I am Steven Ireland and I live in Charleston SC. My career involves fixing microcomputers and have worked a fair amount on phone systems.
I have several hobbies at this time and am sorry to say sailing has taken a back seat to most of them. My girl friend seems to take up a lot of my time. I do squeeze in some beer brewing about every other month. Ham radio, another of my hobbies, is a mobile activity on the way to and from work. In high school I played the coronet in the school band and have recently decided to add this back to my list of hobbies.
I have re-joined the cruising club (for boaters who enjoy overnight trips) here in town and that should get me out for their once a month cruise. Generally we only go about 20 miles. We all gather for happy hour on the host's boat at 5PM and spend the night at anchor on our own boats. I have just replaced my coronet and I think it would be nice to be in a quiet marsh to play something soft and slow after dark.
The beer hobby started with a "Mr. Beer" kit and has been a great learning experience. I am experimenting with some flavors. I have been doing mostly malt extract but have done several batches of the UnAmerican recipe with the all-grain process. One all-grain was broken down to 1 gal of Blackberry, 1 gal of Lemon, and the rest as a light beer. I tried the flavors in this method because I did not want to have a full batch of these flavors and if I don't like the flavor I only have to drink 1 gal of it ;-). The flavors I used didn't lead to the best beers I've ever made.
I have had an amateur radio license off and on since '74. I carried a Tech+ license (N8SVU) from the Michigan area and have upgraded to General W4SLI in South Carolina. I have done little at this point with the short wave but hope to get the antenna tuned in and on the air soon. It has been since 75 when I last have done anything with packet (computer on radio). I have the equipment hope to get a station up again.
Some of the groups I belong to are: