I live primarily in Montana and Idaho and then also in Thailand with my wife Tiratchaya. When in Thailand we live three hours away from Bangkok, in Lopburi province but two hours away from the city of Lopburi. So we're kind of off the beaten path. We spend some time in Vegas. In the summer we are in Idaho and in Montana where we have a small farm and orchard (www.blackrobin.org) in Bozeman Montana where our volunteers and we teach kids about homesteading, permaculture, and sustainable agriculture. We love to travel and our current goal is to get to a point where we can work three or four months a year then travel and write the rest.

CURRENT MISSION

Live small. Help kids with human rights and permaculture education. Grow organically. Learn new languages, masonry, cooking, more green building techniques... See the World. Make good food... Give it away. Build something. Make something grow... Write fiction and nonfiction. Make movies.

ABOUT ME

I like traveling, exploring new cultures (and eating new food!) but recently I've realized I like staying home occasionally also. I love the sound of the creek behind my house and I can only hear it when I'm home.

Whether or not I'm traveling, my perfect day has me waking up around four or five, writing for two hours, hanging out in front of my fire, eating, working for a few hours on some building or farm project, riding my bike or skiing, never getting in my car, eating, spending some time with my friends and my grand kids, reading, listening or playing some music. (But lately I wake, write, eat, then work my butt off on the farm instead!)

I think my greatest achievement in life has been to be a father to two great children. They are both finished with college now. Which is why I can start thinking about traveling more freely and can begin making movies. My daughter is married and has two kids. I'm a grampa. Awesome!

PHILOSOPHY

Experience, enjoy, and improve the world.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We host, we couchsurf, we volunteer.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We've had several couchsurfers and it has always (well, usually) worked out great.

I am now starting to travel more so I can couchsurf more also.

Interests

I love cooking, eating, building things, creative writing, planting things, reading, human rights, law, permaculture, gardening, construction, timber-framing, learning new languages, children's rights, film-making, places untouched by tourists, riding my bike, photography, doing things with my kids.

I Love the idea of living small. Trying to make do with less. I love eggplant, fresh figs, tomatoes from my garden. I love the smell right before the rain. And after. I love children. Their laughter. Their questions. Their games. I love being somewhere I've never been before and wondering what to do about it and then the answer coming a few moments before I panic. I love sitting in hot springs. I love water just before I'm thirsty. Gifts before they're expected. I love seeing myself in my children. And I love not seeing myself in my children.

• arts
• writing
• books
• photography
• education
• human rights
• dining
• cooking
• gardening
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• juggling
• painting
• homesteading
• music
• guitar
• cycling
• skiing
• buddhist
• tennis
• swimming
• agriculture
• teaching
• languages
• law
• volunteering

Music, Movies, and Books

My favorite movies...I have really way too many to list...but, okay, I loved 'Harold and Maude,' 'The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover,' the 'Godfather' movies, 'About a Boy,' 'Dodgeball,' 'Les Miserables,' 'Billy Elliot,' 'My Fair Lady,' 'Love, Actually,' 'Kiss of the Spider Woman,' and recently 'The Kids are Alright,' 'The American,' and lots more.

I like to talk a little during movies. Especially with my son. He hates that.

I also love musicals. Les Miserables, My Fair Lady, Billy Elliot, The Phantom of the Opera, and others.

I like folk music, Italian cantautori, jazz, classical, blues, guitar music, and lots more...

I love books. My favorite are perhaps 'The Tao of Pooh', 'Siddharta', 'Great Expectations,' 'Les Miserables,' 'Sometimes a Great Notion,' anything by Scott Turow or John Le Carre or Robertson Davies... Recently I've loved 'The Corrections,' 'The World According to Garp,' 'Love in the Time of Cholera'...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I'm fortunate. I've had so many opportunities to see awesome and wonderful things. I think my own home state of Montana is one of the greatest! I've been impressed by beauty in many places. One of the most inspiring, perhaps, was when I climbed Mount Huangshan in China. I cried, rather uncontrollably...it was so beautiful (not my crying, but the place itself). Another, the birth of my children. Seeing them walk for the first time. The birth of my grand-children were amazing experiences also. Ah, and helping my sheep to give birth, that is a thrill.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can juggle. Ride a unicycle. Discuss law and human rights. Cook. Fix things. Do a little plumbing and electrical. Paint. I'm a dedicated dish-washer. I can show-off photos of my kids and goats and Montana. I can teach you the wrong way to pronounce French and Italian and Spanish and Romanian. I'd like to learn Portuguese and would like to learn Italian better and Mandarin and Tagalog and I'd like to practice French and Spanish and Italian and Romanian. I'd like to understand myself better. Whoever can help me do that is welcome! I'd also like to learn to play guitar, sing, build with stone. Sometimes I think I'd just like to go from place to place learning things for the rest of my life. Cooking in Italy and France and China. Masonry in...I don't know...Ireland. Buddhism in Thailand or Korea or Taiwan.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I am pretty good at doing dishes. I can juggle a little. I can fix small plumbing problems and build things. I can talk about my travels. I'm an okay listener :-)

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Greece, Guam, Haiti, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, Italy, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, United States

• 

•