CURRENT MISSION

Ferment stuff.

ABOUT ME

I'm 6'6 (1.98m if you're so inclined), so I may have to curl up to fit on your couch. I studied English and German at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, USA. From 2007-2008 I spent 10 months as a Fulbright scholar in Mainz, Germany, teaching English to high schoolers. I moved to Munich at the end of 2008 to work with a publishing company for 18 months and I loved the city. London didn't want me so now I'm back in the USA. Portland, Maine has improved significantly since I was young, and I'm enjoying discovering its changes with my girlfriend, Stasia, and our good group of people.

PHILOSOPHY

My uncle, who really loves to push buttons, gave me some of the best (well...funniest, at least) advice I've ever heard: "Tell people not to worry about it. People LOVE it when you tell them not to worry about stuff." It's true, there are few faster ways to make someone mad than to tell him, "Don't worry about it," and that includes me, but I try to take things in stride.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I learned about CS while I was in Mainz and met some CouchSurfers in Wiesbaden during a festival. I wasn't active for a while, but when I moved to Munich it was the perfect way for me to meet new people. I take part in CS gatherings and meetings. I can't usually host right now, but I do my best to meet up when people are looking for someone to hang out with. My girlfriend and I surfed a couch in Belfast and a couch in Dublin in August 2008, and we were both completely astounded by how much fun it was.

Interests

Ultimate Frisbee, partying, the beach, biking, hiking, climbing on things, video games, reading (fiction, non-fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, comics...most stuff, really), writing, photography, music (who doesn't like music though?), German

• animals
• writing
• photography
• festivals
• partying
• comics
• video games
• reading
• traveling
• music
• cycling
• hiking
• rock climbing
• soccer
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Office Space, The Ladies' Man, Shaft in Africa, Kiss of the Dragon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (all 3), Napoleon Dynamite, This is Spinal Tap, Serenity, Purple Rain, Ghostbusters, Bond movies
TV: The Simpsons, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Office (both), How I Met Your Mother, Firefly, 30 Rock, Home Movies, The Wire, most stuff on Cartoon Network
Music: Blackalicious, Rage Against the Machine, New Order, Daft Punk, The Prodigy, Jay-Z, The Beastie Boys, The Beatles, The Zombies, Die Fantastischen Vier, Jurassic 5
Books: anything by Kurt Vonnegut, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Scott Adams, Mike Royko, Raphael Sabbatini, James Clavell; Grapes of Wrath

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

While I was visiting relatives in Claremorris, Ireland I saw a cow give birth. That was actually kind of excruciating, since it was much longer and more difficult than normal, and since I'm not big on blood or, y'know, child birth.

I think it was more amazing for my cousins to watch me squirm. But while that was happening and I was mostly looking anywhere else possible, I saw four --count em, four -- rainbows in a bright blue Irish sky.

Afterward, since the mother unfortunately rejected the calf (after such an ordeal, I'm not sure I can blame her), my uncle was preparing a bottle of milk for the baby. He pulled an unmarked bottle of clear liquid out from under the sink and mixed a bit with the milk. "What's that?" I asked. "Moonshine. Y' like teh tray sem?" O' course I wanted teh try sem. So we took shots of moonshine.

Teach, Learn, Share

It's always good to have something like a soccer ball, hacky sack, or bocce set wherever you go. Okay, a bocce set is usually too heavy, but these are great ways to meet strangers wherever you are, because everyone loves to play a simple, engaging game. And since I've been in Germany I've learned from a friend that a frisbee is one of the easiest and best things to travel with because of its size (thin and light), familiarity (everyone can and has thrown a frisbee before), ease of use (you can play almost anywhere), and fun-factor (throwing and catching a floating disc is what separates us from the animals, right?).

Countries I’ve Visited

Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, United States

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