A Brief Introduction to Tom

Followers of my other blogs may have a good idea about me. For everyone else, here's a bit of an introduction. I'm tempted to tell you all about myself, but I think I'll settle for giving you a few personal details now, and my posts can fill in the rest.

I'm in my early thirties. I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, and I've also lived in California, Virginia, the United Kingdom, and the Persian Gulf.

I'm a security professional by trade and training, and a historian and strategist by education. I speak excellent English, adequate Arabic, and I've forgotten most of the French and German I learned in school.

I love America. Lots of people travel the world and decide that America isn't that great; I've travelled the world and decided that America is even more amazing than I'd originally believed.

Like C.S. Lewis, I consider myself "a very ordinary layman of The Church of England".

I harbor unhealthy obsessions with Orkney, Oman, and Wyoming.

I own a first generation Kindle Fire that I'm trying to turn into my own personal Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I've had a workout plan I've intended to pursue for years, and I hope that a more routine lifestyle will allow me to exercise more regularly. That would also facilitate my goal of getting Accelerated Freefall certified.

I love to read. I don't do near as much of it as I'd like, but I have a reading list, and a massive list of books that I own (many of which I need to unload, but that's another story). Among other things, I enjoy reading ancient literature, and I love reading stuff that's in the public domain that I can get for free on the Internet.

Sometimes, I wonder if I should have been a cartographer. I fell in love with maps and geography when I was a kid. Now that I'm older, I've supplemented that fascination with a couple of GPS handsets and a wealth of online resources.

Over the last couple of years, I haven't had occasion to do much cooking; even so, I've amassed a variety of recipes from one source or another, and I occasionally enjoy cooking.

I love radio. Specifically, I love shortwave radio. The state of technology being what it is today, that means that I also love podcasts.

I'm interested in shipping container housing, and I've done preliminary work to design my shipping container dream house.

If any of that interests you, you'll probably enjoy what's yet to come.