CURRENT MISSION

Save energy

ABOUT ME

I have a lot of wanderlust, but for now I love living in Montpelier. I love to meet new people and trade travel stories!

NOTE: I am off on a long hike in August/September 2009 and will be unable to host again until October 2009.

PHILOSOPHY

I am inspired by the Buddist ideal of "right livelihood." I've spent a lot of time figuring out how to get paid to do work that is meaningful.

I try to live by the words of Edward Abbey:
"One final paragraph of advice: 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 you lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for awhile and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and 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 one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound people with their 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

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Couchsurfed in Quebec City, have hosted several couchsurfers.

Interests

Running, kayaking, ultimate frisbee, talking politics, traveling, hiking, yoga, scuba diving, potluck dinners, biking, listening to live music, picking blueberries...

• fish
• potluck
• yoga
• running
• politics
• traveling
• music
• live music
• cycling
• fishing
• hiking
• kayaking
• scuba diving
• boxing
• rivers
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

One Hundred Years of Solitude, The River Why, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Chosen, Midnights Children, The Snow Leopard, Spanking the Donkey, Song of the Dodo, Guns Germs and Steel. Borges, Hesse, Garcia Marquez, Calvino, Rushie, Coelho, The Princess Bride, Lord of the Rings movies, Stand By Me, Flirting With Disaster, Six Degrees of Separation, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, Jimi Hendrix, Be Good Tanyas, O Brother Where Art Thou, country-rock-folk a la Uncle Tupelo.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

El Caminante, a man who has hiked the ancient Inca footpaths from Quito to La Paz, led me and a friend into an amazing cave by moonlight. There, he showed us 10,000 year-old cave paintings of llamas. You could feel the presence of thousands of years of humans dwelling and worshipping in that space so profoundly.