Bad News

Yesterday I found out (along with everyone else in Alberta) that my employer (well, one of them), Lieutenant Governor Lois Hole, has abdominal cancer. She seemed hale and hearty when I saw her just a couple of days ago, so the news is pretty shocking. Beyond her value as a human being, I find myself distressed because she's one of the few voices that consistently speaks out for progressive values in this most right-wing of Canadian provinces. I hope that her treatments go well and that she's back on the job soon.

In lighter news, I finally finished watching the last of my Star Trek: The Next Generation DVDs tonight, just in the nick of time; the first season of Deep Space Nine will be released on Tuesday. It was a strange experience, going through all 179 episodes again, squeezing seven years into one, each episode bringing back memories of where I first watched it. When the show premiered in September of 1987, I was just starting university, and I wound up watching the episode over at Jeff Crozier's place in Beaumont. Jeff worked with me on the high school newspaper back at Leduc Composite High School; in fact, I just remembered that he took over as editor after I graduated. There were other people there, too, other newspaper staffers, a couple of girls whose names I can't for the life of me recall. I think that was probably the last time I saw Jeff.

I remember watching "Best of Both Worlds" in the lounge of Main Kelsey, the floor I lived on at Lister Hall. It was the end of my third year, May of 1990, and the episode ended with that great cliffhanger: Captain Picard has been transformed into Locutus, and Commander Riker gives the order to fire on the Borg ship, which will surely kill Picard. Fade to black...and everyone in the lounge screamed, "ARGH!" Because, of course, we'd have to wait until September for the conclusion. And so we spent our summers recovering from the school year, taking low-paying jobs to pay for next semester's tuition, and we gathered again in the lounge when Part II finally aired.

The Next Generation went on for three years after I left the U of A, and the last season, the seventh, aired while I lived at the Bleak House of Blahs. Hmmm...the circle is complete. Until tomorrow...