Marc Watley

Current Mission: Back to the Playa - Burning Man 2010

Personal Designations

₂₁

Community Designations

United States
California
Oakland

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General Information

Marc Watley has been vouched for
VERIFIED MEMBER Identity Checked, Location Verified (3) more info
Couch available	Maybe
CouchSurf requests replied to	25%
member since	March 18th, 2005
profile views	2,797
age	43
gender	Male
membername	PEREGRINEDUO
occupation	Partner at a telecoms/IT services firm, photographer, peregrine
education	Learning more each day
grew up in	SF Bay Area, California, USA
	Direct Profile URL

Languages

English^Expert
Spanish^Intermediate
French^Beginner
Portuguese (Brazil)^Beginner

Groups I Belong To

Burning Man^5218:7311 Why: Because the Playa beckons	San Francisco^8621:30082 Why: Home :-)
Bangalore^3821:34834 Why: RETURNING to Bang 21-30 April 2009	PARIS^61557:114378 Why: Coming to Paris 4 March - 9 March 2008
Active in 28 more groups. Show them all

Couch Information

Couch Available: Maybe
Preferred Gender: Any
Max Surfers Per Night: 2

Shared Sleeping Surface: No
Shared Room: Depends

The couch (actually a very comfortable futon with linens) is in our other bedroom and is also an office. I do work from this home office (daytime hours) approximately three days per week.

IMPORTANT NOTE
Couch is not always available due to work/travel/etc, so if you're interested in surfing, please give at least two weeks' advance notice. Thanks!

--
Welcome! I live with my wife in a 2-bedroom flat in Oakland, California - just across the water from San Francisco. We have dubbed our place "The Lake House" as it is just a short block from Lake Merritt near the Oakland CBD.

We're both fun, adventurous people and enjoy hosting. We keep the Lake House full of good wine, food (we - mostly me - cook often), and music. Our schedule can be a bit crazy - we both work entirely too much, travel, and when we're here may not be able to show you around much during the day but happy to join you in the evenings.

As for location, our place is approximately 19km/12mi. from San Francisco. Easy to reach from San Francisco by train (about 15 minutes) or car. Our neighborhood (Adams Point) is safe with lots of trees, cool restaurants, shops, and people out walking dogs or riding bikes. The lake is at the end of our block and a fun place to hang out and excercise (appoximately 4.8km around). Berkeley, home of fun, strange shops, people, and the university is a short bus ride from our place.

DETAILS
2 Bedrooms, 1 bathroom, full kitchen, large family room, Internet, telephone, secured entry, coin laundry, street parking.

Friends (60)

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Map of friends

7STRINGS 31, Female Bangalore, Karnataka India Friends since April 2009 "Met " Friendship Type: Friend I vouched for Marc Watley	princess Fiori 36, Female San Francisco, California United States Friends since July 2007 "Oh. God, he is already family:) yay! (we met on the beach....then REBAR was born on the playa!yay!)" Friendship Type: Good Friend I vouched for Marc Watley ⁴
Errik Munk Tyler 30, Male Oakland, California United States Friends since March 2006 "God Friend, Buisness Associte" Friendship Type: Close Friend	Katja Smirnov 27, Female Stockholm, Stockholm Sweden Friends since July 2007 "CS parties around the city, continues dinners, phone conversations, photo shoots...I love him!" Friendship Type: Close Friend I vouched for Marc Watley ⁵
Michelle Tomkinson 33, Female Sydney, New South Wales Australia Friends since October 2005 "Marc and Min are super cool and hella funny and anyone that is from San Fran and who has great taste in music is cool in my books. I hope to meet them when they visit here later this month:)" Friendship Type: Good Friend ³⁰⁺	Gregory and Aurélie 27, Several people Echirolles, Rhone-Alpes France Friends since July 2007 "He and Mindy hosted us for two nights, enough to figure how great persons they are !" Friendship Type: Good Friend ²
CharlesABQ 28, Male Dallas, Texas United States Friends since July 2008 "SF scene" Friendship Type: CouchSurfing Friend I vouched for Marc Watley	Robert Seitzberg 29, Male Montreal, Quebec Canada Friends since August 2008 "Cs Camp at the burn in 2008" Friendship Type: CouchSurfing Friend I vouched for Marc Watley
Pablo Mendes 30, Male Berlin, Berlin Germany Friends since July 2008 "Met at CSUG, san francisco" Friendship Type: CouchSurfing Friend	AMYPRIS 40, Female Sacramento, California United States Friends since May 2008 "We met at a get-together at Dolores Park & CS Underground!" Friendship Type: CouchSurfing Friend
50 more friends

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Finally made it to the Playa! Burning Man 2007
View all 48 photos

Personal Description

Just a guy...driven by music, images, people, stories, and adventure...and wine! Trekkin' my way through the world. Bring it on!

More...

~ Facebook

CouchSurfing Experience

First couchsurfing-style experience was as a kid in the Bahamas - spent several days with a local family on a small farm in Nassau and will never forget it. I seek this type of visceral travel experience everywhere I visit.

Also logged some quality couch time in South Melbourne, Australia with our good mate, Constable Sullivan. Love ya Mad Mel!!

Interests

Friends, travel, music, photography, writing/filmmaking, food/cooking, wine, Formula 1 racing, more travel, more friends (and always more wine)

Philosophy

Smile often.
Experience everything.
Never follow.

Music, Movies, Books

Music
Thievery Corporation, Pete Tong, Ferry Corsten, Skindred, Paul Oakenfold, BT, Rage Against The Machine, Nina Simone, Tool, Jack Johnson, Outkast, Cal Tjader, Orff, Tan Dun, Gwen Stefani, Tycho, Tribe Called Quest, Tricky, Massive Attack, Faithless, Zero 7, Airlock, Common, From Monument To Masses, Madonna, Ella Fitzgerald, Celia Cruz, Panic At The Disco, Sublime, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Silversun Pickups, Notorious B.I.G., La Fin Du Monde, DJ Munk, Halou, The Pack, DJ Shadow, and on and on.

Film
Casablanca, Bladerunner, The Sheltering Sky, Lantana, Final Fantasy, Ronin, La Haine, Central Station, The Fifth Element, The Animatrix, City of God, Day Night Day Night, Jackie Brown

Web/Blogs/Rags
Wired, Cool Music Videos, SF Station, Photo District News, SFist, Suicide Girls, Benny Gold Daily, Dwell, Influx Insights, Deviant Art, Current TV, Gridskipper SF, Film Arts Foundation, FCUK Star, Caroline On Crack, Daily Candy SF, Crown Dozen, Orangette, Tech Crunch, Metropolis, Make, Jalopnik, Time Out London, 43 Things, Paperplane

Types of People I enjoy

People from everywhere who are friendly, grounded, crazy, adventurous, passionate...about anything.

Teach, Learn, Share

Wine appreciation (always learning), photography, filmmaking (learning), technology trends, travel tips, design, cooking. I also try to contribute to our CS San Francisco group and post a weekly music/events blog there.

One Amazing Thing I've Seen or Done

How about a few (via flickr) My Flickr

Opinion on the CouchSurfing.org Project

A fantastic community! I think it would be useful to include Web 2.0-style features (a la Facebook, Yelp, etc.) as it would make things like tracking couch surfing/hosting requests, group communication, and message boards a bit easier to use and more beneficial to all.

Locations Traveled

TRAVELED: Australia, England, France, India, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, The Bahamas, United States
LIVED: United States
WANTS TO GO: Antarctica, Belize, Brazil, Costa Rica, Guadeloupe, Iceland, India, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, New Zealand, Reunion, Tunisia, Uruguay
IS GOING TO: New Zealand

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What do these numbers mean?

This summary is not a replacement for reading references; it's a quick summary to help you get started. At a glance, you can see how many references a member has, and how many of them are positive, neutral, and negative.

In the second line, you'll see how many references came from people who hosted this member, surfed with them, and traveled with them. These numbers won't always add up to the total: some references are not categorized, and some may be categorized as more than one thing.

When viewing this summary, don't jump to conclusions! Things that are negative for one person may be positive for another, and vice versa. It's important to read references carefully and evaluate what that information means to you.

References (44)

44Positive
0Neutral
0Negative

0From Hosts
8From Surfers
6Traveling

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From NIGHTFELL
Bristol, England
^{Oct 4, 2011}

Positive

Marc and his lovely wife Mindy were incredibly gracious, kind and loving hosts for our few days in San Fransisco. From the moment I walked into the door - and was given a slice of pizza and a big smile - I felt welcome. Thank you both for making San Fransico that extra special for Spela and I and for being such wonderful hosts. I loved having lunch with your family and I look forward to running into you again sometime in the future. It was a real pleasure. 'Til then.

From Robert Seitzberg
Montreal, Canada
^{Jun 10, 2009}

Positive

Marc is one of those guys who is totally genuine and has a big soul for others. Can't wait for next year on the playa to see what mischief we can find to do.

From Danielle French
Calgary, Canada
^{Jun 1, 2009}

Positive

I surfed with Marc back in April when I was on tour. He was a most gracious and generous host! We became fast friends and had a great time hanging out- he came to my gig in Hayward and we made dinner and drank wine and got along famously. Can't wait to see him again at the burn!

From Vinayak Hegde
Bangalore, India
^{May 17, 2009}

Positive

We met at Mamta Kapoor's Party in Bangalore. Discovered that we worked in similar industries. It was interesting to hear his experiences from burning man.

From Ryan Boyle
Bangkok, Thailand
^{Jan 23, 2009}

Positive

I finally got to meet this gentleman briefly for breakfast in the Bay Area.. We share a lot of common interests etc. And I look forward to adding to this ref after some good times somewhere exotic or not!

From Wandering Walker
San Francisco, United States
^{Dec 11, 2008}

Positive

Marc is one of the first cornerstone folk of the Bay area CS community that I had the pleasure of meeting. He is a genuine guy, willing to offer his advice, his good humor, his time and of course…. a glass of wine… to those around him, asking nothing in return. When I grow up and figure out how to settle into my skin I will definitely be taking notes from this Cool Cat. In short… Watley is the Bomb-Diggity!! Raise that Red Wine and gimme a hip-hip-Hooray!!

From EVRIDIKI ANTONIOU
Athens, Greece
^{Nov 28, 2008}

Positive

Marc and Mindy is the best couple who I met! Happy, funny and beutiful persons.... They told me many things about California and we are like both the good food and wine!!!! The house was incredible! and I had my own room!
S.F. is beutiful city with very worthy people. Marc and Mindy I wait you here in Athens! kisses and thanks for all!!!

From SOS110
Berlin, Germany
^{Oct 14, 2008}

Positive

Funny guy! We just met at San Francisco Burning man decomp. and he was running around with his lens all over the times. His lough was always a warning about the pic he made.

From Dario Battini
Florence, Italy
^{Sep 17, 2008}

Positive

It's always a pleasure to meet wonderful photographer in a desert. After our second meeting in two Years in the same place I am pretty sure that we share the same love for the dusty people of BRC! :)

From Pablo Mendes
Berlin, Germany
^{Sep 13, 2008}

Positive

Marc and his lens are a living part of CSUG meetings in SF. Always a good chat and positive energy. I hope we have the chance to hang out more in the future!

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