CURRENT MISSION

I have nine days, Jan 7-16, to fall in love with southern and central Vietnam. Make me love Vietnam so much I start saving up to come back!

ABOUT ME

Something keeps pushing me to move and travel. I think it's a lack of a meaningful career to keep me in one spot. I'm not sure I can count all the places I've lived in my life, but the list includes Guam, Rota Spain, Ankara Turkey, Las Vegas, Washington DC, and Changsha, Chongqing, and Guangzhou, China. I've been to 22 countries if you count a few that were just airport transfers.

I can entertain you! I'm an artist and I can whip up funny cartoons anytime, anywhere. I'm also an ex-musician, good on bass, really lousy on guitar. I can come up with a dirty limerick in ten minutes or less. And... I am a decent cook with a good handle on Chinese food, a few Thai dishes, and a mix of all the stuff we cook back in the states.

I don't smoke. I do like beer, but I hold it well.

PHILOSOPHY

Kant's categorical imperative, though I fall off the wagon sometimes.

I've never stolen a thing in my life.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I want to explore, discover real places and not just monuments, be in touch with real people, and host travelers and help them discover what I know about my cities when possible!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I surf and I host! Both are great.

Interests

I'm a painter. Back in the states I travel to do art shows a little bit. I'm always interested in local art and music scenes.

Since I'm a teacher I like to talk about education, and I like to talk about parenting even though I'm not a parent. I'm interested in how people were raised, how they feel about it, and how they want to do things differently.

I'm very into food, and I'm usually into beer too, but alcohol has been giving my system a nasty reaction lately. So... no beer for now. Damn it!

• arts
• education
• dining
• cooking
• chinese food
• beer
• news
• cartoons
• reading
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• teaching
• history

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Happiness, Idiocracy, Robocop, Beavis and Butthead Do America, Hellraiser, Animal House

Music: all that 80's thrash and all that 70's and 80's funk

Books: Portnoy's Complaint, Hard Times, Eat the Rich, Freakonomics, Jin Ping Mei (Have you read this? I never met anyone who had)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

In 2010 I played bass in a punk rock show in front of thousands of college students at the She Wai campus in Changsha! Is that only amazing to me?

I also told an offensive joke in Chinese to a news camera crew at the Terra Cotta Army in Xian, 2012.

Teach, Learn, Share

For ten years I've been a music, art, English, and history teacher in elementary, middle, and high schools, and colleges, in the USA and China. I have my own methods and materials for teaching oral English. I also know how to help Chinese people pass their TEM and CET tests without all that "speed reading" and "finding key sentences" bullshit they teach you in high school.