{"id":278,"date":"2008-07-06T14:13:48","date_gmt":"2008-07-06T19:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/?page_id=278"},"modified":"2008-07-06T14:13:48","modified_gmt":"2008-07-06T19:13:48","slug":"about-me","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/?page_id=278","title":{"rendered":"About Me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most of the people who visit <strong>Rock Ends<\/strong> know me already, either IRL or online. But, just in case someone wanders across this page I decided a little personal info might be in order. I&#8217;ll start with the statistics.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Name<\/em>: <strong>Tom Hise<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>Age<\/em>: Born in <strong>1943<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>Location<\/em>: Near <strong>Shellsburg, Iowa<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>Education<\/em>: <strong>BSEE University of Michigan<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>Occupation<\/em>: Retired<\/li>\n<li><em>Occupation History<\/em>: Started in 1966 working at <strong>Collins Radio <\/strong>Co. which later became a division of <strong>Rockwell International<\/strong>. There I did both hardware and software design in the areas of automatic test equipment, TACAN navigation equipment, GPS user equipment, General Aviation cockpit displays and a number of other projects.<\/li>\n<li>Married to wife Jan since 1974<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now that I&#8217;m retired I have a lot of time to indulge in my numerous interests:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ham radio<\/strong> (call sign NC\u00d8O) I was first licensed in 1957 but was inactive due to college and work. In 1983 I got re-interested and received my current call sign. I mostly operate on CW (Morse code) and chase DX (foreign stations). At last count I&#8217;ve communicated with over 330 different countries* and also the <a title=\"Mir Space Station\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mir_space_station\" target=\"_blank\">MIR Space Station.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>* In Ham radio &#8220;country&#8221; has a <\/em><em>meaning <\/em><em>different from standard usage. For example, Hawaii is considered a separate country due to its distance from the mainland USA.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amateur Astronomy <\/strong>Last year I just installed a new observatory dome for my telescope. Weather and some mechanical problems have kept me from using it as much as I would like but that should change over the summer months.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Photography <\/strong>I&#8217;ve always played with photography but when digital cameras came along I really got into it. I&#8217;m no expert, just a guy who likes to take pictures and show some of them on my web site.<br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Travel <\/strong>This is as much Jan&#8217;s interest as mine. Since we first married we have traveled quite a bit. First on backpacking and skiing vacations, later car tours in our 1991 Mazda <a title=\"Miata\" href=\"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/Miata.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Miata<\/a>, and now getting into foreign travel.<br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Collecting weird music<\/strong> What can I say, <strong>Dr. Demento<\/strong> is my hero.<br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Computing\/Internet <\/strong>I&#8217;ve been interested in computers since my college days (Fortran, punched cards and printed I\/O). In the late 60&#8217;s I began programing special purposed computers used for controlling automatic test equipment and discovered what fun that could be. With the development of the microprocessor I realized I could actually have my own computer. Using a sample 8080 chip, in 1975\/76, I built PC boards and created my own computer. It had 12k of memory, ran at 2 MHz, and used audio cassettes for mass storage. I had to write my own operating system, word processor and a specialized data-base for cataloging my Science Fiction books.<\/p>\n<p>Later I moved up to a homebuilt Z-80 based <strong>S-100<\/strong> bus system running CP\/M with two 8&#8243; floppy drives. Eventually we purchased one of the first IBM PCs running DOS. Now I have four Windows machines, another running Linux and several hand-held gadgets that are all more powerful than my first 8080 machine.<\/p>\n<p>I got online in 1992 (I think) on the <a title=\"Prodigy\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prodigy_(ISP)\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Prodigy <\/em><\/a>service. I stayed there until they shut down and then moved over to the <a title=\"GEnie\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/GEnie\" target=\"_blank\"><em>GEnie <\/em><\/a>service. It wasn&#8217;t long after when this &#8220;Internet&#8221; stuff started being the rage and I signed up for a dial-up account with a real ISP.<br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Science Fiction<\/strong> Since I was a kid I&#8217;ve loved Science Fiction and in the mid-60&#8217;s I discovered Fantasy (through the <em>Lord of the Rings<\/em> trilogy). I began attending SF conventions in the 70&#8217;s and have been doing that ever since. Jan and I attend at least 3 conventions a year, usually <a title=\"Conestoga\" href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.sftulsa.org\/conestoga\/\" target=\"_blank\">Conestoga<\/a>, <a title=\"ConQuest\" href=\"http:\/\/www.kcsciencefiction.org\/conquest\/conquest.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Conquest <\/a>and <a title=\"Icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.iowa-icon.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Icon<\/a>. When we can we also go to the annual <a title=\"Worldcon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcon.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">WorldCon <\/a>or <a title=\"NASFIC\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/North_American_Science_Fiction_Convention\" target=\"_blank\">NASFIC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most of the people who visit Rock Ends know me already, either IRL or online. But, just in case someone wanders across this page I decided a little personal info might be in order. I&#8217;ll start with the statistics. Name: Tom Hise Age: Born in 1943 Location: Near Shellsburg, Iowa Education: BSEE University of Michigan [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-278","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}