CURRENT MISSION

Trying to make the world a better place for my generation and the ones that follow. This includes fighting Climate Change and also playing Rock n Roll music from the last 5 decades.

ABOUT ME

I love to hang out with friends and/or family of all ages, talking about politics, science, social change, spirituality, our various travel, funny stories and life stories, literature, or whatever, and maybe having a beer or glass of wine and snacks to enjoy together.

For fun, I've always enjoyed two main hobbies: skiing, and playing music. We are really lucky to share with my siblings a cabin on Forest Service land at Echo Lake in the Sierra Nevada at about 7,400 feet of elevation. I spent my summers there growing up, and learned to love hiking, skiing, swimming in mountain lakes and streams, and sailing.

I picked up singing harmonies and playing folk guitar around summer campfires from my parents and our cabin neighbors next door. For the last 12 years I've been part of a band. We focus on covers of mostly '60s, '70s, and '80s music with strong harmonies, like Crosby Stills & Nash, the Byrds, Beatles, Gin Blossoms, the Band, and so on. We also do some original songs, and even some covers of music from the 21st century.

My work has been in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and now in implementing California's legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate Climate Change due to humans burning fossil fuels.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

My wife Kate Markey manages most of our couchsurfing. We've really enjoyed hosting people, including students visiting UC Davis. We've couchsurfed in Boston, Oregon, and will soon in Paplanta, Estado de Veracruz, Mexico. We like to travel and plan on doing more travel within the USA, Latin America, Europe and Asia now that we are both retired.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

No previous experience with "Couchsurfing" using the internet, but I did a lot of hitchhiking and wound up staying with new-found friends various times in my earlier traveling days back in the 1960s and '70s.

One of the best was my first trip to Mexico when I was 18. I took the train to Guadalajara and Tepic, and then a bus headed for Puerto Vallarta. I met a friendly family and I told them I was planning to camp out on the beach. They told me that could be dicey, and invited me to stay. For a night or two a slept on the roof under the sky with the other young men of an extended family. Then the rains came - I ended up sleeping in the tiny barn on some planks set over sawhorses. We had to shorten the goats tether so he couldn't charge and butt at me while I was sleeping!

Interests

Music of all kinds - I play guitar and sing with a band and I'm relearning guitarron and starting a mariachi band. I love getting into the wilderness for hiking, mountaineering, swimming in mountain lakes. I've been interested and active in progressive politics. My work has been about what we can do reduce the probably disastrous consequences of climate change caused by burning fossil fuels, and I'm interested in other issues of sustainability as well.

• literature
• singing
• wine
• beer
• politics
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• hiking
• camping
• mountaineering
• sailing
• skiing
• swimming
• science
• hitchhiking
• beaches
• lakes

Music, Movies, and Books

Joni Mitchell, Los Van Van, the Byrds, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Jackie Greene. Rolling Stones, Old Crow Medicine Show.

Books: Cryptonomogram, The Sheep Look Up, Capital Volume I, Harry Potter series, The Reinvention of Work by Matthew Fox, anything by Naomi Klein or Kurt Vonnegut.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Wales

Countries I’ve Lived In

Argentina, Chile, England