CURRENT MISSION

I am in orbit.

ABOUT ME

I'm an engineer at a company that designs, builds, and tests airborne wind turbines -- flying contraptions that generate clean energy. In an earlier life, I worked on gravitational wave detectors, including LIGO, leading to the first detection of gravitational waves -- disturbances from colliding black holes, a billion light years away from earth.

Some things I enjoy: hitchhiking, communal living, math, bicycles, street art, reading (both novels and nonfiction), computer programming, potluck dinners, dogs, geography, the outdoors, photography, science, flying airplanes, watching art films, and learning about history and culture.

PHILOSOPHY

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I tend to go through phases of hosting and surfing, hosting when I'm settled somewhere and surfing when I'm on the road.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Couchsurfing in Yosemite national park on a trans-California hitchhiking adventure. Driving across the U.S., couchsurfing every night: in rural Virginia, in Memphis, on a queer commune in rural Tennessee, in Baton rouge, in New Orleans, in snowy Santa Fe and Alamogordo and desert Tucson. Hosting couchsurfers visiting Louisiana and Hannover has been just as delightful. Couchsurfing adds magic to any journey.

Interests

adventure, ant hill cooperative inc, avoiding my homework, being a scientist, bicycling, biking around town, cities, the center for land use interpretation, co-ops, coffee shops, cooking, cooking with my roommates, critical mass, eating, eating yummy food, electronics projects, functional differential geometry, flying airplanes and gliders, hiking, hot springs, hot tubs, physics, postcards, public transportation, reading, scheme, seismology, skinnydipping, structure and interpretation of classical mechanics, snuggling, starting a housing co-op, swimming, tag sales, thinking about physics, travel, travelling the world, watching david lynch films, writing, yummy food.

• festivals
• flying
• aviation
• mathematics
• physics
• hitchhiking
• food
• biking
• cities
• skinny dipping
• hot springs

Music, Movies, and Books

films
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Searching for Sugar Man
The Flat
Y Tu Mamá También
Mulholland Drive - David Lynch
Chinatown - Roman Polanski
Pulp Fiction - Quentin Tarantino
Mitt Liv Som Hund (My Life as a Dog)

fiction
All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt
Norwegian Wood - Murakami
Heart of Darkness
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Catcher in the Rye

non-fiction
Irons in the Fire - John McPhee
The Control of Nature - John McPhee
The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
In the Garden of Beasts - Erik Larson
Roadside Geology of Louisiana

technical
Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics

music
indie-pop
old-time americana (bluegrass)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Hiked up Mt. Sinai by starlight during the Perseid meteor shower,
worked in Alaska for a summer. One of the best summers ever!

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, Israel, Sweden, Switzerland, United States

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