"Slipped the surly bonds of earth..."

It's a sad day.

Jimmy Doohan, the actor who portrayed Scotty, the man who kept the Enterprise flying in the original Star Trek, the movies, and one of the best Next Generation episodes, died yesterday (July 20, 2005) at age 85.

I've seen Jimmy many times at Trek cons, and he was the nicest person you ever met. Several times he actually went around a PACKED auditorium and shook EVERYONE'S hand. Everyone. He was always a joy to listen to. A true gentleman. I've seen or met most of the original Trek actors (except Nimoy) and all were very nice, but he was the BEST.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. All the coverage and comments by people about him I've read the last day or so are all the same. Everyone absolutely loved him.

How fitting that he passed on the 36th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon, and the 29th of the first successful probe to land on Mars (Viking 1)

I also see today that some of his ashes are going to be launched into space, as Roddenberry's were. Personally, I think the Space Shuttle should take some up too. It's only a pity that it can't be the shuttle Enterprise (the fans goofed up there, asking NASA to call the test orbiter "Enterprise" when it was never goint to go to space.)

On a lighter note...Jimmy lived in Redmond, WA. The same city where Microsoft has it's home base.

Would that Microsoft could've hired Scotty to fix up Windows and make it work properly.

Goodbye Jimmy. Hope you're having a great time catching up with De Kelley ("Bones") somewhere in the multiverse.