Happy Birthday, Leonard!

It would be highly illogical if The Blog  did not acknowledge the fact that today is Leonard Nimoy's 83rd birthday.

The Blog is a recovering Trekkie.

Oh, who am I kidding?

I am a Trekkie. There is no recovering.

I didn't warm to all of the various iterations.

"Deep Space 9" and "Voyager" never really grabbed me.

The movies were hit or miss.

"Next Generation" took a while, but grew on me.

But, oh that original series.

And, truth be told, during the first installment of the J.J. Abrams reboot, your Blog wept, openly, when "old Spock" came face-to-face with "young Spock."

In The PC's 31 years in Hollywood, I have had two Nimoy encounters.

The first was in 1983. It was a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the release of "King Kong" at H'wood's Chinese Theater.

The young Blog was one of the many fans on the wrong side of the ropes at the red carpet.

This was, actually, one of my first, classically Hollywood experiences.

Celebs were present as if it had been Oscar™ night. They paraded by, waving while we snapped pictures.

A frail Fay Wray, allowed me to, fleetingly, squeeze her hand.

Leonard's best friend and "Star Trek" costar, William Shatner, ignored us all. (Which, these days, we all understand is just "The Shat" being, well, shatty.)

Shortly after, Leonard, the Yin to Shatner's Yang, shook my hand, warmly, and allowed a moment for a photo op.

Fast forward to the year 2000.

Your Blog was working on the set of a comedy/action series that occupied several years of The Blog's life and career. (And, got Your PC's one and only, [so far] Emmy™ nomination.)

Leonard's son, Adam Nimoy, was directing the episode.

I was standing in the dark, just off camera, as I was want to do.

Have you ever experienced a moment when you are aware that someone is standing next to you? You don't know who or why. You are just aware of a presence?

That is what I experienced at that moment.

So, I turned to look, to see who was standing next to me.

There he was, Adam's dad, Mr. Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy, dropping by to watch his son work.

I reacted as any Trekkie would...

I, audibly, gasped.

Which was bad enough, but I made it worse.

I tried to stifle the gasp by clamping my hand over my mouth.

Because, WOW, could I have embarrassed myself even more?That is when Leonard responded to my embarrassment in the most awesome way possible.

He grinned a not at all Spock-like grin, and ...

Threw me a "Live long and prosper."

I reacted in the only way I could think of...

I tossed the "LLaP" sign back, with both hands.

"Ah!," he whispered, because we were shooting sound, "I see that you are bilingual! Most excellent!"

So, Happy 83rd birthday, Leonard Nimoy. You have lived long and prospered. Here is hoping that you live longer and prosper more.

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And, now for something completely different...

Tonight marks the series finalé of one of The Blog's favorite shows.

The Blog bids a fond farewell to Shawn and Gus and the rest of the gang.

Happy trails, and all that.

But...

Is this really "goodbye?"

Maybe not.

"Have you heard about Pluto? That's messed up!"

"Awwwww Yeahhhhhh."