This isn’t really something I ever planned on adding to the site, but we’ve been receiving so many emails lately from people who wanted to express their thanks to Gary for all his work in support of our troops and veterans, I thought we might give it a try.

We’re going to experiment with a guestbook at which visitors can leave publically-viewable messages. These can either be general ones about the site (hey, we always love hearing that you love visiting), about Gary’s work or talent, or even a message to Gary. Maybe a birthday greeting! (It’s coming up on March 17.)

We can’t promise he will read each message, but we will make sure he knows the guestbook is there.  I can pretty much guarantee there won’t be personal responses, so it’s not a place for questions or anything that requires any kind of response.

Needless to say, the guestbook will be monitored, and anything inflammatory or inappropriate will be deleted. It’s not a place to get into political discussions. Gary’s work for the USO and veterans is a fair topic — the war itself is not. Let’s also try to keep things in relatively good taste — yes, many of us think he’s very nice to look at, but let’s keep it to things you wouldn’t mind his wife and kids reading, okay?

Anyway, we’ll give this a try — if it seems to be of interest, I’ll add button links later on. If you have thoughts, feel free to share them in the comments or in the guestbook itself.

• The Fort Leavenworth Lamp has an article about Gary’s recent visit and his work with Operation Iraqi Children.
• The USO reports that Gary will be in Hawaii this weekend with the LDB.
• Our co-obsessives friends over at the livejournal community sinise_daily have scans of the recent interview Gary did for Guideposts magazine. (If you have a livejournal, this is a terrific community to watch or join!)

Good grief… I go away for a few days and teh Internets (which is made of a series of tubes, you know) get all crazy with rumors about casting for Star Trek XI — which may be a Starfleet Academy story or “first adventure” story — or may not. We do know that it will be directed by JJ Abrams of Lost and Alias, and the studio apparently wants Matt Damon, Adrien Brody, Gary and James McAvoy as Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty, respectively.

IGN broke the story (such as it is) here and has more here, and you can read various rehashes about it here, here, and here.

A couple of notes of caution are in order — as IGN points out, Gary has a relatively small time window to do a film during his CSI:NY hiatus, and he already has other plans for that hiatus, including a USO tour. On the other hand, Star Trek and CSI are corporate siblings, of a sort, so maybe something can be worked out. Anyway, when we hear, we’ll pass it on!