CURRENT MISSION

Getting my bike to my Uncles house in Chicago. Meeting new Friends along the way.

ABOUT ME

I love laughter. I think I must be kind of a funny guy because I laugh at myself all the time. I can see humor in almost anything. I've laughed at death. I've laughed at the absurdity that is life at times. I've laughed in the throes of passion. I laughed a lot these past eight years and most of that wasn't funny at all. A good laugh is a very honest and true expression. It's beneficial and healthy. They say laughter is the best medicine, well, I don't know who "They" are but I agree whole heartily and prescribe daily to their remedy. I know as long as I can laugh about it, life is still worth living. I'm very thankful for my sense of humor twisted as it may be, but it's gotten me this far.

PHILOSOPHY

Live and let Live. Judge not lest You be Judged. And the whole "Do unto others..." thing. I mean really, Who would of Jesus waterboarded?
And my own favorite for driving in Alaska during our dark winter months...If I go fast enough I will drive pass the moose before he can step out in front of me. Which is really more of an excuse than a philosophy but it has worked for me thus far.

Pourquoi je suis sur Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Right now,just trying to keep at least some of those empty couches warm in-between surfers.

Centres d'intérêt

• dogs
• painting
• cycling
• camping
• medicine

Morceaux de musique, films et livres

Every kind of music. From the Beatles to Zepplin.

Une aventure extraordinaire que j'ai vécue

Last year was pretty amazing, all in all. It was the best I had felt in years physically speaking. So I decided early on that I would ride, my motorcycle, hard and do some tent camping to see if my body was up to the challenge. I'd been dreaming of riding my bike to the 48 states. Little did I know that it would turn out to be one of the coldest and rainest summers on record. (Man makes plans and God laughs.) Well, I put over 4000 miles on my bike riding from Fairbanks to Ninilchik and everywhere in-between. During which I had occassion to remind myself that I needed to slow down while driving in the rain especially when pulling a fully loaded trailer. On July 24 I learned that lesson the hard way. Riding in a light rain doing about 65 I came upon a 45 mph corner that I had negotiated many times before but when I geared down this time, due to the extra weight I was carring and the trailer that was pushing me, the bike didn't slow as much as I was expecting. By the time I realized it I was in the corner, leaning hard, swinging wide and going too fast. When my tires hit the wet paint strip, on the shoulder of the road, they lost traction and I slid about two feet closer to the guard rail before they grabbed again. This changed my whole angle of attack and for an instant prior to impact I knew what was coming. So I recommitted to my lean and I stayed on the throttle as I bounced off the guard rail for about 110 ft. at 50+mph. Surprisingly I drove off the guard rail and for fraction of a second I thought to myself, I'm going to drive out of this. Then I hit the wet paint strip again. Still in a hard lean this caused the front end to slip out from under me and go into a severe wheel wooble tossing me almost instantly to the pavement. As the bike slammed over on it right side it tail whipped the trailer which popped me in the back as it went by flipping it on its side. This threw the dog carrier, that was attached to the top of the trailer, and my dog, Mya, over the guard rail and spread my camping gear across all three lanes of the Glen Hwy. Amazingly and almost unbelievably Mya didn't have a scratch on her even though her carrier ended up in about a hundred pieces. I walked away with only a couple of minor bumps and bruises and some new battle scars for my leathers. My rain pants were shredded both from sliding on the pavement and from rubbing up against the guard rail with my right leg. As for the bike, believe it or not, I drove it the last 5 miles to my friends property that day and home the next day, 75 miles. There was over $3500 damage to the bike but only three weeks and $2500 later it was ready to roll again. I didn't repair all the damage. I wanted to leave some reminders. A month and a half after the accident Mya and I were on our way to the 48s. By the end of Oct. I had racked up another 4000+ miles and we had made it to sunny San Diego Ca. And yes, of course, I have learned to slow down, especially in the rain.