CURRENT MISSION

Settling down for a while in San Francisco

ABOUT ME

We're both originally from Northern California and we love it here! San Francisco is our home, even though it took a bit of traveling for us to realize it.

We used to do a lot of traveling... We went on a 3 1/2 month road trip around the US in our veggie-oil-fueled school bus in early 2007. After settling down in West Virginia for a year, we spent the summer of 2008 working at a fishing resort in Alaska. When the season was over, we went to Indonesia to visit a good friend for a month.

Now we've settled down again in San Francisco for the last 4 years and we have an awesome house in the outer sunset district. It fits our personalities, which are pretty laid back, and we spend a lot of time on the beach or in the park.

Wes is a drummer, a comic book fanatic & collector, and loves books, movies, video games, and dork games (Magic anyone?). He manages a hip gourmet pizza joint called Little Star.

Brandi owned a handcrafted gift shop for the last 2 1/2 years, and just left the business to start a new business called Sunshine & Succulents (www.sunshineandsucculents.com). She makes succulent terrariums and other custom plant arrangements, and teaches plant-themed workshops too. She's also a jewelry designer on the side.

PHILOSOPHY

"In a perfect world, we wouldn't need David Hasselhoff. BUT, in a perfect world, we would all be David Hasselhoff." -Beckinator's friend

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We've utilized couchsurfing a lot over the past 4 years. So much so that Brandi got a couch tattooed on her ankle...

Wes originally stayed with people in Europe in 2005 and then came back to San Francisco, where our house became a host house (back when CS was so much smaller!). We hosted around 10 groups of people in San Francisco, and stayed with or met up with at least 16 different couchsurfing hosts on our cross-country trip in 2007. Since we've been back in San Francisco, our living arrangements haven't worked out well for hosting, and with Brandi starting a few business, we haven't had money to travel. But we're still supportive of CS and can't wait to travel via couch again soon!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Our general experience is that travelers are some of the coolest people in the world. We're always ready to meet more, and of course to travel as much as possible ourselves. Our couchsurfers have been great fun, and we've had a lot of fun being couchsurfers too! We've met some of the most awesome people and had a wonderful time playing pirate games and setting off fireworks, swimming with alligators, sitting on pillows in foreign bars...

Interests

Political activism, traveling, having an all around good time, music, art, movies, comics, books, crocheting, making jewelry, sewing, being pirates, playing games, coloring with crayons, drinking beer, tattoos, eating good food, drinking good drinks, bartending, playing on the beach, gardening...

• dogs
• arts
• culture
• books
• design
• coloring
• tattoos
• dining
• beer
• drinking
• flying
• gardening
• shopping
• politics
• comics
• movies
• video games
• traveling
• magic
• music
• fishing
• hunting
• swimming
• business
• mathematics
• religion
• science
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

These lists certainly aren't all-encompassing:

Movies: The Big Lebowski, The Life Aquatic and other Wes Anderson flicks, Superbad, Harry Potter movies, Lord of the Rings, most things with Johnny Depp, Documentaries on nature and politics, etc.

Music: God Speed!, Beatles, Bob Dylan, Robert Johnson, David Bowie, Operation Ivy, Rage Against the Machine, Scott Biram, Peelander Z, Neko Case, Gogol Bordello

Books: We read pretty much everything. Both love Tom Robbins and Haruki Murakami. Wes is into a lot of the old beatnik writers. Brandi loves autobiographies and other non-fiction, especially political books. Books about pirates!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

1. Getting arrested for protesting the war (Brandi).
2. Staying in a tree house in Senmonorom, Cambodia in the middle of nowhere and being almost chased by a pack of Khmer dogs one night.
3. Watching whales and porpoises cruise by right outside the window of where we worked in Alaska.
4. Hanging out in Bali with our good friend and her wonderful 9 month old daughter.
5. We saw a flaming meteor flying through the sky last night. More than a shooting star, it was huge and burst into flames.

Teach, Learn, Share

Teaching and sharing, eh? Wes is great for conversations about philosophy, science, religion, math & the universe, the meaning of life, etc. Brandi loves to talk politics, criticize capitalism and U.S. foreign policy, and share stories of adventures in political activism in San Francisco. Oh, and we can tell you all about our vegetable oil system and how to convert a school bus into a living space. We'd love to learn more about anarchism in action- such as communal living, reclaiming streets/food/property/love. Also love to learn about Latin American culture, politics, and life. Need to practice our Spanish more, but we're a little shy about it...

Countries I’ve Visited

Aruba, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Mexico, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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