What to blog about? Where in the world IS Jon?

My 40th birthday was to be an apex of sorts. It took place on a pretty awesome date as far as numbers go 7-7-7, pretty cool. I had just finished a pretty rigourous traveling tour. (Left me wanting more.) Skye's first year of homeschooling would be coming to a close. The mammoth backyard project was to be completed. (It wasn't and like any and all homes, the projects and upkeep never end.) I had decided to officially and forever end my quest for a college degree.(That has only opened up my mad and crazed desire to learn, and turned me into a starving student with ADD, starving for knowledge and ADD because there are so many things to learn and now with the internet, cable, a billion magazines, etc, there are countless ways to find info and learning stuff.)

Anyway, blah, blah, blah, blog blog blog, point being, after a day or so, more like a few hours of chillin and relaxing, I am back in the whirlwind. I will be writing(hopefully) more and more often, linking, exploring. Where in the world is Jon? refers not only to the physical where but also the mental and emotional where.

So where am I these days?

Cooking
Have always loved cooking and entertaining, and now with the new outdoor cooking Xanadu I've created with a wood fire pizza oven, (it cooks all sorts of things, but so far this is it, much experimenting to come), a commercial quality, kick-ass grill, with rotisserie,(again have used grill for basics, still haven't installed or experimented with rotisserie attachment) and then fresh herbs growing all over practically begging to be used. And it's summer. So come over and cook or eat

Gardening
Finally, it's mostly all planted, it's a matter of tweaking and rotating stuff in the beds. Right now all sorts and manners of thyme, basil and mints. Again come over pick stuff or just wander about picking a sprig and crushing it with you fingers and smelling and just let scent one of our underused and under appreciated senses get some exercise.

Music
Right now kind of in a wierd eclectic, hip-hop, pop, lots of covers kind of mood, open for recommendations and comments. Listening to Brother Ali, Feist, MIA, and then so many covers that I have been collecting for a while now.

Tour de France
Lance is out, retired. A lot of others are out; doping or alleged doping. Leaving a wide open race.

Basketball
Really it's about the Lakers and so goes the question, Kobe what the f--k is up? And I plan to dunk withing 6 months, mark my words.

Traveling
I have Nicaragua to tend to and that's cool. I mean I love spending time down there. But investment-wise, Mammoth is beginning to really call to me, but Croatia has my heart and Turkey intrigues the heck out of me.
Then there are the new Seven World Wonders

THE NEW 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD
The New7Wonders organization is happy to announce the following 7 candidates have been elected to represent global heritage throughout history. The listing is in random order, as announced at the Declaration Ceremony on 07.07.07. All the New 7 Wonders are equal and are presented as a group without any ranking.
The Great Wall, China	Petra, Jordan	Christ Redeemer, Brazil	Machu Picchu, Peru
Chichén Itzá, Mexico	The Roman Colosseum, Italy	The Taj Mahal, India

Homeschooling
School may be out but I am so intrigued about learning, education, homeschooling, the politics, the way we learn, how we grow, etc. It's help mold my world outlook, which was already way out of the box.

Misc stuff; AKA what life throws at you
Currently, Steve(17) and Patrick(20), sons to my very good friend from Miami, Florida, starting way back on True Lies, and Speed 2 and GI Jane and more, Michael Calabrese are staying with us looking at SoCal as where they'll end up because this is the skimboarding mecca. Yeah so I learned about skimboarding and it looks pretty cool. So you learn and get introduced to all kinds of things if you leave it open