Hi,

I'm Patrick (aka Rixbear)... like so many others here, I was profoundly affected by Quinn's books. So far, I've read Ishmael, The Story of B, My Ishmael, After Dachau, Beyond Civilization, and Tales of Adam. After getting acquainted with Quinn's message, I also read Gaviotas, The Tipping Point, Guns, Germs, and Steel, parts of Endgame, and most recently, The Continuum Concept; I'm currently working on The Unschooling Handbook.

Basically, I'm an avid reader who enjoys sharing good books with others. I believe that an educated community, working together, can change the course humanity is on.

I'm also a musician; I compose in the jazz, classical, and contemporary (mostly soft-rock) styles. I enjoy singing and playing guitar and piano. Until recently, I was a member of a jazz ensemble which toured the country.

One of my most profound experiences in recent years was during a trip to Alaska (we played in Anchorage and Palmer), when my friends and I climbed several miles up Matanuska glacier in nothing but t-shirts and sneakers (no gear). Once we reached a point at which mere climbing was no longer possible, one of my compatriots pulled out a butterfly knife and began carving handholds in the wall of ice. We continued to work our way further up in elevation, at one point coming across two professional climbers in cleats... I'm not sure which of us was more surprised.

Me, during the climb:

My group, with the climbers:

Naturally, we had given no thought to getting back down, once we reached an impassable section. Our return to civilization involved a great many minor falls and injuries; all of our hands were badly shredded by one rather perilous, twenty-foot slide down the same nearly vertical section we had so easily climbed a few hours before.

To make matters worse, I had the truly brilliant idea of leaving the rest of the group during one section; walking alone over a plain of ice, I fell through a weak section into a hidden reservoir of ice-cold water, quickly sinking several feet over my head. After seconds that felt like eternities, I made it back to the surface. As I tried to climb out, the loosened ice around the area i'd fallen into kept breaking off; I almost died of panic before finally finding solid ice to climb onto.

I managed to rejoin the group, and we cut our increasingly dangerous adventure short. Fortunately, we were close to our car by this time; we ran the remaining distance, and I managed to avoid hypothermia.

For the record, I would NEVER do anything like that again. Climbing glaciers isn't for dumb city kids like me.

Nevertheless, (since I'm still alive to tell it) it makes for a good story.

P.S. Olivia (aka surrealswirls) is my girlfriend. I've been her silent partner on here for a while, but now that my brother Michael has an account as well, I thought I'd join formally.