CURRENT MISSION

Life is a daring adventure, or nothing.

ABOUT ME

An itinerant student (i.e. dropout), I'm spending a few months (a few years?)trying to make a lifestyle out of climbing limestone aretes, running on dirt trails, wearing wrinkled clothes for multiple days, downing multiple portions of greasy street food in single sittings, hydrating with cheap beers, reading Kindle books on overnight buses, doing as little work as possible, and dreaming of mountains to climb and oceans to jump in.

Check out my photos from this trip: http://dadengcrew.tumblr.com/

Rough plans:
Vietnam, Yangshuo, Getu Valley, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mt. Rinjani, Bali, Batu Caves.

PHILOSOPHY

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
-"The Laughing Heart" Charles Bukowski

Warum ich bei Couchsurfing bin

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Try to make a room available when I'm home. Love to meet genuine people where I go.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Hosting: St. Louis (2009), Boston (2010, 2011), Bangkok (2012)
Surfing: Boston (2010), Chiang Mai (2012), Vietnam (2012), Bali (2012), Hong Kong (2012)

Interessen

Trail running in muddy shoes (training for the Bryce 100k in May), impulsive road trips, cheap beer and expensive whiskey (or vice versa), sitting in places where you can see the mountains, rock climbing up easy pitches, scuba diving, camp-fires with friends, good coffee, walking through the rain, training for marathons the lazy way, learning how to do digital photography, contemporary American short fiction, travel literature, barbeque, doing risky things.

• books
• literature
• photography
• dining
• beer
• coffee
• bbq
• running
• walking
• clothing
• reading
• traveling
• hiking
• camping
• surfing
• scuba diving
• trail running
• rock climbing
• hitchhiking
• road trips
• mountains

Musik, Filme und Bücher

Working on Infinite Jest (kindle version) by DFW

I'm obsessed with Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower, things by Junot Diaz, and good adventure nonfiction: i.e. Eat and Run by Scott Jurek, Annapurna by Maurice Herzog, things by David Roberts and John Krakauer.

Eine tolle Erfahrung, die ich gemacht habe

I spent a month hitch-hiking with a buddy in Ladakh on the India-Pakistan border. We broke into an army base by accident but didn't get shot, rode on the roofs of buses where we almost got clipped with power lines, and ate the many bowls of daal bhaat offered by generous people along the way.

I woke up to giraffes in the morning outside a Maasai encampment, climbed Kili, did the Presi-traverse, and drove halfway across the U.S.

Still the most exciting thing for me is to sit down with a beer and fried food with somebody new that I just met.

Lehren, lernen, teilen

I can make really good scrambled eggs, the kind that you can live on for weeks if you're short on money. I can speak Mandarin (when sober)and like to listen to stories of the crazy things people have done. I can instantly tell you what tie to wear with that shirt. I can shotgun a beer in the company of friends, empty a bottle of liquor, run a few miles afterward and can walk for longer than about anybody I know.

Länder, die ich besucht habe

China, Finland, India, Israel, Kenya, Myanmar, Nepal, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, United Kingdom

Länder, in denen ich gelebt habe

United States

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