The Naked Silo

A BOX FULL OF INSIDE JOKES Growing up as first-generation Canadians with a Macedonian heritage meant my cousins, my sister, and I swam in both cultures, and this was most apparent when it came to the respective languages, English and Macedonian. There were many words, phrases, and expressions that were hilarious to us kids when we playfully translated back and forth between them. The greatest, most perfect example of this is the phrase "igrate majtap" (pronounced "EE'grahteh MYE'tap"), which translates as "making fun of" or "taking the piss," but literally means "playing...majtap" (we didn't know that "majtap" simply meant "joke," and it didn't matter, because we correctly inferred it was some kind of mockery we were "playing at"). At our many family gatherings during the 1970s and '80s, whenever an adult would overhear us laughing and mixing the languages, they would assume

The U.S.S. Excelsior was first introduced in 1984's Star Trek III , but, although it appeared again in re-used footage in 1986's Star Trek IV , then again (with fresh, new, exciting footage) in 1991's Star Trek VI , and numerous appearances in Star Trek: TNG as various other ships, a model kit wasn't made available until 1994, the same year a re-dressed and slightly-tweaked version of the Excelsior appeared in Star Trek Generations as the Enterprise-B . I'd already built the refit Enterprise 1701-A  in 1992, and had possibly built the U.S.S. Reliant maybe a year or so afterward...or maybe I built the Enterprise-D next (I can't remember the order or vintage of my builds of the Trek starships), but I certainly built my A-Wing fighter in 1993, so this may have been the second-last model I built in the '90s (the last being the U.S.S. Voyager in 1995 (or '96)...and my last model of the '90s  would have been the U.S.S. Defiant , but, beli

This is the hub for the first 10 of my Shipyard projects which are (mostly) sci-fi related (including "retro" posts featuring scale models I built in the 1990s –way before the SPS ever existed). Projects are in chronological order, and new ones will be added as they're completed. My next 10 sci-fi projects can be found in PART TWO . To read about the origin of the Small Pond Shipyard click the SPS logo at the bottom of this post. My  automotive scale models  have their own hub, as do my architectural scale models . Click on the various images to see the build log for that project: My next 10 sci-fi projects can be found in PART TWO .

I like Sisko a lot (after Jum Kirk, he's my favourite captain) and figure he wouldn't put up with the whole Casual Fridays bullshit; I think Dax would play along, but defer to Sisko's decision; Bashir would probably love it; and O'Brien, Kira, and Odo would most likely stick to their uniforms, making it a moot point (for the main crew in Ops, anyway). But I bet Garak would love to make them all some lovely party shirts. See how this whole thing started HERE .