CURRENT MISSION

Enjoy our stay, help others enjoy theirs, leave it a better place. The world, that is.

ABOUT ME

Mike is an Information Technology Manager in the San Francisco Bay Area. Kathy organizes garden tours that demonstrate natural, low-impact, wildlife- friendly gardening techniques. We like hiking, reading, and being active in our community. We have an 8 year old homeschooled son who likes baseball and swimming in mountain rivers.

PHILOSOPHY

We are not religious, but enjoy exploring questions that religion often tries to address.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We are new to CouchSurfing and are just learning the ropes. We hope to stay with someone in Washington DC for our first CouchSurfing activity.

Interests

Hiking, backpacking, international travel (Indonesia, Holland and Italy as a couple, many more countries for Kathy, who spent 3 years between Australia and New Zealand, and 3 more years in the Caribbean), US travel, local and regional history, gardening with native plants, family history research, biking, motorcycling, Macs.

• animals
• wildlife
• education
• gardening
• technology
• reading
• traveling
• cycling
• hiking
• backpacking
• surfing
• baseball
• swimming
• teaching
• history
• religion
• tours
• rivers

Music, Movies, and Books

Music - wide range of genres, most from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and from Tom Petty to John Denver to Jimmy Buffet to Neil Young to classical.
as a family we recently have gotten into Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas (e.g. Pirates of Penzance) with our son.
Books - Kathy loves reading non-fiction, and has recently enjoyed "The Bounty" (about the mutiny on) by Caroline Alexander, and "The Tale of the Whale Ship Essex" by Nathional Philbrick. We both enjoyed "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

While surfing in California some years back I noticted that a distraught father had swam deep into the Pacific Ocean surf after his two sons, and was now himself in trouble. Using my surfboard, I (Mike) gave him something to hold onto and paddled us back to shore. In the end, all three made it OK.
Kathy saw Haley's Comet in Australia from an island on the Great Barrier reef, when the full moon went into eclipse and the comet blazed in the suddenly and unexpectedly dark night sky.

Teach, Learn, Share

Mike is familiar with pollutants in the San Francisco Estuary; he has worked for a non-profit that monitors pollutants in animals, water, and sediiments for the past 15 years. Kathy is an environmental educator, and she currently coordinates a garden tour that encourages people to consider gardening with native plants. In 1997 she received the National Wetlands Award, and in the fall of 2007 she will receive the National Wildlife Federation's Conservation Award for Education.

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