This Blog Has Moved!!!

Because my brother is awesome, I have been set up with a blog on my
own domain. Please visit www.unusualperspective.com for all the
latest.

Where in the world is Jonny San Diego?

So the plane tickets are bought, and the leave request chit (military
thing) is being routed. I am traveling a lot in the future... First,
my trip back to CT on or around 03Aug. Next, California for Trevor
and Sarah's wedding. I will be flying into and out of San Diego on
29Aug and 05Sep. This trip will include LA on 01Sep for the wedding,
San Jose and San Francisco 02-04Sep and back to San Diego to fly back.
Next on the agenda... A bachelor party at Octoberfest. But since I
was going to Germany anyway, I decided to go a week early to backpack
in Spain and Switzerland... So that trip is 20Sep-2Oct. Finally, I
need to move back to San Diego, so I will take about a week to drive
cross country with all my stuff in mid Dec, with the goal of being
home by christmas. For those of you who are visual learners like me,
here it is in ilustrated form:

New Experiences

So this morning, I took a pontoon boat up the "GTMO River". It is
just a river about a mile long (the part we are allowed to drive up).
On the cuban side, they have a meat packing plant that releases animal
products into the river, so its a great place to watch for fish, shark
and manatee... and today I saw my first and second manatee. Well, to
be honest, I just saw the back and tail of the manatee, but still
better than nothing. It was cool. The river is lined with mangrove
trees, which is quite unique. It basically looks like a huge pile of
pickup-sticks with leaves... completely unpassible if you tried to
walk through it. But all those branches make for good fishing. Too
bad I am not much of a fisherman.

Below are a few pictures from down here for you all to enjoy:

Waiting for a pull.

Playing on the wake. Windmills in the background. It's a tough life, but someone has to do it.

Scuba Diving... and picking up trash.

Angel Fish.

A "Bananna Rat" aptly named after the shape of their turds... for you Princess Bride fans, this must be the inspiration for ROUS's.

OC off to an early lead!!!

In today's news... friends, family and strangers are pulling for Jonny
King to move to Orange County. That's right, as of now, there are 11
votes for Orange County. I'll tell you what, if I ever run for a
public office, Trevor is going to be my campaign manager. The offical
tally is to the right. I am hoping more people vote for playa del
carmon, that sounds nice. haha.

This vote has actually got me in contact with a lot of friends I
haven't talked to in a while, so I am already glad to be putting this
on. For everyone that reads this blog, thanks.

So I am working on my photo website now which I expect a working
version to be up and running in a week or two, and its amazing how
horrible I am at web design now. At one time, I was actually pretty
good. I suppose its a matter of dusting off the rust and putting in
the time to doing it.

Speaking of rust, I already finished one of my goals. I went to the
junkyard, got in good with the jamacians (all the workers in
guantanamo bay are either jamacian or philipino. They are called TCNs
or Third Country Nationalists.... Basically contractors pay them like
$2.00 an hour and can get away with it, because the contract is made
in thier country of origin.) and found a mid 80's chevy with similar
door handles, so I pried one off, and slapped it on mine. Easy fix,
and free. It was actually fun working on the car too. I have a bad
feeling that something bad is going to happen to my '86 Cavalier, so I
may sell it soon while there is still value left in it. I will take a
picture of my car and post it tomorrow so you all can enjoy the
quality.

This weeks Goals and a Vote for where I will live.

Hello All... I am going to piggyback off of my sister's blog, and
upload goals every monday to be accomplished by the next monday. So
here are this weeks goals:
1) Fix the door handle on my "GTMO Special" (what they call cheap cars
down here... which by the way aren't so cheap)
2) Get a working version of my blog up and running on
unusualperspective.com. (I have owned this domain for a year now, and
its time for me to do something with it.)
3) Organize and backup my Photos (going on 40 gigs of photos.)

I would put stuff up here like financial, and job research, but I have
already made good progress on these issues recently, so I will put up
specific goals as they come along.

So I have told many people the reasons I love GTMO (Scuba Diving,
Wakeboarding, Surfing, The fact that it isn't Groton...) but there are
a few things that I don't like, and these are the reasons I know I
couldn't say for long. I miss friends and family. (Sorry, dont mean
to get to mushy here.) My brother and Sister-in-law just had a kid,
my third niece, Makayla. I saw a picture for the first time just
now... and my mom says its a beautiful baby (is it bad that I just
refered to her as "it"... I won't be ready for kids for about 10
years), but all I know of infants is they are either ugly, or really
ugly, and she is definately just ugly. Congrats Jeff and Alison. I
miss you guys and owe you some babysitting time as an uncle (so long
as I can have grandma do the changing of the diapers.) I also was
talking to a good friend I haven't talked to in a long time, Danielle.
I realized its been too long since I have really been around friends
I truely love. Especially my old roomates, Trevor, Jon and Kevin.
Those guys are like family to me. Trevor is a latecomer in the battle
of "Where will Jonny live?" He has proposed Orange County,
specifically Irvine. Who knows where I will end up, but the idea of
orange county is growing on me. I should set up a poll...

OK, this is how it will work, Email me: JBKing14@gmail.com Subject:
The Epic Battle over Jonny's whereabouts. Any one person gets 1 vote.
This poll will close the night of Sunday the 21st and I will post
results on monday.

Your options are:
1)San Diego.
2)Orange County.
3)Bay Area. or
4)Write-in: _________.

Although you can only vote once, you are encouraged to write friends
of mine and ask them to vote (and tell them how kick-ass my blog is).
:o) This should be fun.

Next blog, I will try to get more pictures up for you all.

Wanna know how I am old?

I am old because I saw Trading Places on Comedy Central, and stopped
to watch it. (And because I knew that its name was Trading Places)

I am old because I remember watching the challenger shuttle explode on tv.

I am old because my sister no longer enjoys Saki Bombs.

I am old because I often complain about my aching knees.

I am old because I just bought a documentary on Christian Hsoi. (Christ Air)

On a good note, I am going to be an uncle x4 today (or so I am told).
I am also over half my way done here in GTMO. Time has flown. I
actually love it down here, but I will enjoy the last few months in CT
as well.

The passing of a close friend.

Yesterday, I lost a very close friend... My camera. For the past 3
years, I had a Canon 10D. It was a beautiful camera, and I it went
everywhere I did. I sold it to a friend who is exited about taking
great sports photos and I couldn't justify keeping two cameras... Oh
ya, I bought a Canon 5D. If the 10D was a Ford, the 5D is a BMW. So
to be completely honest, I don't miss my old camera all that much
because I have a new baby.

Oh, by the way, this is a trait that I inherited from my father as
well. When I (we) get involved in a hobby, I always find a way to get
top of the line equipment. In my short life, I have upgraded my
camera systems a total of 5 times. Since high school, I have owned 9
cameras (that I can remember). Some might call this an obsession, but
it is my longest and most rewarding hobby that will surly last a
lifetime. What is on the horizon in my photography endeavours? In
early 2008, I am going to start selling photos at art shows, and
hopefully on my website jonathan-bryan.com (nothing is there yet).
After that, maybe video. I have been interested in making videos for
a long time now, but I will have to save up to start that. I will own
a video camera when I start having kids though... that is a promise I
have made myself already... but luckily for my wallet, that is still
wayyy down the line seeing that I haven't found a *baby-maker yet.

I miss my family, especially my **nieces and nephew. I am currently
doing a job search, and have found many excellent job opportunities in
northern California, and one great job in Hawaii... See if i move to
California, I will be close to family, but if i move to Hawaii, I will
be in Hawaii (and it will give an excuse for family to visit me). So
what do I do? Of course everything I do will depend on finding the
right job, but I am getting closer and closer to figuring out what it
is I want to do.

OK, I think that is enough random thoughts for now.

***JonnyKing, OUT!

*Taking applications now. Serious inquiries only please.
**a new one due any minute now!
***If you get this reference, stop watching American Idol.

I picked up ANOTHER one of my dad's traits...

I love my dad... and in all honesty he is a great role model. But
there is one trait he has that I swore I would not pick up... making
lists. Everything in my childhood was "Make a list, then check it
off" and until recently, I saw no value in it. There are many reasons
I have resigned to this tactic. First, I am quickly coming up on a
big career transition in my life: Leaving the military for a more
normal existance. Along with this comes a job search, 2 moves, the
prospect of buying a house and making sure I am set financially. All
this is on top of my (well overdue) active social life. Second,
reading my sisters Blog, she has a list of weekly goals, something I
will start posting on mondays as well. Third, I just started reading
an excellent book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
At first, I thought it was a book about how to be successful in the
buisness world, but quickly realized its a book on how to be a
successful human. This book has made me realize things about myself
that I would have never thought of before and even though it doesn't
specifically mention lists (at least so far in my reading) I have
already began to prioritize what is important in my life, and how to
achieve said priorities... the easiest tool: Lists. On today's list:
Call Comcast (trying to straighten out finances which I thought was
taken care of 2 years ago. Alter and distribute pictures to people
who asked for them. Read another chapter of the book, and write an
entry in my blog. One of 4, almost done.

On a different note, I have at least 3 weddings of awesome people
coming up that I am exited to attend. First, Trevor and Sara in
October. Then Jeff and Julie in November and lastly, but not leastly,
Christine (San Diego raised) and her fiance (a Submarine Officer...)
sometime next year, July I think.

Conservation and me...

Politics does not interest me. With startling few exceptions,
politicians are out for what will advance them polically, economically
or socially. Because of this, I tend to pick my candidates not
because I like them, but for the issues for which they stand (aka,
which lobbiests that control them...) The lesser of evils. This may
be a pessimistic view, but one that I think is close to reality. That
being said, this blog isn't about politics, but a topic that does
interest me, and to a large degree has shaped my political
preferences: Conservation.

It has always been my goal to continually better myself. I am a man
driven by convictions, and after watching An Inconvenient Truth
(www.climatecrisis.net) the topic of Global Warming struck me to the
core. Its hard to not think about this daily while living in
Guantanamo Bay... There are four windmills on the hillside between my
room and the ocean, a constant reminder to me that we need to harness
renewable energy on a massive scale. This issue is bigger that what
is best for the earth, I have become passionate about this issue
because it is also what is best for mankind as a whole. Not only do
we have the opportunity to develop and harnass clean energy, but we
will lessen our dependance on oil and coal in the process. With the
political world as volitile as it is, we simply can not depend on
foreign resources any more. Some people say if our cars average
40mpg... we would import no oil. That is a big sacrifice though, and
Americans are driven by convenience, so this won't happen... unless it
becomes more convenient for the average person to buy more fuel
efficient vehicles. We have already seen a huge economic shift in
which car manufacterers are succesful, toyota (for the first time
ever) sold more cars than ford and moved into the seat of largest car
manufacturer ever. Driven by raising gas prices, this is actually a
step in the right direction, but more needs to be done. This is where
politics comes in. A carbon tax, or gas-guzzler tax would be an
exellent solution for two reasons. First, the money raised can be
used to fund energy research and Second, it provides an economic
advantage for the average citizen to buy a more fuel efficient
vehicle.

I know this was long, and probably boring, but this happened to be on my mind.

04MAY07

So my views about blogs, and blogers have changed dramatically over
the past few weeks. I have never been into writing journals... I tend
to internalize my emotions. I thought people who wrote blogs were
selfish by nature... Hey, pay attention to ME... Look how important I
am... Listen to MY deep thoughts... etc. That being said, I am now
bloging. How did I make this transition in such a short few weeks you
ask? Simple... I started reading my sister's blog. It was quite
comforting for ME to read the blog of someone I love and miss, but
cannot be near.

With that being said, I am now bloging, putting my thoughts and
experiences out there for the people who love and miss me so in even a
small way, I can be a part of their life.