CURRENT MISSION

Explore the US

ABOUT ME

I am curious about everything and a bit of a computer nerd, but still socially capable :P In fact I love meeting new people, going out and I am usually up for anything ... I will enjoy as much a visit to a local bookshop, a BBQ in the park, discussing about whatever, some adventure sport, a good hike or a crazy night out until dawn.

PHILOSOPHY

I really like this snippet from "If", by Rudyard Kipling:
"If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss"

Life is too short to waste it clinging to some shitty thing you have right now, go out there, look for a better job, one that you actually like doing, a better place to live, travel to different countries, fulfill that childhood dream you gave up on long ago, ... you'll finally get to settle ... some day, just not now.

Jorge Luis Borges/Nadine Stair/whoever's poem Instantes (Instants) also expresses this quite well :) It's better in Spanish though :)

Instants

If I could live my life again,
In the next one - I will try,
to make more mistakes,
I won't try to be so perfect,
I'll be more relaxed,
I'll be more of a fool than I have been,
In fact, I'll take fewer things seriously,
I'll be less hygienic,
I'll take more risks, and do more trips,
I'll watch more sunsets, climb more mountains,
I'll swim more rivers and go to more places where I've never been,
I'll eat more ice creams and less beans,
I'll have more real problems - and less imaginary ones,

I was one of those people who live prudent and prolific lives - each minute of his life,
Of course I had moments of joy, but,
if I could go back I'd try to have only good moments,
In case you don't know - that's what life is made of,
Don't waste the current moment!

I was one of those people who never goes anywhere
without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle,
an umbrella and a parachute,

If I could live again - I will travel light,
If I could live again - I'll try to walk bare feet
from the beginning of spring till the end of autumn,

I'll ride more carts, I'll watch more sunrises and play with more children,
If I had the life to live ... but I am 85,
and I know that I am dying.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I have hosted very actively in the past. Now I have just moved to SF and just starting to get settled. I'll look into the local CS community soon and I'll start hosting once I have a proper place!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have hosted a lot of people (I guess around ~150 people by now) in Zaragoza and Dublin.

I have been hosted in Augsburg (Germany), Istanbul (Turkey), Boston, Baltimore, Natchitoches, Natchez, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Seattle (US), Milan (Italy), Waterford, Baltimore, Letterkenny, Cork and Limerick (Ireland) and Ljubljana and Tolmin (Slovenia) so far.

I also shared a house with couchsurfers in Vancouver (Canada).

For a long time, I was very involved in the Dublin CS community, going to most events and organizing some too.

Interests

Traveling (original, huh?) anywhere
Developing neat programs
Contemporary history
Politics (American and otherwise)
Technology
Reddit
Having crazy ideas
English and linguistics
Other stuff, from physics to psychology, and anything in between
Practicing (not watching) sports and adventure stuff (basketball, soccer, table tennis, squash, hiking, surfing, kayaking, canyoneering, scuba diving (haven't tried yet!), ...)
Theatre/musicals
TV shows, Movies, Music, Books (see below)

• books
• singing
• bbq
• pub crawls
• politics
• technology
• movies
• tv
• traveling
• music
• hiking
• kayaking
• surfing
• scuba diving
• sports
• basketball
• soccer
• tennis
• racquetball
• swimming
• table tennis
• history
• physics
• psychology
• software
• rivers
• mountains
• squash

Music, Movies, and Books

TV shows (The Wire, Firefly, Mad Men, Dexter, Boston Legal, Spooks, Scrubs, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, True Blood, The IT Crowd, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Community, Gilmore Girls, How I met your mother and many more ...)

Movies (Pulp Fiction, American History X, American Beauty, The lives of others, The Usual Suspects, Goodfellas, Star Wars, Big Fish, Taxi Driver, C.R.A.Z.Y., L'Auberge espagnole, Manhattan Murder Mystery (and Woody Allen in general), Amelie, Garden State, most Ken Loach movies, ...)

Books (anything by Douglas Coupland, Bill Bryson's travel books, To kill a mockingbird, The Mists of Avalon, 1984, The lord of the flies, Ender's game, The Lord of The Rings, The Brooklyn Follies and more Paul Auster, Papillon, Wilt, The physician, also non-fiction, mainly about politics, linguistics and English or any other interesting topic)

Some indie rock/pop (The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, The New Pornographers, Muse, The Shins, Franz Ferdinand, The Fratellis, Death Cab for Cutie, Fountains of Wayne, ...)

A few singer-songwriters (Joaquin Sabina (Spanish), Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Billy Joel, Cat Stevens, Rino Gaetano (Italian), ...)

Other stuff: Goldie Lookin' Chain, They Might Be Giants, The Dandy Warhols, Miss Li, Kimya Dawson, N*E*R*D, Rise Against, Sublime, Queen, The Clash, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Manu Chao, David Bowie, MGMT

check my last.fm for more details: http://www.last.fm/user/isaaccp

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I have hiked in loads of beautiful places, including Spanish and French Pyrenees, French, Swiss, Austrian and Italian Alps, Yosemite Valley in California, Bowen Island near Vancouver. Recently I cycled on my own for ten days around the Julian Alps in Slovenia.

I have been in Hagia Sofia in Istanbul and walked for hours along the beautiful Bosphorus seaside.

I was present in the last 2008 improv hip hop subway series event in New York.

I have been seen drunk-singing Irish songs in Irish pubs in Dublin.

I have done the ship's mast thing from the Deathproof movie.

Teach, Learn, Share

Can teach ...
- Spanish/English
- Soccer
- Computer stuff, mainly free software related (Linux, Ubuntu, ...) and programming in general

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Ireland, Spain, United States

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