Every couple of years I take a trip to Las Vegas with friends of mine for one reason or another. Most of the time I go down there for either a football game or basketball tournament involving my beloved BYU Cougars. No matter why I'm going to Vegas though, I always end up spending many hours at Star Trek: The Experience. For those of you who like Star Trek, this is an experience that should not be missed. If you're in Vegas, and don't go there, you'll kick yourself upon hearing what you missed out on. And if you don't like Star Trek, you'll still get a kick out of this story.

One of the inside jokes on Star Trek is that the futuristic computers that the characters were always using actually had inside jokes as the text on the screens. It's so small that you can't read what it says while watching on TV. One of the things that Paramount has done at Star Trek: The Experience is painstakingly recreate the sets from The Next Generation and Voyager. It's quite a site to behold. While I was on Borg Invasion 4-D, the ride had some techincal difficulties and had to be shut down. The employees took us back to the staging area and then told us that we could take pictures, which is usually forbidden in that part of the Experience. While waiting, one of the employees began to show us the initials on the computer panels and how they belonged to assorted actors from Star Trek.

People unaware of that little factoid chuckled, and then he told us this interesting little tidbit. Somewhere on the bridge of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D, the computer techno-jargon actually reads, "May the Force be with you." At that moment I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if thousands of Star Wars hating Trekkies cried out in pain and then went silent. Star Wars is forever.