I love traveling, love playing music, and love the outdoors. My wife and I are traveling around South America for the next year, more or less, starting in the south and heading north poco a poco.
I grew up in New Mexico, and spent my twenties in Tucson, Arizona, where I went to college, made art, played guitar in a band that has toured around the Western USA(The Missing Parts) and taught science at a high school for at risk teens. I love music, and I tend to travel with small string instruments to keep my hands busy and in case I meet other musicians who want to jam.
I have traveled around much of the world, including the USA, Mexico, much of Western Europe, including Norway where I lived for 6 months, Turkey, India, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. I lived in Argentina for a year as an exchange student in high school, so I speak Spanish fairly well, and this trip has been helping me brush the dust off. I love traveling, and I've found it's all about meeting great people, so couch surfing interests me especially.
My wife Kat and I are alternating more traditional backpacking with itenerant volunteer farm work on Permaculture farms around South America, something which we're passionately learning more about. Kat has worked on farms for the last 3.5 years and, additionally, is an illustrator, jeweler, environmentalist, and extremely kind and fun to be around. We got married in March of 2015 and are exploring as much as we can.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

After getting married and quitting our jobs, my wife and I drove our cats cross country, got them settled at her parents' house, and then took a flight to Buenos Aires, where we began our South America tour in November. We are interested in meeting exciting, friendly local people on our travels, as well as interested in keeping the costs of long term travel down, so Couch Surfing is a no brainer.
Kat has some great stories from couch surfing in the US, and I have landed on my fair share of couches while touring with my street-performing classical/world/bluegrass band. We both are interested in getting to meet people and make some new memories and some new friends.

Interests

Music (I play guitar), outdoor sports, languages, ecology, Permaculture, beer

• cats
• arts
• writing
• design
• graphic design
• festivals
• dining
• beer
• drinking
• traveling
• socializing
• metalworking
• music
• guitar
• outdoor activities
• backpacking
• surfing
• sports
• animation
• biology
• ecology
• freelancing
• languages
• science
• volunteering

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: Cracow Klezmer band, Andrew Bird, Rodrigo y Gabriella, Dimitri Shostakovich, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Takenobu, Abigail Washburn, Gillian Welch, Tom Waits, Beethoveen, Morphine....

Books: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Cloud Atlas, The Book of Flying

Movies: Life is Beautiful, Fight Club, The Fall, Waking Life, Down by Law, Triplets of Belleville

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

My band played at Joshua Tree Music Festival. Not sure how amazing that is, but it felt like quite the cherry on top of around 7 years of managing, writing in, and touring with a band made of my best friends.

Teach, Learn, Share

I used to teach biology, and I'm passionate about ecology, especially about creating productive ecosystems that are ecologically diverse, beautiful, and full of useful/delicious life.

I also work as a freelance web designer and graphic designer (along with my wife Kat), so I can be helpful with these sorts of things.

I'm pretty handy with a wide range of power tools and I love building things, especially when it's something beautiful and lasting. I especially like metalworking and casting, and I've built backyard forges and a small foundry with some buddies from college.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Food, stories, drink, music, and hopefully I can host some of you when Kat and I settle back down.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Austria, Brazil, British Indian Ocean Territory, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Argentina, Norway, United States