CURRENT MISSION

Saving the world one community at a time!

ABOUT ME

My wife and I are both transplants. I'm a German stranded in the US and my wife originally is from Maine. I've got two grad degrees in Social Work and work for an inner city school district as program evaluator/analyst. To shut my brain down I watch (way too many) movies, play video games, annoy people with cheap jokes, surf the web, gather totally unimportant information and also listen to a lot of music. My wife and I are happy to meet new people to make up for not getting out of town as frequently as we'd like. Couchsurfing to me still is a little like traveling without ever leaving your home. Love it!

PHILOSOPHY

Be granted the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and to have the wisdom to know the difference...
(I'm still working especially on the serenity and wisdom portions...)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Mostly hosting so far. The US isn't very good at giving me the vacation time to travel I'd like to have.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I originally started out getting into couchsurfing about 7 years ago through the German site hospitalityclub.org that preceeded couchsurfing. Eventually I migrated over to couchsurfing given the faster development of both the community in terms of growth as well as the sophistication of the site. I've had plenty of positive experience over the years. Two stays of surfers turned into stays that lasted over a month. It's a great idea to promote inter-cultural growth and I continue to fully support it any way I can.

Interests

Just a random list of keywords...

1979, 4.0, acoustic guitar, ACORN, art, activism, advocacy, agnosticism, alternative, anime, atheism, attac, backpacking, bavaria, bayern, bill watterson, black humor, board games, calvin and hobbes, camping, canada, cats, churches, coffee, coffeeshops, comics, community development, community organizing, computer games, computer science, cooking, cuddling, data, debating, deutschland, dogs, dsa, eating, education, environmentalism, fantasy, far side, feminism, festivals, folk music, food, free speech, gaming, gary larson, geeks, germany, grassroots organizing, green party, heise, hiking, human rights, humanism, immigrant rights, indymedia, intelligence, international law, ireland, irony, jogging, junta, ksfh, latvia, laziness, leftism, linux, live music, lord of the rings, monty python, movies, msw, munich, museums, national parks, neil gaiman, news, npr, ocd, ocean, open source, otherland, outdoors, paranoia, pbs, peace, people, peter jackson, phd, phi kappa phi, philosophy, pipes, political music, politics, pro-choice, procrastination, real time strategy, regensburg, roleplaying, rpg, san antonio, sarcasm, science fiction, scotland, sf, sleep, soccer, social work, socialism, sozialarbeit, soziale arbeit, star trek, star wars, studienstiftung, tad williams, tea, terry pratchett, the muppet show, theater, tim burton, tolkien, tom lehrer, transmetropolitan, travel, ultimate frisbee, united nations, vegetarian, wailin jennys, water, wine, world social forum, xbox, yosemite

• cats
• dogs
• arts
• theater
• make up
• festivals
• education
• human rights
• womens rights
• dining
• cooking
• wine
• coffee
• vegetarian
• partying
• politics
• technology
• news
• comics
• anime
• movies
• video games
• board games
• traveling
• music
• live music
• folk music
• guitar
• outdoor activities
• hiking
• backpacking
• camping
• soccer
• computer science
• teaching
• law
• science
• social work
• parks

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: A little bit of everything but with an emphasis on alternative rock (a perfect circle, foo fighters, faith no more), folk music - esp. irish/scottish/welsh, acid jazz, ska (Cherry Poppin Daddies!!!), singers/songwriters (Indigo Girls, Wailin Jennys, Girlyman, medieval rock (sounds weird but is really good - and mostly German...), classics (Jefferson Airplane and the like), music with a message/political music etc. I also love going to live concerts and festivals (camping!)
Movies: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Grudge, Ray, Buena Vista Social Club, Akira, The Big Lebowski (or any other movie by the Coen Brothers), Ghost in the shell, The emperor's new groove, Thin red line, Big Fish and almost everything by Tim Burton, same for Monty Python, Fawlty Towers etc., Anime
Books: Unfortunately I did not have very much time to read lately. In general I really enjoy to read fantasy &; scifi related novels. Tolkien, Pratchett, Adams, Feist, Jordan etc. Also some leftist political literature like Regulating the poor or what's the matter with Kansas

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Redwood Forest and Yosemite National park. I visited both during the off-season to experience them sans droves of people. Groves of Redwoods and giant Sequoias just really left me in awe of nature. And no, I did not hug any of them... :)

Teach, Learn, Share

I'll be happy to help you with tech issues (i.e. laptop problems on longer trips) - have already done that for a number of couchsurfers.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, United States

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