Sir Thomas was learning quickly how to hack and crack. He figured out how to get into the school computer systems and was able to change his absences when he skipped school. Most of his classmates thought he was “square” and “very straight”, so he wasn’t invited to many parties. He could never figure out why. But he was out with the girls and often heading hanging out at the bowling alley. He was learning silversmithing from a local rock shop. He learned quickly how to use Usenet and Computer BBS systems where he started to chat and interact with people around the world. It gave his “80’s” experience a whole different dimension as he was exploring what would soon become The Internet. Of course, most of it was “Basic” text programming based and very difficult to navigate through, so communications with others was short and brief. Dialup connectivity was extremely slow and took hours sometimes for interchanges which tied Sir Thomas to a box for long periods of time. Monster movies in the background, odd chemistry experiments off to the side, rocks and gemstones to toy with, and a girlfriend, Sir Thomas was quite a busy boy. But he did start his first newsletter, Rocket News, where he wrote his own articles about rocks, gems, model rockets, and computers. This he published on his Commodore 64.