CURRENT MISSION

Make things that matter. Change Scenery often.

ABOUT ME

Hello!! I'm Ben, I'm 27 years old, and I live in Harrisonburg, VA (although I'm on a Thailand/Australia/New Zealand trip from March 1st to June 15th 2017)

I think I'm a pretty laid back person, fairly positive, fairly introspective, and curious.

I work as a web developer, mostly for a small Australian toilet paper company (life leads you to weird places sometimes). I love learning about how everything fits together on the web and becoming more technologically literate, like I think pretty much anything is possible online, you just need to uncover the right way to make it happen. When I'm not doing that I play music in 3 different bands. My favorite thing to do musically is the production / composition / arrangement, like either having a looper or software to layer stuff and create that final product of what you hear in your head. When I'm not doing THAT I like to get out of town and get out of my routine a bit – this summer I spent a week floating 100 miles of the Shenandoah river with some old and new friends, 11 days on tour with a band I'm in, and 3 weeks traveling solo out to Wyoming and Montana. I've recently started gardening again, although moving from house to house often makes it hard to get a good consistent year-round one going.

I like bicycling, seeing live music, drinking good beers, hanging with good people, staying up late, camping, hiking, driving, and exploring new places. I find cleaning therapeutic for some reason, I like maps, I think respecting people and helping and giving are all pretty good ideas, and I hope to understand this life a bit more each day. There's a balance between the mindful contentedness in simple things and the exciting motivation that comes from unrest. I think I'm still trying to find my place between those two.

I'm happy to meet other couch surfers when I'm traveling, and I'd be glad to show you around Harrisonburg if you're passing through. It's actually a very cool little town, so please drop by sometime!

PHILOSOPHY

Drink up the beauty of the world around you, have fun, and leave it better than you found it.

These help: Perspective, Positivity, Mindfulness, Balance, Humility, Openness.

So this is the long version of what bit of sense I've made out of the world thus far: View the world from different angles and places to gain perspective, wisdom will follow, and things will start making more sense. Live life with a positive outlook, and suddenly everything, the good and the bad, is okay. Be mindful of the moment, of where you are and what you feel and what is and try to just appreciate that for what it is. If there were a "key" to life, it'd be balance. Realize that the world has a rhythm and life ebbs and flows, so let yourself get swept up in that (actually not sure how I feel about this now). Be open to new things and say yes as much as possible. People are good.

^^ I wrote the above bit about 5 years ago, sounds very flowery and bright-eyed in retrospect, but I'm leaving it here as a good reminder to myself of a thorough and somewhat unrealistically hyper-positive self-prescribed worldview.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I had a few months of surfing other people's couches in the summer of 2012 and now I'm quite happy to randomly have cool people drop into my life at home! Meetups are great, and I'm looking forward to surfing again soon.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've only had positive experiences with CouchSurfing. Lots of potlucks, hikes, and more generosity than you can imagine. The world is actually not that scary and people are nice. Who would've thought, huh?

Interests

Designing, coding, biking, sleeping, live music, coffee, food!

• arts
• writing
• design
• beauty
• dining
• recipes
• beer
• coffee
• drinking
• politics
• traveling
• coding
• music
• live music
• guitar
• cycling
• hiking
• camping
• hunting
• surfing
• cartography
• economics

Music, Movies, and Books

MUSIC: Indie/punk/pop-punk/rock is the old standby. But I've been listening to jazz and hip hop and some of that twinkly emo stuff lately. Always down to go see something live, and most nights of the week Harrisonburg has something going on.

Into It Over It, Minus The Bear, The Flatliners, The Menzingers, Enemies, A Wilhelm Scream, Nujabes, J Dilla, MF Doom, This Town Needs Guns, El Ten Eleven, RX Bandits, Of Montreal, Sundowner, Lemuria, Bon Iver, Yellow Ostrich, A Great Big Pile of Leaves, etc

BOOKS: mostly non-fiction like philosophy and design theory. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran is awesome. I finished What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly recently and it gave me a lot to think about.

MOVIES: Oh Brother Where Art Thou, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and The Iron Giant are favorites.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

In 2012 I spent 5 months biking across the country, and in the middle of that trip I was biking this part of the Katy trail at dusk, heading into Columbia, MO and an owl swooped down and glided silently about 5 feet above the ground several yards ahead of me. For about 10 seconds we both flew down the trail together with trees whizzing by us, in absolute silence, on a cool summer night. Incredibly surreal. And THEN, a few months later outside of Sacramento, CA, I was biking along a long straight back road in an open field at night and saw a shooting star, this absolutely brilliant white light, streak across the sky for a few seconds. A minute or so later I notice something to the right of me and shine my light to see a white owl gliding alongside. It's one of those things that you think back on and keep asking yourself "Wait, did that actually happen?"

Teach, Learn, Share

I could talk all day about bicycle touring, distilling moonshine, and the paradigm shift that the internet/smartphone is causing. I could probably show you some fun chords on guitar too.

I could stand to learn more about politics, economics, cultures – the stuff that's pushing humanity one way or the other. New skills are always great. And new recipes are always appreciated.