CURRENT MISSION

i am currently on a mission dealing with bicycles

ABOUT ME

i'm just fantastic. how are you?

PHILOSOPHY

my personal philosophy at the present moment is to never use capital letters unless whatever i am writing is actually going to be published.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

details, details! hmmm... ok, so...

so what would you do if you found out on wednesday that you would be in a different town on monday?

very suddenly i find that i will be taking a trip to southern oregon. i remember a friend of mine who was going to go somewhere who was scanning through this site, so, this morning, i found the site and signed up. since i have only been a member for about five minutes, i will not have time to add lots of friend testimonials or pictures or my life story or what-have-you. there are lots of that, or at least lots of pictures of me and friends whatnot, on my myspace page, which is: www.myspace.com/donheironymouslaslo, and really, there are plenty of pictures there, so copying all of those pictures over to here seems sort of silly and redundant, even if i had the time. so if you are the person who might be at all interested in releasing the couches, you certainly should go there and check that out.

oh wait, this site already has a box that links up to that doesn't it? ok then, there you go. anyway:

so, a couple days ago i saw that a last minute spot in a class (with a year-long waiting period) opened up in a bicycle-mechanic school in ashland, oregon, and so i jumped at the opportunity, so apparently i will be in ashland on monday, maybe in a motel, maybe in a hostel, maybe in my car, maybe on somebody's couch.
yikes!

anyway, if i find somebody on this site in ashland to send a message to, or whatever, i want to at least say that i will be a nice couch-hopper, er, couch-surfer (ooh, i wonder if there's another site called couch-hopper.org. no, wait, i'm already running out of time) and not leave dishes in the sink and i will be respectful of stuff and pay for food. and i might be able to fix your bike.

i'm sure i will add more to this box as i figure out how this site works...

--- --- ---

ok, after running some more errands in preparation for the trip, and fighting lots of traffic, i'm back to add more words. after reading through some of the pages on this site, it mentions repeatedly that cutting-and-pasting to get the message out to as many people as possible is not a good idea, so i will just write as much as i can here, and then send shorter little messages out, since i should probably try to send out as many messages as possible, since this is all so last minute, i may or may not get any responses anyway. if i run out of room here, i will just continue it onto a blog page on my myspace.

i am from tacoma, which is, of course, not some crazy far-distant part of the planet, so from your perspective i'm not really some traveller from some foreign land as it were. but for me it kinda is a big deal, since it has been a while since i have gotten to go to someplace new, so it would be nice to be able to check out the town with some people that know their hometown the way i know mine, which is to say, thoroughly. that being said, the flipside of the coin is that i expect/hope these classes to be pretty intense, and so the best option in that regard would be somewhere that is not a household "party central", but somewhere which is more like everybody-gets-up-early to go do their work or classes or whatever.

the school is united bicycle institute, their page is www.bikeschool.com.

i also may try to find something to write about for my friend's magazine, apparently it is a real magazine now and you can find it at border's books and everything, it deals with beer and wine and soda pop and nightclubs and whatnot. i'm really not very hip and not much of an expert on any of those things, except perhaps from a perspective of sheer quantity throughout the course of my life, in which case i would be some sort of expert, but i think the whole point of his mag is that one doesn't have to be an expert on any of those things to enjoy them or learn something about them. or the point of his magazine is "any excuse to party" which is also a valid sentiment. either way it gives me some sort of official excuse to explore. if i have the time.

the class is two weeks long, but i would not necessarily expect that i could stay at any one place, or your place for the whole two weeks. even a day or two might help.

i am a somewhat shy person, at least in regards to people that i don't know, so i will state for the record that the whole couch-surf concept is a little more bon vivant than i might normally tend, but it seems like it might be worth a shot. and if not for a couch it might still be worth it for a "coffee or drink" to find someone to show me the town. ok then.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

couchsurfing experience...

Interests

music, the world, bicycles, people, cooking, knitting machines, cool blinky lights. magnets.

• writing
• books
• dining
• cooking
• wine
• beer
• coffee
• running
• partying
• drinking
• reading
• blogging
• knitting
• music
• piano
• cycling
• boxing

Music, Movies, and Books

kurt vonnegut, his short stories are just so good. right now i am reading faulkner's "the sound and the fury" and, honestly, not really loving it yet. but perhaps is gets all fantastic at the end.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

i have actually been to giza and inside the great pyramid. it is not very spectacular inside, since they moved all of the treasures and whatnot to the museum, so it is just an empty room. still, pretty cool. there is probably a lot if i think about it. i will write more into this box later...

Teach, Learn, Share

Teach, learn, share? hmmm... oh yeah, i teach piano lessons. also i feel it is necessary to somehow incorporate the word esoteric into this comment, since this box seems to be asking me for some description of esoteric knowledge. er, lots of stuff. really.

Countries I’ve Visited

Egypt, France, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States