CURRENT MISSION

Respect the land. Defend the defenseless. And don't never spit in front of women or children." - Pecos Bill (Patrick Swayze) in Tall Tale, that long-forgotten live-action Disney B-movie that I enjoy way more than I probably should

ABOUT ME

I love traveling and seeing new places and cultures. I love learning new things (and old things) about the world. I love music, both playing and listening. I love reading a wide variety of books. I love experiencing new things. I love getting to know other people and having deep conversations. I love humor and do my best to make people laugh. I love nature and don't spend as much time in it as I want. Those are probably the big things.

PHILOSOPHY

I like philosophy well enough. I've read some books about it. Learning about philosophy is a never-ending process with no definite conclusions, yet it is still an important path to walk down. I think a fulfilling life mostly comes down to living a self-examined life, so that's what I try to do!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I don't have a place of my own quite yet, but when I do I plan to host as much as possible!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

My first two CouchSurfing experiences were in summer 2012 when I was fortunate to get an internship at NASA and had to drive from Arkansas to California. I got the chance to stay with two awesome hosts in Amarillo and Flagstaff. Both experiences were amazing and I stayed with them again on my way back home! I've had a small number of experiences since then and I am definitely optimistic about any future Couchsurfing experiences!

Interests

I really enjoy organizing things. I think it is fun to label songs on my iTunes and sort through photos of my life and travels. I think I'll really appreciate them when I'm old.

I really enjoy socializing with people, both people with similar interests and people that are from different demographics or cultures. Because we live near the state's largest university my family has had the opportunity to host many international students over several years. That is probably the reason that I am so interested in traveling and experiencing different locations and cultures. To lighten things up here at the end, I've made a list of other, more trivial interests: playing piano, singing, reading, the inner-workings of machines, critiquing movies, telling jokes, making things, science fiction, and more stuff I'll probably remember tomorrow.

• singing
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• piano
• hiking
• surfing
• engineering
• science
• statistics
• mountains
• scale models

Music, Movies, and Books

I look for good songs, not good artists. This results in my having 2 artists for every 3 songs and a wide range of genres in my music library. The only music I can't stand is screamo, certain styles of rap, and Chinese Opera.

I consider myself a minor movie critic. I think all movies should be tackled with the brain turned on, giving an "education" rather than mere "entertainment". I keep a list of the movies I've watched and rank them so that I don't end up re-watching a movie I didn't like. A few of my favorites are Into the Wild, Lord of the Rings, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Gladiator, The Bucket List, Cloud Atlas, The Prince of Egypt, The Shawshank Redemption, Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Inception.

I think books are better than movies in nearly every way and I seem to enjoy 90% of the books I read, whereas I only really enjoy about 25% of the movies I watch. Some of my favorite books are Contact by Carl Sagan, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (HPMOR), The Inheritance Cycle, Life of Pi, Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport, The Halo Forerunner Trilogy by Greg Bear

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

My Couch Surfing profile picture is one of them; I was hiking with my family in Grand Teton National Park and there was a beautiful valley high up on the mountain. If you were where I was standing in that picture, you would be looking out of the raised valley down onto a massive lake with many more mountains far in the distance.

Other moments that take my breath away are when I sit down and contemplate the vastness of the universe. Whether that's at my computer looking at facts and statistics or whether I am outside at night in a rural area, looking at the vivid stars. It never ceases to amaze me noticing how big the universe is and how small I am.

More awe inspiring things appeal to my inner engineer are massive structures as well as nano structures. I am always blown away by the complexity of the things that a group of people can create by working together.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Belize, Canada, Cayman Islands, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Italy, Spain, United States