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Captain’s Blog … Stardate 2011.0920

Captain’s Blog, Stardate 2011.0920…

September is shaping up to be an exciting month for the intrepid crew of the USS Loma Prieta.  In addition to expanding our usual monthly meetings to a bigger venue to accommodate our growing numbers, we’re also scheduled to conduct our most large scale Away Mission to date, and will begin our first community involvement project and hands-on training course.

Lately, the bridge of the USS Loma Prieta has felt a little cramped. But lucky for us, Ensign Andy Smith has volunteered his residence at Houseku Station for our next meeting. Equipped with a projector screen for ARTEMIS tactical simulations, a ready-room style table for staff meetings, and even a vintage Next Generation pinball machine, tomorrow’s meeting is going to take things to a whole new level.

Next up is our away mission to the Darkroom on Mission St to see the final performance of Star Trek Live: The Way to Eden. Initial scans conducted by Yeoman Cindy Bee indicate that the performance is as absurd and entertaining as it sounds. Because this away mission involves temporal displacement, the crew is under strict orders to don 23rd century (TOS) style Starfleet uniforms, and to interfere with the timeline AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!!!

Last week, several senior staff members began training with the San Francisco Fire Department in disaster response skills, with the end-goal of becoming certified NERT (Neighborhood Emergency Response Team) volunteer disaster workers. The 2nd class (of 6) is scheduled to convene Thursday (9/22) evening, and it’s not to late to join up for the remainder of the classes.

Let’s also not forget that September 30th is the three month anniversary of the launching of the USS Loma Prieta and marks us one third of the way through shakedown as a full fledged Starfleet chapter. We have a solid core group of senior staff members and some great activities under our belts; now is the time to focus on recruiting new members to Starfleet.

See you tomorrow evening at the staff meeting.  Perkins out.

~Cmdr. Zach Perkins
Commanding Officer
USS Loma Prieta
Starfleet, Region 4

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Away Team Report: (2011.0723) Apollo 11 Day – USS Hornet

Apollo 11 Day: Shelby Cobras, F-14 Tomcats, and Astronaut Ice Cream.

On Stardate 2011.0723, a small away team from the USS Loma Prieta ventured out to the USS Hornet memorial and Apollo 11 splashdown anniversary on Alameda Prime. The crew (Cmdr. Zach Perkins, Lt(jg) Tom Hesser, Lt(jg) Brian Schroeder and Yeoman Cindy Bee) boarded the Runabout Outback and headed toward the Alameda system by means of the Bay Bridge warp conduit.

While the crew fully expected to see an aircraft carrier, an Apollo command module, NASA-era space suits, and a wide variety of fighter jets and helicopters; they were surprised to be greeted on their arrival by a fleet of two dozen vintage Shelby Cobras. After spending several hours exploring the halls of the old ship, riding the ancient hydraulic aircraft lifts to the flight deck, sampling barbaric forms of cuisine (that offered no vegetarian options), the crew culminated their mission by riding in a pre-warp prototype of a shuttlecraft they Hornet docents called a “flight simulator”.

All in all, a highly successful away mission.  Perkins out.

~Cmdr. Zach Perkins
Commanding Officer
USS Loma Prieta
Starfleet, Region 4

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Engineering Report (2011.0816)

Engineering has been spending many man-hours up to their elbows in the inner workings of Artemis, which is the tactical program the USS Loma Prieta uses for combat scenarios. First, using a PC emulator called Wine, I created an Artemis app that runs on the Mac, no Windows needed. Runs pretty well except for a quirk or two. Also, our Captain discovered an awesome mod that replaces the stock ships and the previous TOS mod we used, with Movie-era ships from the Federation, Klingon, etc. At the Captain’s request, I tweaked the setting to use the Excelsior class (pictured above) instead of the default Miranda class. I’m also trying my hand at building an Ambassador class model to more accurately simulate the Loma Prieta in action.

Finally, there is a shared Dropbox folder for everyone to use for Starfleet manuals, images, etc.  Just ask me (Tom) or the Captain to add you. You’ll need a Dropbox account, which you can get for free here.  Engineering out.

 ~Lt(jg). Tom Hesser
Engineering Officer
USS Loma Prieta
Starfleet, Region 4