CURRENT MISSION

being successful as a husband and father

ABOUT ME

I am companionable, but not a big partygoer. I am reliable. I am rather relaxed (at least I'd like to think so) but I can be pretty disciplined when I set my mind to something.

I used to be a (very) moderate smoker but did never expect to be able to smoke at my host's place though always appreciated if it was tolerable to sneak out after dinner for quick one. However, I am making the best of the current crisis and am now trying to quit (10 weeks since Good Friday 2020 and counting). Let's see how that pans out.

PHILOSOPHY

In general, my motto is "live and let live", meaning one's personal freedom should also consider how another person's personal freedom is affected.

At times, life seems very short (at least it could be). It is important to live now and not postpone enjoying, travelling, making experiences... until later/next year/retirement...
At the same time I feel strongly that we have a responsibility for how we leave this planet, our economy etc. to our children.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I Surf and we would love to host.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

A trip with my son to a Green Bay Packer game in January 2016 where we stayed with 2 hosts and absolutely loved it.

Interests

My family, i.e. my wife of 25 years and our two children (born 1995 and 1997).
Sports, I play european football (soccer) and softball and love to watch the the Green Bay Packers, the Boston Red Sox (when they field a decent team, also character wise) and the VfB Stuttgart (but the latter has been torturing me for the last couple of years).
Music, live and at home.
Books.
Hiking with my wife in the nearby Schwäbische Alb (Suebian Alb) and going to an inn afterwards for a meal and a good beer.
Traveling with my wife/family.

• books
• beer
• traveling
• music
• hiking
• kayaking
• sailing
• sports
• soccer
• softball
• law
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

quite a lot

Music: Radio Paradise
Don Winslow, Richard Russo (books)
Robert Redford, Sean Penn...
The Wire, Band of Brothers (TV)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

My wedding and the birth of our children.
Our honey moon, 4 weeks in the Pacific Northwest: Olympic National Park, the Oregon coast, northern California (best campground ever: Gold Bluff Beach in the redwood NP).
Sailing in the Whitsunday Islands with my family and my sister in law's Australian family.
The 2007 NFC Championship game: I couldn't believe how cold it was (beer froze in my hand) and that Favre would do his thing again and screw it with a final INT.
Listening to a Mozart mass in church last christmas morning.
Watching my grandmother and her neighbours slaughtering a pig and processing absolutely everything of it (when I was a child).
Buying a car in Branford, CT when I was 21 and driving it all the way to Washington DC, the Grand Canyon, San Diego, San Francisco (where I met and stayed with an incredibly nice gay couple that showed me around long before couchsurfing - this was the 80s) and back again.
Kayaking with orcas at Vancouver Island.

Teach, Learn, Share

I don't really have a lot of restrictions. But an important one would be that - although I enjoy a couple of beers as much as the next guy - I don't like serious drugs.
If we could just get along with each other or at least respect and tolerate our neighbour even or especially when he is different, everything would be so much easier.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I would make sure and try to bring a couple of beers from a small regional brewery in our county: Blank Bier, the best.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, United States