December 24, 2362
Record masters is what he called the nickel discs he pulled out to show me. A relic of the 20th century, apparently. He said they were the template to make a record, an old analog music media. The ones he had he found up in the attic, and when he asked his mother about them, she said they'd belonged to his father and he'd left them behind when he left.
He'd figured out how to make a clear enough copy off the templates to play in a record player replica he'd found a kit to build, and was happy with the music he received. He thought I'd enjoy it too, so he pulled out the whole mess for me.
The band he played first is called Nightwish, and they were mostly around early 21st century, but they formed at the end of the 20th century. Wish I Had an Angel was the first song he played for me. It wasn't like anything I'd heard before, but I liked it. Certainly very different than the Klingon opera Mama raised me on.
While he played some more of it for me, I examined the masters. When I suggested we should show these to Kang, and see if he'd have any ideas on how to get them into a format a little more portable and up to today's standards, Travis was enthusiastic.
He had masters for some other bands too, but Nightwish was his favorite. It seems a family member got their hands on the masters when the record labels started dying out in the mid 21st century.
Some of the other bands and artists listed had names like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Thin Lizzy. There were hundreds of the things, certainly more than I would be able to reasonably list in my journal, in boxes in his bedroom, so I suggested we should start with a couple and see if my brother worked up an easy enough system to digitalize them, and then we could bring the system back to earth to do the rest later.
Today, he's playing more of the Nightwish for me, and trying to sneak a peek into my journal. He'd never really caught me writing in it before, though he admits to have seen it among my things when on the ship, so naturally he's curious. I wonder what he'd think if he saw some of the things I'd written about him when we first met.
We're being called for dinner and whatever else is done on Christmas eve. Travis did mention a present exchange, and told me he'd take care presents for his family. I decided I'd get something for him because he wouldn't be expecting it.
I had heard it was traditional to bring a bottle of wine when one is a guest of a family on earth, so I did bring a bottle of blood wine as a gift. I picked out something young and sweet, since non-Klingons seem to do better with it than the properly aged stuff.