When I was asked to write this article about what Trek Mate means to me, I found it difficult. Not because I didn’t want to do it but because I wasn’t sure how to write what I wanted to write. I mean, how do you put into words your feelings for something as ephemeral as a podcast? I don’t know….it’s really hard to find the right words, to be honest.
So, like Maria in *The Sound of Music* says “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.”
About two years ago now, my in-laws asked my husband what to get me for Christmas and he told them I’d been wanting an MP3 player to replace the one I’d gotten a few years before with some money left to me by my grandmother. My son had gotten a hold of it and messed with some of the settings on it so I’d hidden it somewhere in the house in an attempt to keep it out of his hands. Over two years later and I STILL hadn’t found the damn thing so I figured it was time to replace it. For Christmas that year, I received a wee pink IPod Shuffle and shortly afterwards installed That Bastard Application (otherwise known as ITunes). I was looking for free stuff to download and the first thing I thought of were podcasts. The Disney podcast I had been listening to before I lost my MP3 player had gone toe- up and I decided to go looking for something new. Since I’m a fan of Star Trek, I thought, “Oh what the hell? Surely SOMEBODY must be making a Trek podcast out there…right?”. One of the first ones that popped up when I typed Star Trek into the search bar was Trek Mate. I hit ‘download’ and let ITunes do its thing.
Later on that day, I actually got around to listening to it and ended up laughing my ass off. The episode (don’t ask me which number, I’d have to go look it up) had three British guys playing some kind of drinking game with Memory Alpha which I thought was just about the funniest, geekiest thing I’d ever heard. And I loved it…the whole concept of three guys, just sitting around shooting the shit about a show t hat is probably one of the most admired shows on TV like they were in somebody’s basement just hanging out was really cool. A few weeks later, I got the courage (I’m really quite shy) to send them an email and when they read it on air, I was totally geeked. Three guys from WAY OVER THERE on the other side of the planet actually read my email…read it, liked it and commented on it. On air. It was like having a small encounter with somebody kinda sorta maybe famous. Whoa.
Not long after that I wrote my first article and became a regular contributor of emails. I started following Marc, Paul and Wayne (who I call Da Boys) on Twitter, just to see what they had to say. I found everything they did simply fascinating. I wondered at one point if I was tipping over into the weird fan/stalker category but it’s kinda hard to stalk somebody from 3,000 miles away.
I don’t remember at what point they asked me to become a member of the writing staff. I couldn’t believe it.
Growing up, I was teased for being a dork, for being geeky. It wasn’t until years later when I discovered the wide world of the internet that I found mah peeps, my fellow geeks who could spend hours dissecting and discussing that one subject closest to their hearts. With Trek Mate, I’ve found a unique community of fellow nerds with which to commune and geek out. People who are geekier than I am in some instances which I find reassuring. It means I’m finally not only NOT the weirdo of the class but am instead among a whole herd of weirdos.
So thanks guys. Thank you for everything you’ve done so far and I can’t wait to see what’s coming up next. I can’t wait for you guys to go where no podcaster has gone before. Love ya. Mean it.
