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What have I done with my spare time?

SPORTS

I've always enjoyed competition and so for several years I played softball and tennis. I enjoyed various leagues in both sports and enjoyed the competition with some measure of success. I remember hitting two home runs in a game at the end of one season. They were the first softball home runs I had hit. The next season, I hit a home run in my first at bat and thought, "Man this is easy!" I had just hit 3 home runs in my last four or five at bats. I went the rest of the season without hitting another home run!

Since I had played one year of college tennis, I kept that up, playing in city leagues and neighborhood leagues. I have a few little trophies to prove it. When we had children, these games become tougher to join in and eventually I quit playing them in organized leagues. But I would often play with my friend Mark Falkenberg until he moved away from Austin. Who knows - I may return to tennis sometime if I can find a partner of equal ability.

My favorite sport however has been basketball. I played wherever I could find a game - the downtown Austin YMCA at lunchtime, the concrete courts in our neighborhood on Saturday mornings, a couple of rec centers. The best times however were the Sunday evening games at O Henry Middle School where my daughters attended. I played there for several years until age 50 when I felt I just wasn't competing well enough against those 25 year olds.

Now, I've settled into jogging and walking. Last year I competed in several races. It helps to be in the fifty year old age group. Some races include:

MUSIC

I discovered during High School that I had an ear for music and, especially, songwriting. How I discovered this talent is interesting. When I was 11 or 12, I was at a toy store and became fascinated by one of those little plastic guitars. I thought it was really cool how would could twist the tuning key to change the sound on the string. (Try it some time, it's fun!) So I asked the the toy guitar for Christmas. My parents, thinking I was a little old for that, bought me a real acoustic guitar that my Dad found in Mexico. I learned a little bit but basically languished until our cousin from Sweden, Stig, visited.  He taught me a few chords and got me really going.

That acoustic guitar fell off a shelf and was shattered but my that time, my brother Jim was also interested. I bought myself a "cool" turquoise electric guitar from Sears and Jim bought an even nicer electric guitar with an amplifier second-hand. I remember when we started a garage band with two twin brothers who lived in our neighborhood (Thunderbird Hills) in San Antonio. We would get together and bang on the electric guitars. "House of the Rising Sun", "Gloria", and a few other classics.

I was more interested in acoustic guitar however, and soon bought what I thought was the prettiest, most sweetest sounding guitar around. It was black with a light colored soundboard. My senior year of high school, I discovered that I could put together chords and words and make up a song. I sang an original song to my English class as part of a project. I don't think it was very good but I had done it on my own.

I discovered something else during my senior year of high school. While spending time at my friend jack Evans' house, I found a book they had for an organ which converted guitar chords to keyboard chords. From this, I was soon playing a little piano by ear.

In college, I did a lot of guitar and piano playing in my spare time. I kept writing songs as well and performed some here and there. Once we moved to Austin and joined Abiding Love Lutheran Church, I found that people enjoyed my songs. using MIDI, I home-produced two CDs "Homegrown Band" and "Friendship Train." I also performed a concert at our church and had a lot of fun with that. In 2003, I sold my song "Jesus, My Shepherd" 
to Concordia Publishing House and it was part of their 2003 Vacation Bible School package. I am now working with friends on producing a 3rd CD so we'll see how that goes.

Click here to go to Tom's music site

TRAVELS

I like to keep track of my travels and hope to someday visit all 50 states. I got 3 states left: Hawaii, South Carolina, South Dakota. I've been to baseball games at Wrigley Field, old Ranger stadium, new Ranger Ameriquest Field, the Astrodome, and Houston's new Minute Maid Park. I played golf in Plymouth England and then went to a local tavern.

We've vacationed in Colorado, New Mexico, Arkansas, New England, Washington DC, Salt Lake City, Spokane, Florida, Oklahoma, Europe, Oregon, California and, of course, Texas.

We've been to Yosemite NP, Rocky Mountain NP, Gettysburg, the Smithsonian, Cape Cod, Salzburg, London, Paris and more.

I like to take great pains in planning vacations in hopes that everyone will be engaged and have a good time. The planning is often as fun as the going!

WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT

I enjoy developing websites and do this at work quite a bit. Some of the websites are listed below. My favorite (an most time consuming) is the Lady Maroons web site for my daughter Rachel basketball team (3 years running at this time).

www.ladymaroons.com
www.friendshiptrain.com
www.hokanson.name
www.jacksonabstract.com