Everything on this page is just a temporary some of these subjects will eventually get their own page.
Outside of work, my volunteer coaching for the Redwing Vaulters of Redmond, WA is my biggest activity.
Check out my Vaulting page.
| When I lived in Virginia and Maryland would often trek to Laurel, MD and
spend time with my very good friends Josh and Jen. I know Josh and Jen from my days at Virginia Tech. Josh and I were roommates in the dorms. After
Josh graduated I took over his lease in an off campus apartment, shared with Jen [and
Peter]. Jen and Josh still share a house in Laurel (where I lived from December 1999 until
October 2000). More recently I like to spend evenings and weekends with various friends in and around Seattle, WA. While visiting my friends we often engage in the other things I like to do such as mountain bike riding, playing ultimate Frisbee, home repair and improvements talking about computers, and just hanging around. Not to mention playing with the cats, Soot n' Smoke.
Back when I lived in Richmond I traveled up to Laurel , usually by Amtrak, about every second or third weekend. |
 My friends Josh & Jen. |
I started playing Ultimate my third year at Virginia Tech. I played there for several years and continue to enjoy the game. When I'm in MD, I try to make it back to a pick-up game I attended intermittently for many years in Greenbelt, MD. Tom Jones maintains a web page for that game (click here). They play a rather laid back game every Sunday afternoon.
I consider my self an urban mountain biker. I prefer traffic lanes to the side walk and enjoy stairs. I have a 21 speed Raleigh mountain bike that I bought when I first moved to Richmond. I hope to do a fair amount of riding the trails in and around Seattle in the years to come.
When I lived in Richmond I liked to ride around downtown and along the James River. I also liked riding in some of the sections of Richmond that were beginning to redevelop (Jackson Ward & Shockoe Bottom). These are/were poor neighborhoods but safe and full of interesting reconstruction era architecture.
I have two bags that mount on the rack on the back of my bike that I use to transport
large loads. I've found the I can usually find a secure parking spot just about any where
you'd want to park your car. I also had a pass so I can take my bike on the Metro, and have even taken my bike on Montgomery County
MD's 
Busses.
 |
I've taken several dozen interesting photo in and around Richmond and Washington, DC.
I also have numerous snapshots of family and friends. I've put some of these photos here
on my web site. I'm also very interested in digital photography and digital videography. Visit my Photo Gallery |
I have a Technician Class Amateur Radio license. My call sign is KE4HET. I have two rigs. The first is a Icom 2AT, hand held 2m transceiver. The second is a credit card sized dual transceiver (2m & 440mhz). A few years ago I built my first transmitter (a wireless mike kit from Radio Shack).
I own an HP Pavilion 8380, a Toshiba Satellite 220 CDS, a Gateway 2000 P5-90 and a 386dx 25. Several of these have been set up on various house networks that I built. I run a mixture of various flavors of Windows and have been experimenting with Red Hat Linux. Lately I've been ignoring my web pages.
Over the years I have run a very small software company, Soot 'n Smoke Software. In 2000 and 2001, I tried to turn this business into an independent technology consulting firm, but this was less successful then I had hoped. [It didn't help the the tech sector of the economy tanked about the same time.]
Back in elementary school I got into building and launching rockets. A gravel pit near my parents cabin made for a good launch site. Over a period of about five years I built many rockets and and had much fun.
 July 4, 1997 |
As a college student with ready access to my Grandparents pasture for launching I
briefly got back into rocketry. In the spring of 1997 I found out that an annual Fourth of July that I attend was loosing one of it's most popular attractions (the firing of a WW I howitzer). As the party is held out on a friend's farm, I offered to build and shoot off some rockets come the Fourth. I build several rockets and launched them until I had lost, or broken every one. It was much fun and thoroughly enjoyed by all. Furthermore I was invited back for next year. I'm looking forward to many more years of rocket shooting and hope to combining model rocketry with amateur radio for some interesting telemetry and/or direction finding fun. |
As a person who started out in model rocketry in their 'younger' days, dropped out of the hobby for some number of years, and then came to their senses and got back into it, I am a Born Again Rocketeer.
Check out my idea for a Model Rocket Sea Launcher.
Over the Forth of July weekend, 1996, Jen and I put a new vinyl floor in Josh's kitchen. We used an instillation kit from Armstrong to help plan and layout the new floor. It took many hours of hard work, but it looks very good. The floor was a good long weekend project. It was a lot of fun and relatively easy. Highly recommended if you need a new kitchen floor.
Over the following visits I have helped Jen continue refinishing the kitchen. Things like cleaning and painting the walls. During the following years I helped Josh and Jen with numerous repairs and improvements to their home.
| Back in 1998 I wired category 5 cable all over the Magic Roundabout [a house in Berwyn Heights, MD that I shared with several friends]. I had a Shiva Access Port ISDN router that together with an Ethernet hub provided high speed Internet access for all the computers in the house. |  |
I have also helped several friends install home LANs and various broadband internet connection. Big bits is very nice!
Someday I plan work with my brother to convert the upstairs area of my parent's cabin into two bedrooms and a bath. It is currently one big room.
My big dream is to design and build a house to share with a group of close friends. The house might have three or four large bedroom suites and a few smaller bedrooms. Common areas will include a big kitchen, living room, entertainment room, exercise room, office/computer area, foyer, three car garage, mud room, and more.
More recently my efforts and tools have been focused on helping our at Faith Farm, home of the Redwing Vaulters [the team I help coach].
I may add some of them to this list some day.
Back to Tom's Home Page.
Copyright by Tom Sayles, All rights reserved.
Last revised: Sunday November 24, 2002
