CURRENT MISSION

To try and make sure that every single day has at least *one* awesome thing happen in it!

ABOUT ME

I was born in California and lived there until I was seven before moving to Golden Bay, New Zealand to grow up. I have a strange half-breed accent somewhere between Kiwi and Californian (So people ask me where I'm from no matter where I am).

I'm friendly, easy-going, tall. I work doing development and programming and server-administration for the University of Otago Medical School in Dunedin.

In my spare time I'm either playing bass guitar in my band (currently basically a metal/rock covers band -- lots of AC/DC, Airborn, Green Day, Wolfmother and the like). I'm also trying to teach myself to sing and play acoustic (Days of the New style, I wish).

On top of that, I'm an avid (if rank-amateur) photographer, and a swing-dancer (kinda-sorta).

PHILOSOPHY

Never judge people by what they say, but pay attention to what they do, and how it affects those around them.

I don't know what happens after I die, and so the way you live your life *has* to be the thing that matters. If I can lift up the people around me, and they in turn can lift up the people around them, then measurable or not, you've made the world a slightly better place.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I guess I haven't really participated yet, but I'm about to go travelling for a few weeks and hope to be able to do some surfing -- it sounds so much better than staying in a hotel or hostel! Travelling *should* be about meeting people, not staying in empty rooms.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I'm brand-new to couchsurfing, I have many friends who have found it an amazing experience, and with my upcoming trip to Hawaii it seemed like the perfect opportunity to dive in and see what might happen. If I can go by the people I've already met who happen to be couch-surfers, than it should be awesome!

Interests

I admit it, I'm an open-source computer geek. I go to linux.conf.au every year and meet amazing people doing extraordinary things with open source and linux software development. I can geek out for hours.

Swing dancing is awesome -- I'm not great at it, but I love it when I do it, and I've met a lot of awesome people that way too!

I've dabbled in some rock-climbing in the past and found it an awesome challenge -- I am afraid of heights -- when I climb I know I'm safe but it's hard to convince your adrenalin gland of that little fact!

• singing
• dancing
• swing dancing
• traveling
• socializing
• guitar
• surfing
• rock climbing
• software

Music, Movies, and Books

I have a geeky book collection -- lots of Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman; Most of the Terry Pratchett novels; All of Neal Stephenson's stuff (my favourite book is Cryptonomicon).

I've already mentioned photography and music -- I grew up with grunge music so my tastes fall down those sorts of lines.

I love movies, sometime you want a big dumb action movie (but never as dumb as the awful Transformers 2 -- shudder). Sometimes you want tense thrillers. For some reason I seem to be on a zombie movie kick at the moment, maybe because zombies are the new pirates (although they probably smell about the same)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Oh! There was the time I dressed up as Santa Claus and was flown by helicopter to a cliffs edge, and hopped out to hand out presents to all the boys and girls at a house there, it feels weird to be in a Santa Claus suit strapped into a helicopter with no doors on it, believe me!

In 2008 I went to Europe for the first time and spent a month traveling with friends and family, one part of the trip was to travel to Malta with my sister and my mother. My mother had spent some of her childhood in Malta and it was her first time back for fifty-two years. It was awesome to explore such an amazing place, with a perspective of someone who hadn't been there in so long.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Cook Islands, France, Germany, Malta, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

New Zealand, United States

• 

•