When one's impressionable teen years are filled with Star Trek, it's hard to detach from the expectations that it raised. And when its technology has inspired [so far] two generations of geeks tinkering to get us approximating that lifestyle - why don't we take advantage of it? Jake wrote his stories on what we'd call a palm pilot. Kirk tapped a button on the bottom of the report which Yeoman Rand handed him daily - electronic signature.

Substitution of paper with electronic gadgetry? Sure! Save the trees, especially the one I bought in Temagami! But it wasn't until I drove out west to live that it really hit me.

Weaving back and forth across the Canada-US border exposed to me the ongoing mystery of our peaceful coexistence laced with acidic distaste for each other's foibles. But one thing we have in common is a love of trees - whether using, abusing or musing.

Passing through Vancouver [with a wave to my brother] I took a boat to my Avalon. That first week I drove all over - and gasped in alternating dismay and delight. After one particularly spastic dream I wrote DreamTree to struggle with what I was seeing and for the first time, comprehending.

But writing wasn't enough. Once settled in Victoria, I walked in the front door of the Sierra Club and offered my services as office assistant. With them I saw and heard how scientists and lobbyists and politicians line up on both sides of each ecological issue and prove their position with what seem unbeatable statistics. Prince Philip and Robert Bateman contributed their status and skill to "our side" during my tenure. But I could see how complicated each issue was, and how people of good intent were battling hard across the drawn lines.

To clear my head, each weekend I went hiking, and saw in East Sooke Park ...

Avalon is now far behind me, but not my concern. While living in China, I would put out my garbage, then watch fascinated as it was visited four times within an hour by hopefuls looking for glass, cardboard, rags - anything that they could take down to the market at the bottom of our mountain and sell [which of course is why I left it in the garbage and didn't take it down myself]. Nothing was wasted.

We each can share that attitude, as we communicate through cyberspace with the same ease Star Fleet Admirals issued orders and Star Fleet captains ignored them. On this Web site, we are using cyberspace to make real the vision Gene Roddenberry tossed us.

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