CURRENT MISSION

to see and experience as much of the world as I can in my short time here and maybe even make the world a slightly better place along the way

ABOUT ME

I am pretty easy-going, yet responsible. Some might presume I'm not a serious person based on my apparent care-free attitude but don't be fooled! I am always serious about my fun.

As cheesy as it sounds, I see life as beautiful and full of opportunities. I am thankful to be alive and I try never to forget to appreciate how truly lucky I am.

I consider myself pretty smart but I can't figure out why I didn't think of this absolutely ingenious idea of a couch surfing website first.

PHILOSOPHY

Live and let live as long as you are not hurting the innocent. What I mean by this is that adults should be able to make adult decisions for themselves. In my travels, however, I have sometimes witnessed people simply watching as the innocent have been hurt and this I would call unacceptable passiveness, otherwise known as negligence. "The true evil in this world is the indifference of good men" (that's from the movie Boondock Saints and if you caught that reference, you're awesome). Enough of the soapbox!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I am new to CouchSurfing, so we'll have to wait and see.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I'm relatively new with the website but I have stayed on many couches and have had many friends stay on mine. Does that qualify? I have at present had one guy stay with me and I have stayed on two different couches. All of my experiences with Couchsurfing thus far have been great.

Interests

My drug of choice is travel. I also love photography (especially of people and travel). My other passion is sports (I play baseball weekly on a serious but non-professional team and this is actually the one thing besides my family and friends that I miss the most when traveling). I like languages and new and different foods and (yes, sometimes this is scary). I enjoy acquiring knowledge and new experiences, especially those that some consider extreme and/or dangerous. If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger and wiser. At least that's what they say, right? One other interest of mine is martial arts but it's not so much a hobby of mine as a mindset and a way of life.

• arts
• photography
• wine
• traveling
• surfing
• sports
• baseball
• martial arts
• track and field
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies:
The Boondock Saints, Love Actually, Snatch, Fight Club, Una Pelicula de Huevos, The Way of the Gun, American History X, Training Day, The Usual Suspects, Gladiator, The Hunted, Man on Fire, Matando Cabos, Remember the Titans, Reservoir Dogs, Swingers, True Romance, La Ley de Herodes, Braveheart, Crash, Finding Nemo, Pulp Fiction, The Last Samarai, Million Dollar Baby, Shawshank Redemption, Hooligans, The Green Mile, American Beauty. (that's all I can think of right now)

Music:
I am not particularly fond of Barbara Streisand, Cindy Lauper, The B52's, or (yes I know it's hard to believe) Rush. Other than that I am easy like Sunday morning. I listen to everything from Rap to Punk, from Metal to Mariachi, from Banda to Corridos, from Classic Rock to Symphonies. I particularly like ethnic music that allows me to be able to picture myself on a crowded, broken down bus in some third world country going down some dirt road.

Books:
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, Shibumi by Trevanian, Shogun by james Clavell, Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger, The Tracker by Tom Brown, The One- Minute Millionaire by Robert Allen and the works of Henry David Thoreau.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I was fortunate enough to be able to track and photograph the silver back gorillas in the mountainous jungles of Uganda, Africa and also to Safari in the savanahs of Massai Mari in Kenya.

I know I'm just a kid at heart but one of the single best days I have ever had was one day about 3 years ago that I was able to play baseball for the afternoon in Dodger Stadium because a friend was good enough to give me some VIP tickets to do so. Talk about a kid in a candy store. I couldn't get that stupid grin off my face all day.

I was fortunate enough to be able to photograph a male lion feasting on a freshly killed water buffalo in the Massai Mari Savanahs of Kenya, Africa.

During 1995-96, I was living in Taiwan when the Chinese government in Mainland China was bombing near the island to display to the Taiwanese their disapproval of Taiwan's first independent democratic elections. That was interesting. A bit scary, but definitely interesting.

I have been fortunate enough to survive many close calls in my life of which all now make great stories.

Teach, Learn, Share

Shake the martini rigorously before pooring. There should be tini ice crystals floating on top of the glass. This truly improves the taste. If you don't believe me, try it! However, remember that you heard it here first. This is the key to a great martini, but personally I usually try to stick to a glass of wine as a regular basis kind of thing because they say it's healthier.

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