I love conversation and music and nature and books and charity and the pursuit of joy and genuine friendship. My favorite thing is the crazy grin people give each other when they reach mutual understanding. I like defying stereotypes and questioning things considered normal but I'm most passionate about getting closer to a truth that I believe is completely encased in the natural world with its beauty and its suffering.

I've got a lot of experience doing software/web development. I'm hoping to transition from this skillset to something more tangible: restaurant business, home building, urban farming. I love to write, either music, stories, ideas, or a combination of these. I like to make to-do lists and check them off. I like things that are raw and genuine. I like to make people happy and I like to be humbled.

I'm a proponent of radical trust: when people tell me a certain way of interacting with strangers is categorically dangerous, I usually tell them I disagree, and so far I've been affirmed 100% of the time. My favorite way to practice this is hitch-hiking.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

There are few things more fulfilling for the actualization of a person's faith in humanity than CouchSurfing (on the traveling end or the hosting end). I love that surfing gives you memories of a person in a place and not just a place, and I love being able to continue to travel by hosting even if I'm stuck in one place.

Interests

Writing (essays, stories), music (guitar, bass, mandolin, piano, recording, production. I'd love to learn the violin). I've got stories and essays online at http://tomasroy.com

HTML/CSS development, graphic design, online applications. My portfolio is online at http://minicreative.net, and I also helped create http://roof.io

Soccer, ultimate, hiking, camping, running, canoeing

Music, Movies, and Books

The Into the Wild (Chris McCandless) story became the most valuable driving force of my youth, both Chris' triumphs and his mistakes.

Film: Waking Life, City of God, Parasite, Blue is the Warmest Color, La Belle Verte, La Haine, Dead Poet's Society, V for Vendetta

Music: Kendrick Lamar, Andrew Bird, Lomelda, Y La Bamba, Atlas Sound, Broken Social Scene, Fela Kuti, Jay Electronica, etc... any emotional gospel, jazz, bluegrass or blues, anything with violin or cello.

Literature: Steinbeck, Dostoevsky, Salinger, Baldwin, Hesse, Kerouac. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn was likely the most influential book I've read.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Took a canoe 700 miles from Minneapolis to St. Louis (was aiming for New Orleans but had an accident with barge and lost everything)

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Dominican Republic, Hungary, Spain

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