CURRENT MISSION

Host more :)

ABOUT ME

All of the following:

- Love travel and home alike
- Cyclist (though I also have a van)
- Prefer books and movies set in the known world (sorry, no wizards)
- Play mandolin and bass guitar in 2 bands
- Heterosexual
- Selective Omnivore
- Get really whiny when I'm sick
- Like to make people laugh
- Always have beer in the fridge
- Once wrote a 30-page paper about Woody Guthrie...in Spanish
- Country boy with few country skills
- Not as smart as I used to be
- Think I'm fat
- On again, off again smoker
- Play organised adult kickball every Sunday

PHILOSOPHY

Yes. Yes to philosophy.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Hosting is my main function in this machine. I try to be a good host by feeling out how much guidance a CSer needs, from good advice to a tag-along tour guide if necessary (and if I don't have to work). Usually I try to have a meal - either homemade or dine-out - with someone while he/she is in town. There are bikes for borrow in my garage, and on occassion I've been known to take CSers on epic bike rides with my friends and me. Also good for visitors: blues shows, brewery tours, Forest Park, baseball games, farmers' markets and dance parties, all of which you're invited to.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

So, in late summer 2009, these two wonderful, witty and talented British boys on a tour of the Blues Highway stayed with us - through my roommate Adam - and, of course, told us as they were leaving, "If you're ever in England...blah, blah blah."

"Sure," I scoffed, "I'll be right over," knowing I'd never get to Europe. But, as if to prove we really have no idea what will happen, an opportunity came along less than 6 months later, and I found myself sleeping on a couch in their Oxford housing, going to see one of them play in a band, and getting a peek at the dining room from the Harry Potter movies. It's by far the best thing that I have experienced through CS - and I'm not even a Harry Potter fan. Wizards just don't interest me (See: "Interests").

Interests

reading (anything but Sci-fi, fantasy and romance novels...I love magazines, newspapers, scholarly essays, classics, short stories, etc.); cooking; music (specifically bass guitar and mandolin); I'm really bad at visual art, so I have a natural interest in/jealousy of artists...it might be my demise; dancing; thrift stores and a good, practical, used item.

• arts
• humanities
• books
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• beer
• farmers' market
• partying
• thrifting
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• magic
• music
• country music
• guitar
• blues
• cycling
• backpacking
• baseball
• kickball
• tourism
• tours

Music, Movies, and Books

documentaries, strange love stories and movies that feature a young Kevin Costner, Foreign (esp. British) actiedies (action + comedy, a la Guy Ritchie). Here my preference runs into a self-contradictory state, because often the "off-beat" films I like are shaky - read, "filmed in the absence of steady-cam" - and thus make me motion sick, rendering them as useless to me as a soiled pair of underpants.

Black-reaction jazz, bluegrass, dancy rock, Alanis Morrisette

Vonnegut, Dostoyevsky, Salinger, Huxley, Orwell, bios, St. Augustine, Descartes, Pascal, Chekov, Carpentier,

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I've always wanted to swallow a goldfish and vomit it back up, alive. Having seen it done, I wasn't too impressed, but I think doing it would be quite a thrill.

Teach, Learn, Share

I'm not sure I have any skills that anyone else would want and not know how to get...I've been told I'm a very good country music bassist, and while cooking is a bit of a passion, I'm not exceptionally good at it. I've been known to pack a very dense backpack and consider that a gift of sorts.

If there were one thing that I'd like to learn from someone else, it would probably be a toss-up between engines and computers. I wasn't blessed with the mechanical mind that my father wishes I had, and I just have no idea what's going on when I type on this magic toaster. Both are equal in mystery to me.

Countries I’ve Visited

France, Mexico, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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