Thoughts Too Large to Post Elsewhere

You’ve created your profile and you are excited to use CouchSufing to help you achieve your first trip, but how on earth are you supposed to find you first couch? Hopefully this tutorial will help.

Step 1: Your Destination

The first thing you need to do is tell the CouchSearch system where it is that you want to go. If you look up at the top of the website, you’ll see the CouchSurfing header

which features (from left to right) the word “CouchSurfing” (clicking that will take you back to your default Place Page; the nearest metro area to where you call home), a house in a square (clicking that will take you back to your default Place Page; redundancy), a box that asks you “Where would you like to go?”, a big blue button that says “Surf”, and a bunch of other things we don’t need to use at the moment.

We are going to focus on putting our destination in to the search bar that asks, “Where would you like to go?”. For the purposes of this demonstration, I am going to assume that we are going to Toronto, ON, Canada.

So, in doing so, this

becomes this

and all that remains is to click the big blue “Surf” button.

Step 2: How Many People?

On the next page, you are greeted with your destination’s Place Page.

The thing that you want to do on this page is specify the number of people you have in your traveling party. Resist the urge to ask for a couch in conversations.

Instead, click on “Any”

and select the number of people in your traveling party.

Then click “Go!”

Step 3: Get Specific

On the next page, you are greeted with a view of the map of the area you wish to surf, as well as a seemingly endless list of CouchSurfers in the area.

However, not all are hosts and not all are who you want to stay with, so the next task is specificity. To achieve this, scroll down

until you find the left hand side of the page showing additional options.

There are lots of options you may wish to select, but you have to do it one option at a time. For now, I’m going to focus on the most important option: “Find: Locals”.

Click it and wait for the list to repopulate.

Step 4: Select a Potential Host

Here is our repopulated list:

For demonstration purposes, I am going to pretend to want to stay with this guy.

Perhaps I read his “About” and found it succinct and I enjoyed it. Perhaps not. At any rate, he’s the host I want. So I click on his name, and it takes me to his profile page.

Step 5: Send a CouchRequest

On this page, I make sure that I thoroughly read both his profile  and couch information to make sure that we are a good fit. Once I am sure, I click on the orange/white button that says “Send CouchRequest to …”

and so should you. Up pops a form {not pictured} that I fill out and then hit “Submit”.

Step 6: Back Pat Time

Pat yourself on the back. You’ve correctly requested a couch.

Step 7: Send More

Unless you are one of the extremely rare and extremely lucky individuals who get accepted by your first host, you will need to send multiple CouchRequests. Rather than having to redo the entire search, simply click on “Back to Search Results”

to return to the search list and find other hosts to target.

Oh no! Someone is looking for a couch in the Place pages! That simply won’t do. What to do?

Well, you could post a comment explaining what they need to do as well as including links. That would be very thoughtful of you. And a lot of work on your part. But did you know that CouchSurfing already has a tutorial ready to be sent out that simply needs to be triggered? It has links, text, photos, and everything you would have typed. So you can be helpful without having to devote a portion of your day to doing so.

Only … it is hidden.

So, how can we find it? Well, let’s start with what you see when you look at a CouchRequest post. Notice the yellow circled area. It is blank.

If you hover your mouse over the post (anywhere on it, really), something appears in the outlined space.

Depending on what fonts you have installed on your computer, it could be this down-facing triangle in a circle (from the public library computer) or it could be (as is on my personal computer) a Chinese character, or it could be something else entirely. But it should appear. If you click on the newly-appeared thing, you see a drop down list. Click on “Flag this Post”.

From there, it asks the type of flag you would like to give. “CouchRequest” is the first option. Flag it as such.

As soon as two, separate people have flagged a CouchRequest post as a CouchRequest, the person who made the post receives the helpful tutorial to his/her email and CouchMail.

Work smarter, not harder!

Did you enjoy your vanilla extract? Pretty awesome difference in taste between that which actually involves Madagascar vanilla beans and the mostly-sugar stuff from the grocery store, right?

Wouldn’t it be great to have another bottle?

Well, now you can!

Participate in Jen’s Vanilla Extract Bottle Recycling/Refilling Program by returning your empty extract bottle to her in advance of The Holidays. Then, await your next batch of home-brew!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I happen to have a bunch of other bottles lying around my house that range in size from 1 oz to 4 oz. Would you be interested in them in addition to getting the original vanilla extract bottle back?

A: Yes! The more bottles the merrier!

Q: Your labels are downright awful. I could do a better job.

A: Then, by all means, please do. My skill is in the creating of the vanilla extract, not in the creation of artistic labels. Help me gift you!

bustygirlcomics:

Busty Girl Comics is having a Giveaway!

As a thank you to my wonderfully awesome fans and an incentive to me to get Vol. 2 out in a reasonable time frame, I’m going to give away a few prizes! I’ll announce the winners on September 15th, when I’ll also be premiering Vol. 2.

Prizes:

• …

bustygirlcomics:

A rebloggable version of my busty biffle’s rant was requested :D

This is feedback to the fine folks over at Blacking it Up (part of the This Week in Blackness family) for episode #24 of AfterBlack. Why so late? I work and so I have to download episodes once a week and listen whenever I’m not working. Sorry for the lateness, but I know you’ll like listening!

@BlackingItUp #223 As a former high school teacher, sometimes financial motivation is the ONLY way to get a parent to see what a misbehaving or unprepared child they have. This is not to say that untied shoes should be receiving a fine, but some parents are blind to the fact that their children never have homework done, something to write with (in which case a fine is simply to recoup financial losses of providing a writing utensil to that kiddo) or keep their insubordination at a low level below that of something major but still disruptive and undermining of teacher’s authority and ability to teach in the classroom. Clearly, this is a minority of parents, but in my six years of teaching public high school, I met a handful of them.

A mini-rant on the popularity of “Someone Like You” by Adele and the fact that despite all the discussion about the song, NO ONE POINTED OUT THE CRAZY that is the lyrics. Seriously, we are lauding a song about stalking, inability to let go, lying, and desiring to break up a marriage? No wonder we are a messed up world.

A personal singing of one of my absolute favorite songs by C. Morrison. I like the way I sing it {more celtic} than the version he does {more Spanish}.

One of my absolute favorite bluegrass songs, ever!