CURRENT MISSION

None right now!

ABOUT ME

My name is Michael Byrne, I was born on October 17,1989 in San Jose, CA, 3 hours after the strike of the Loma Prieta Earthquake.

I grew up in Saratoga, CA. My Dad's side of the family has heavy roots in Saratoga, so I ended up going to all of the same schools as he did growing up. I was very involved in the Boy Scouts (earned Eagle at 18) and was a swimmer in high school.

I went to UCLA for my undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics. After school I came back to the bay area to work in field sales for a semiconductor company, Maxim Integrated.

I have been working at Maxim since July 2011, and live 20min North of Saratoga with 3 friends I've known since Elementary school.

PHILOSOPHY

This constantly changes as I experience new things and hit certain "milestones" in my life. But to try and answer the question, noting cliche, my goal in life is to have a family, a home, and wake up everyday to a job I love. And everyday I try to live by a quote out of the movie Garden State, "Good luck exploring the infinite abyss".

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

No experience yet, but am looking forward to earning some.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

None unfortunately!

Interests

Swimming, Mountain Biking, Technology, Driving with the windows down and music blasting, Coffee, Breakfast, In n' Out Burger, Chips and Guac, Burritos, Exploring new places, the beach, Baseball, Baseball hats, San Francisco 49ers, French Fries, Peanut Butter

• breakfast
• coffee
• gardening
• technology
• music
• cycling
• baseball
• swimming
• mathematics
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Terminator 2, Garden State, Cinema Paradiso, and many more

Music: Led Zeppelin, John Mayer, The Beatles, The Strokes, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Wolfmother, Foster the People

Books: Harry Potter, Oregon Files series by Clive Cussler, Ender's Game, I don't read enough.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I'm certain that there is something in my memory that will jump out in text as totally cool and awesome, but for now I'll share a story that was amazing for me personally.

One particular evening late in the summer of 2013, I decided to go biking on one of my favorite trails with the intention of hitting the peak right at sunset. The route I take is a loop, and the 1500ft descent takes no more than 15min, so I figured I'd have enough light to make it down safely. The trail that climbs Black Mountain is called Indian Canyon Trail, and while it is not the most difficult ascent in the area, it's still an exhausting ride.

At about the halfway mark, a small mountain lion appeared about 30 ft in front of me. I thought about turning around - I was all alone and really had no way of defending myself, but at the time I needed a personal sense of accomplishment, so "fuck it". The sun slowly started to go down, and my one mountain lion companion quickly turned into 3. The small family was paving the trail in front of me, stopping every few feet to keep watch of what I was doing. Right before the peak, they leapt down the side of the hill and slowly watched me crawl by. I gave a couple pathetic "ROAR"'s to try and establish dominance (I don't know what that means either), and didn't let my eyes off of them until they were out-of-sight. I reached the top, threw my bike down, and the sunset was just about over. I remember having this sense of total freedom and elation. I think I started laughing out loud, all alone on the top of this mountain - and tried to take into account how thankful I was to be alive in that exact moment (not in the sense that the mountain lions posed any real threat, but just thankful for life in general). It definitely sounds lame, but I felt privileged to witness what this particular region of nature gets to see every night. It was truly wonderful, and it will forever be my favorite trail.

That descent was unreal. I think I put on "Never Let You Go" by Third Eye Blind and just flew down the mountain. I got back to the parking lot - it was completely dark at this point - and the ranger was there as they needed to close the park. She could tell I just had the ride of my life, and asked "How was it up there?". "Amazing".