CURRENT MISSION

To ramble, gamble, etc.

ABOUT ME

I'm really not good at writing about myself, so here's a quote from my Meyers-Briggs personality profile:

"I am an upbeat visionary. I highly value knowledge, and spend much of my life seeking a higher understanding. I live in a world of possibilities, and become excited about concepts, challenges and difficulties. When presented with a problem, I'm good at improvising and quickly come up with a creative solution."

Currently most of my time is spent studying mechanical engineering at Oregon State. Mostly I explore and tinker. I play a lot of music on the fiddle and mandolin, and love to make people laugh. People who kindly open up their doors to travelers are the best kinds of people in my opinion, and often have hilarious or interesting stories to tell.

PHILOSOPHY

Here's the philosophy that I've adopted from Edward Abbey:

"Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am—a reluctant enthusiast, a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the West; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still there. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the Griz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that loverly, mysterious, awesome space. Enjoy yourselves. Keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men with hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: You will outlive the bastards."

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I've only just begun, but my intention is to surf and host as often as I can.

Interests

Playing music, scrapping together hair brained inventions from recycled this-and-that, exploring the wide wild world, living aboard boats, mountains/volcanoes, the oceans, rivers, and outer-space. Books and poetry are pretty fascinating too. Art and science are my two biggest passions in life.

• fish
• arts
• writing
• books
• poetry
• running
• music
• guitar
• fishing
• boxing
• engineering
• science
• rivers
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Some of my favorite books: "The Monkey Wrench Gang", "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "Slaughterhouse-Five", and "Flatland".

Movies: "The Blues Brothers", "O' Brother Where Art Thou", Stanley Kubrick, the Cohen brothers, and all kinds of old, funky films that no one watches. I'm kind of a nerd and definitely into sci-fi.

Right now I live and breathe bluegrass and old-time music. I also dig the blues, jazz, rock, and pretty much everything else.

Teach, Learn, Share

I really enjoy teaching music, and can almost always get somebody chunking away on the mandolin with some simple hillbilly chords. I've taught fiddle lessons professionally here and there, as well as a little bit of guitar. I'm always interested in learning something new.

What I Can Share with Hosts

If you let me sleep on your couch/floor/bed/hay-loft, I promise to play you some boot-stomping hoedowns on my fiddle!

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Costa Rica, Ireland

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States