I was born in Los Angeles and moved to Seattle when I was nine.

My great-grandfather on my father's side came from the Orkney Islands (I think he was born there, but I'm not sure — my sister, the genealogy buff, is working on it), went to work for the Hudson's Bay Company, and came to the San Juan Islands (disputed territory then, but Washington State now) in 1858, where he settled. My grandfather and father were born on San Juan Island. My mother's parents came from Dalarna, Sweden, and my mother (tenth of ten children) was born in Norway, Kansas (about five miles south of Scandia, Kansas).

Considering that the Vikings were using the Orkneys and Scotland as a base as early as the ninth century (and perhaps before), I probably have a lot of Scandahoovian in my genes, along with smidgen of Celt. My dad moved to Southern California for a few years, and my sisters and I were all born in Los Angeles. After bit, my father noticed that under the California sun, all the moss was falling off his north side and he decided that he needed to move back to the Pacific Northwest. We came back to Seattle when I was nine, and except for a few side-trips, I've lived here ever since. Does the fact that I was born in Los Angeles rather than here make me an artificial Seattlite?

Speaking of space travel, I presume from what you wrote, Crazy Eddie, that you are a Motie. If my presumption is correct, do you play an instrument, and if so, what? Having three arms, you ought to be pretty wild on a guitar or banjo. But with only three fingers on the gripping hand, I imagine you use a lot of open tunings. . . .

( . . . blundered into the Mote system with Janeway while she was milling around and trying to get back to the Alpha Quadrant. Of course, according to the time-line, that was about six-hundred years before you guys launched the "Crazy Eddie" probe, and Starfleet didn't know diddly-squat about Alderson Points yet.)

Earthing Shmearthling. I consider myself a citizen of the Galaxy.

Don Firth