely assumption would be someone had tampered with the devices. But who? Majority of the failure locations were in secure Engineering sections of the station. It was very difficult to believe that someone had gained access to these sensitive areas without anyone's knowledge. At least no one had reported any unknown personnel in restricted areas of the station, so the chances of a saboteur from outside the station's Engineering section was unlikely. Of course, I cannot believe that any of my engineers would do something against the Federation. (They may very well be against the current Cardassian political power, though.) None of the engineers have reported any supicious activity either, which makes it even more doubtful someone "inside" Engineering did this on their own. Of course, it could be anyone... if they're sly enough. But, Aegis security systems are very trustworthy, and are hard to get around. (However, disabling internal sensors would achieve greater "stealth.") In the end, it is possible that these events just happened at the wrong time. The likelyhood of this being the case is slim-to-none, though. Put simply, I can't trust anyone... and I won't.

I have nothing to say. Insane. ~HD

::kinda remembers being somewhere near the top-ten list, and thinks about doing some rapid spamming:: Hmm... ~HD

Ignoring everything except your department also helps cut down on many people's problems of knowing "too much" from around the ship. (i.e. and order is made on the bridge, and an AENG is already rerouting power to compensate for it before the CENG can get the order down to Main Engineering.) ~HD

Please note that Department heads should, unless in the case of emergency and/or importance, go through the Operations officer... and Ops will communicate with the XO. :P (Much how Data would say "Engineering reports engines are ready, sir." or something like that. Mostly the small stuff... ::shrug:: ) ~HD

I just use the composer to give me whatever type of code that is that you send to your phone, and SMS the ringtone to myself. (Costs me 10 cents per SMS, but it's better than the $3 my service provider charges to buy their ringtones.) There is always around the system. lol. BTW, I use the only service provider that works along the Western Kentucky Parkway - Bluegrass Cellular. :P ~HD

The "Dominion Timeline" is also up and running at StarTrek.com. :P ~HD

Eh, so I was wrong. Not the first time (and it won't be the last). hehe. ~HD

I use my cell phone quite a bit. A lot of times, it is to call Mom, or to call friends, etc. Cell phones are just more convenient to me (no wires, etc.). I call long distance on my cell phone (after 7:00) because it is cheaper than landline. Cell phones also have a more "personal" touch to them. Some of my friends have their phones clipped to their belts, etc., to make them look important. Mine sits in my pocket, and is rarely removed unless the ringer goes off... which is the Star Wars End Theme. :P ~HD

I'd say it was advertisements for the new Borg 4-D ride in Vegas (to go along with the other cool Trek stuff there!). They've been on TV for the past few months during both Enterprise, and all the time on SpikeTV. I've seen the advertisements several times, and it looks pretty neat. One of these days, I'll go check it out. :P ~HD

I don't see anything wrong with it in my chat window, Vex. It just doesn't like you. ^_^ ~HD

You know, you could just hit the checkbox that says "Use no avatar," but... whatever. ^_^ ~HD