Click on the Cartoon at right for a picture

Hi. This is the web page of Tom Condon, a native of the Puget Sound region. Born in Swedish Hospital in Seattle, raised in Beacon Hill & Mt. Baker neighborhoods of Seattle, then moved to Eastage (a small non-Bellevue area of Bellevue) before I started school. Without changing bedrooms, or even beds I went to seven different grade schools as the Bellevue School System grew with the area's growth. I attended Tyee Jr. High, Newport High, Bellevue Community College and the University of Washington.

I have been a boater all my life, a sailor most of it, a rower in college, a singer, bicyclist, hunter, fisher, RC model flier, wargamer, and too many more things to mention. I've been happily married for over 38 years (as I write this) and I expect that to continue as long as we both live.

When I worked I was a software designer. My jobs included real time simulation of the Space Shuttle and 747 in Mated flight and during separation, typesetting adjuncts, telephonics, game design, game design station design, FAA certified flight boxes for commercial aircraft and a bunch of things to make our naval heroes safer. These days I upkeep web pages for several small organizations.

Almost all of my singing has been barbershop harmony (more than 30 years of that) in either the Kitsap Chordsmen (or Chorus of the Olympics as it was originally named) or with the Northwest Sound. But I've also sung in quartets. The first of any note was Olympic Blend, back in the mid-80s, a couple in the early 90s that didn't stick around long enough to have a name, a mixed voice quartet called Three Beauxs and a Peep, Agate Passage (2nd revision), Smooooth, and now with Agate Passage the third revision.

Janet & I own and sail an S2 9.2C (made by the S2 company, in Michigan, 9.2 meters long with a center cockpit). We lived aboard Bombadil for six years. I have not had great success racing Bombadil, but Janet won the Lady's Day race twice. Someday we plan to cruise the South Pacific. I may be the only man ever to have backed a sailboat around a buoy during a race while under spinnaker power! I served as Commodore of the Eagle Harbor Yacht Club, and Janet served as Chairperson of the Great Cross Sound Rowing Race.

Janet & I have taken up riding a tandem bicycle.

When all these other hobbies and duties allow time I like to fly radio control airplanes. Someday I'll post pictures of them here, but I stick to electrics (much cleaner) and gliders.

I have been an avid wargamer, and was part of the group who started a major convention in Seattle called Dragonflight. I still enjoy a good game now and then, although time restrictions have prevented heavy involvement in gaming since I took up singing. Now that I'm retired that is changing.

I am a voracious reader. I collect Science Fiction & Fantasy books. Janet & I have both taken up reading Mysteries, as well.

I love puns (a family trait), and am one of the founders of the BURPS (Barbershoppers Urging Repeated Puns as a Sidegroup) discussion group that spun off from the Harmonet.

I've become a fan of Linux (registered user #154358) as a computer OS. When NT crashed (don't you love the blue screen of death) too often I switched to Linux (RedHat 5.x) and have gradually moved all of my non-Mac computers to Linux in one form or another. My current favorite distribution is Gentoo, but I'm looking at Ubuntu seriously. I've installed RedHat, SUSE, Caldera, Linux-From-Scratch, Gentoo, and Yellow Dog (Mac).

Oh, yes, and I love good beer and Irish Whiskey, but not together! So I brew my own beer these days.

• Philosopy - A series of philosophical monograms
• No Spring Chicken Letters - A series of letters on medical trials and aging (humorous)