Convention Fans:
Meeting Star Trek: Voyager's Garrett Wang

I consider myself lucky that my parents are both Trekkies, and that they indulged and supported my love of the franchise early on. When I was young, they actually drove me to geeky events, comic book stores, and even Star Trek conventions. I remember very distinctly that my mother took me to my very first "convention" experience in 1998, which was an event called Star Trek Day at Kennedy Space Center. It was the first time I'd ever get to meet an actor from the shows. One of the guests that attended was Garrett Wang, who played Ensign Harry Kim of Star Trek: Voyager.

All of the guest events for Star Trek Day were held in the Kennedy Space Center’s The Apollo-Saturn V Center, which houses an actual Saturn 5 rocket. Needless to say, it is downright humongous. The staff had set up a small stage area, and a large queue line, along with several rows of chairs. I remember that Garrett’s autograph line stretched the length of the building. I found out after I left that he stayed until everyone who had wanted an autograph, got one. I recall that he was really nice, and signed an autograph and took a picture with me. I was positively ecstatic, and decided I was going to attend every convention I could possibly get to from then on out. I had been bitten by the convention bug.

As luck would have it, that day in 1998 wouldn't be the last time I'd get to chat with Garrett. I attended the Chiller Theatre Expo last year, which had Garrett Wang as a guest. (In another weird twist of luck, it also had Rene Auberjonois and Walter Koenig in attendance - both of whom were with Garrett at that very same Star Trek Day event more than 10 years ago. Weird huh?).

I decided to go up to Garrett and get a picture with him, and just say "Hi", even though I had already met him before in my youth. Why not, right? I had recently enjoyed watching videos of his Q&A sessions from other conventions on YouTube, and knew he was great to talk to. When I introduced myself, I mentioned that I had met him before at the Kennedy Space Center event, and he laughed. “How old were you?!” he asked. Yeah, I was still in middle school back then.