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

Let the pictures tell the story

The Guests arrive

Richard and Jackie brought along the possibility of a double birthday.

And more pics and guests..........

40th Party Pre and First Guests

I was up late creating these flower arrangements and then up in the morning doing some final touches. Not the best equation for making it through a party that was supposed to start at noon and go into the night. Oh well, I've overextended myself on more than one occasion.











And then the guests started arriving and helping out in last minute party prep and presentation. Thanks Rusty.

And some guests coordinated perfectly with the decor.

One Final Goodbye to Paris

We had almost crossed off every "must see" in our "relaxing" vacation, two weeks of museum immersion and had Sunday and Monday left. What to do? Relax, sit at a cafe or park or race around and check some more things off the "must see" list. Off to the Paris Opera
another absolutely amazing sight, and another one that we breezed through all to quickly. But not to quickly to miss out on some unique moments. Like when a group of American tourist entered, and one exclaimed, "Oh my goodness, it looks just like the one in Las Vegas." For me personally, one amazing discovery was turning a corner and coming upon this bronze statue. Years ago when I was on the set dressing crew of Coppola's Dracula the sculptors on the show had made a duplicate of this in green foam and then the scenics had of course worked their magic on it. Stuffed in a shoe box somewhere is a photo of it that I had taken. I was in my early twenties when I was on that show and it had left an impression, particularly that statue. So many years later seeing it in Paris brought a lot of memories of youth back.


Then off to the Natural History Museum of Paris
which was other worldly and by the time we made it there we could barely walk. And there was a lot of walking and many stairs and we saw the space and we walked around, but we could barely appreciate it.



We started our Paris adventure having a wonderful dinner with a Randa, friend from Los Angeles who has relocated to Paris. So it was a perfect bookend to have one of our last meals with her. We had an amazing dinner at an Algerian restaurant. It was crowded. There was a long line to wait for a table. A fight almost broke out with a group of Japanese who were also vying for the same table. They would end up at the second half of the table minutes later and Skye being the diplomat she is had the whole table taking pictures of each other. We didn't end up sharing one another's food, but our conversations ended up intertwining in a lovely and organic way.

All in all it was a perfect ending for our Paris experience.

The next day was all about shopping and after buying a beautiful chef's coat, we headed down to E.Dehillerin.
It's an amazing kitchen utensil shop with shelves and shelves of pots and pans and all sorts of amazing cookware that has been around since 1820. I was in heaven, and bought or should I say brought a little bit home with me. And finally a dinner in a cafe around the corner from where we were staying, just the three of us.



Photo by Skye

I'M 40!!!!!!! CRISIS AVERTED

THE PARTY

"But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes, " Awww!" On the Road Jack Kerouac

I read that line when I was 15. It has stuck with me since. I carried around on a index card for years, folded and refolded shoved in my pocket. It's posted on my bulletin board at 2 o'clock from computer screen. And last night, forty years into what has become an almost magical journey, I "shambled after" and with my "mad" friends, some who have been there with me since I read that in high school, which is amazing to be able to say and some I met just last night. Some are older, some are younger; some are married, some single; some with kids; some without. But all were essential for the recipe that made my fortieth birthday, my most special and beloved to date. My "crisis" has always been that I am "desirous of everything at the same time". And several times at the party as things; people, conversations, kids, food, drink, fun, were swirling around like whirling dervishes, I felt at peace, in the eye of the hurricane, my perfect storm. At one point I looked out over the balcony, first down by the pool, my high school buddies kids swimming with my daughter, I saw all the plants and stones I planted and placed, then turned and looked as another longtime friend went back and forth between the grill with bratwurst cooking and then the wood fired oven, never been tested up til now, trying to stoke a fire up to 900 degrees. And then I glanced over to where another high school buddy and his pregnant(as in due any moment) wife sat reconnected with other old friends and my lovely wife. And scanned all the people that make my life so rich, and smiled and realized how I had "everything at the same time."

Versailles, carnival, 10th year anniversary, family reunion, and gay parade, oh my!!!!

On Wednesday after Skye and Cindy did the Luxemborg Garden tour(Skye's favorite spot on the vacation, fun swings and slides and usually American girls her age), Cindy and I went out. Cindy had arranged a babysitter from the States via Craig's list, the miracles and conviences of the internet. We had an adult night out, finally. We had an amazing meal at Le Dome du Marais, nice wine, impeccable service, yummy, yummy food. Amazingly our 10th year anniversary dinner lived up to the hype. Granted at this point a night out alone at McDonald's would've probably satisfied us. But no really, we had an amazing meal, eating things we normally don't, roast duckling and lamb and a couple of desserts.(Maybe we should eat these things more often). Then we hit the Absinthe Cafe and had a very nice Absinthe, Francois Guy in a public place. It was very much fun to have the fountain and spoons and all in Paris. Wonderful night.

Versailles
Off we go to Versailles, slightly tainted because currently they are undergoing restoration on the entrance, so a little less awe inspiring. ***Need to speed up blog, family getting restless*** The tourist lines are growing, we are noticing. We check out the gardens, and the grounds, find a time when the lines die down, cruise through the house. Oh my God, what excess, what a lot of a lot and then more some. All in all pretty remarkable. Back to the gardens and fountains, (my biggest interest in the tour) We rented a row boat and cruised up and down the grand canal, really more like sputtered and janked to one end and then splashy floppy back. Skye took a turn at the oars and did surprisingly well.

Musee D'Orsay and the Luxemburg Gardens, again

We made it out a decent hour and hit the last big musuem on the list, Musee D'Orsay. Now this time we had prepped Skye in advance. At another Musuem's bookstore we found a kid's guide to the D'Orsay and so we did a little learning in advance and it made all the difference in the world. It was a really incredible experience, imagine that. Yes, I sound jaded, I'm not a huge arts and musuem fan, although invariably I get into it once I get there. And there are what like a bazillion musuems, churches, historic sites etc in Paris. So while I don't want to "miss" anything I also want to appreciate what I'm seeing. This sentiment probably goes 5 times more for Skye and maybe a half dose to Cindy. Anyway on top of all that's usually there an amazing tempory exhibit with lots of Van Gough,(my fav), Gauguin, Degas, Cezanne and wonderful film with Renoir. Then off to the park for Skye's entertainment. Cindy split off to Le Centre Georges Pompidor for some more musuem, modern this time.

Rodin, Medivel times, a reunion, a carnival and a gay parade, what a day
I finally went for a jog, almost killed me. And hour up to the L'arche de Triomphand back. And then winding down on the musuems, off to see Rodin. It was perfect, small, one artist, a lovely garden to stroll in, very, very nice. Then off to see a Medievel garden at Musee national du Moyen Age. After a pleasant stroll down St Germain, lots of cool shops and then, almost there and the gay parade, a huge gay parade blocked our way, literally. We were within a minute of crossing the road but did not make it. It wasn't such a delay. We checked out the musuem, saw the very famous unicorn tapestries and then...didn't get to see the garden. You see they were around the corner, on the route of the gay parade and were locked up. Oh well let's check out the parade.

And then off to see Cindy's cousin, but first a little of a carnival on the way, that was quite an impromtu.

Back to cousin, Michael Huston who happened to be in Paris, like he happened to be in Paris around 29 years before, in between they'd only seen each other a couple of time. Amazing the drifts and reconnections in life. Add to that, after dinner Guiness at Carr's Irish bar. Wow!!

And then back to the carnival, .....