Get to know a PS3 player - Aquaknot

Originally posted by Aquaknot

   Welcome to another episode of get to know a PS3 player! You are all in for a real treat because we have a VIP celebrity today! One of the most voted person to be interviewed, ladies and gentleman I would like to introduce you to Aquaknot!

Let’s get down and dirty and find out more about this epic player!

What’s your age and location?

I'm 45 and live in Central Florida (half way between Tampa and Orlando).  I've lived in San Diego, Los Angeles, Norfolk and Detroit.  

What’s your real name?

Jonathon

What do you do for work?

I try to avoid work as much as possible!  Actually, I own several internet based businesses, which require me to be able to work 24/7.  I've been doing this for 12 years now and I love it.  Prior to that, I was a Vice President for a publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trust (EQR:NYSE), managing a portfolio spread across 11 cities in 3 states.  Yuck- made great money but had no time for my family.

Most of you know that Aqua was in the USMC, would you do us the honor and tell us about that moment in your life when you enlisted?

When I was 16; before the USMC, I joined the Army National Guard.  Went to Army Basic at Fort Benning, GA.  They made me wait on base for 2 weeks for my 17th birthday so I could begin training.  The delay was because I didn't have a signature from a parent allowing me to be there!  I trained as a guided missile operator in the infantry.

In my first year I decided I wanted more and requested an "inter-service transfer" to the USMC.  My request was approved and I was shipped off to San Diego for Marine Corps Boot Camp.  Since I already had an idea of what to expect, boot camp was a breeze.  I moved on to Infantry school and once again, was a guided missile operator due to prior service.

I was in the USMC when Ronald Reagan was President, and before most of the users of this website were even born.  This was the height of the Cold War.  America was pretty paranoid back then and we saw communists hiding behind every bush.  Terrorism was a side job or hobby for just a few people in the Middle East.  In fact, Terrorism was a far bigger problem in Europe than the Middle East in those days.

Anyhow, I scored well on a battery of tests they gave me one day and I was assigned to an intelligence regiment in 29 Palms California.  They gave me an admin job and I never worked a day in the job I went to school for.  Some my job sucked, some of it was awesome, some of it was secret and some of it was just plain stupid.  It was ok, but not enough to keep me interested in the USMC as a career.  These experiences did leave me with Honorable Discharges from 2 branches of the military by the time I was 21 though.

I'm extremely proud to be a Marine and to have worn the USMC uniform.  I'm also proud to be associated with people like young Paul Grainger, who now stands in the gap for all of us.

I think we can all thank both Aqua and Paw and anyone else that has served in the military.

When you’re not beasting it on your PS3 what do you do offline?

I spend my time with my family.  I have 2 kids.  My daughter will be 16 this month and my son is 12.  My beautiful bride and I have been together for 20 years this year and we have married for 18 years.  We home school, so when I'm not working or goofing off on the PS3 I help out with school or household duties.

We travel quite a bit and are able to take work and school with us where ever we go.  This is cool because we actually go see or experience whatever the kids are studying.  For example, when they were studying the Gold Rush, we went out to California and panned for gold.  We found some too, just enough to buy a stick of gum.

What games do you play?

UT3, of course!  I also play Black Ops, MW2, Battlefield BC and a few other dumb games now and then.  Basically FPS games have my interest.

Most of us spend a lot of hours on our systems but what are the reasons why you keep yourself logged in and playing when you can? 

The games are the first reason anyone signed on.  It's the community that keeps me coming back.  Although I realize that most relationships found online are "virtual friendships", the friendships are real to me.  The dust ups and disagreements are just as real.

If it wasn't for people like Two_Fase, xplorer2233, DoD, Arkos, J_Rivers, etc., I would have lost interest a long time ago.  We laugh together, we have fights and disagreements (but always get over them), we scrim in games and sometimes just sit around and talk about non-sense.  Some of us talk on the phone or email.  I like it and it's a great distraction when the daily routine is wearing on you.

I think that answer is probably how most of us feel!

I know most are waiting for the next Unreal series so most of us have to find other awesome games to keep us entertained so are there any games in your must have list for the fall?

So far, the only titles that have caught my eye are Resistance 3 and Call of Duty MW3.  I generally let the guys in my clan sort out the titles first and then join them later so they can drag me along  

What players have helped you achieve your PSN awesomeness

I wouldn't consider myself a very strong individual player and I need a strong team to help me shine.  The people who helped me out (in no particular order) are Chris C, Bio, Two_Fase, DoD, Arkos, J_Rivers and TX2k7.  Of course, I learned a lot just by playing and observing, but these guys all set aside time in a locked server and schooled me on the finer points of UT3 early on.

Do you remember you’re most embarrassing moment in any game?

LOL    Yeah.  In my first online game I sent a friend request to Reaper.  He never responded, but he did taunt me a couple times.

Wow, what a jerk!! I wonder how many friend requests Reaper has just sitting there, haha! 

Can you remember something that really made you laugh?

Two things actually, both involving Chris C.  We were playing VCTF in Suspense and Chris had the flag.  He jumped down to the bridge from the Longbow tower into the middle of 5 or 6 bad guys.  All of the bad guys dropped like flies and Chris Jump Booted out of the middle of them.  It was a Kodak moment that had me laughing pretty hard.  Wish I had it on video.

The second time was in Sandstorm and Chris was trying to teach me how to jump over to the redeemer route.  He was pretty patient.  After about 20 minutes of him tolerating my foolishness, I realized he was actually doing all of the jumps backwards so he could watch me follow him.  I felt like a complete failure but it was a good laugh at my expense.

I wouldn’t be writing these interviews if it weren’t for you creating this website. I know there has been a lot of negativity and drama but we still come back, so the main questions is why did you decide to create iAMgaming.com?

The PS3 and UT3 were my first video game experiences.  After banging around on the Epic site for awhile, I thought it would be cool to have something better for the community.  The initial goal was to create a place where clans could organize and then set up matches with each other.

After awhile, I felt like the site could be something more.  I learned quite a bit about the community, social media, age and generation gaps, and myself through this experience.  I don't have a single regret about how it turned out.  LOL - the site is still here!

Those here that started on Epic forums knows what we would miss out on if this website would ever shut down and for that I know we don’t thank you or Wopr enough for putting your time, energy and money into making and running this site for us. Thanks guys!

I know in some AR chats I have been involved in you’re usually the one with the camera on showing us your latest and greatest electronics, lets make these guys feel jealous, tell us, do you have any fun toys, cars, systems?

Well... yes..  I'm a pretty serious nerd who likes to have fun.

My workstation (actually my "play" station) is a 40" LED LCD 3D screen with a 27" wing monitor on each side.  Connected to these displays are a Quad Core MacPro with 16Gb RAM, MacMini with 8Gb RAM, Quad Core PC with 8Gb RAM, PS3, XBox and HD Cable.  I can display one at a time or up to 3 different devices at once.  I can also switch between all of them on the fly with a remote.

I need the multiple monitor set-up for website/app development.  This allows me to have an enormous desktop to spread out graphics apps, development apps, test windows, etc.  It just turns out that it's awesome as a gaming rig as well.

I have a 42' Sea Ray.  I keep it at a marina out on the Gulf Coast.  The boat has been configured with a cellular booster/repeater (30 mile range extension), a wifi booster/repeater (7 mile range extension) and a CradlePoint Router.  If no wifi is available, the system has an automatic fail-over to my cell phone for internet connectivity.  All of the instruments and displays on the bridge are networked to the system found below.  This allows me to work (or play) wherever I am, even when well offshore.  The boat is my favorite toy and it is configured to leave the dock and not touch land for up to 10 days at a time.  It has a generator, full bath with shower, kitchen, heat/air and two cabins.  It's difficult to operate by myself, but I do it now and then, especially when I need some solitude.

As far as cars go, yesterday I ditched a 2009 Cadillac CTS (my wife's car - but she said "ok"!) and picked up a 2011 Suburban LTZ.  My wife is now driving a 2011 Ford Explorer Limited.  Very cool car IMO.  All of our cars are black.

*Drools*... Party at Aquas house? Holy crap, I wanna play my PS3 on my own boat! 

If you were going to be stuck on an Island and you could only bring with you 3 things, what 3 things would you bring? Why?

Since there is a real chance this could happen to me:

Water - I may get thirsty
Food or a way to catch it - I may get hungry
An emergency locator beacon - I may want to go home after a few days

Haha ok that was the most straight and honest answer to that question haha, fair enough! 

Some of us in this community have met or want to meet people that we’ve been playing with for 4+ years. Have you or would you ever meet anyone from your PSN friends list face to face? Tell us about that experience or what you would want to do if you met the person.

We were traveling in Arizona a few years back and I decided to meet Two_Fase.  He was about an hour away from our location.  We met at his house and then went to lunch.  Very cool guy and just the same in person as online.  Someone I would definitely hang out with if we were in the same city.

About a year or so ago, xplorer2233 came over from the other side of the state and we went out for a boat trip.  We anchored out over night and when I got up around 6am, he was gone!  We were about 100 yards from shore so I was like WTF?  Where is he?  LMAO - he was out swimming behind the boat.  He's been pretty busy with work and his son since then, but I hope to do more of that in the future.

I've been trying for a couple years to get the founders of A-R together for a long weekend of partying on the boat.  The logistics and timing have always screwed us.  I can't imagine what 4 days with Arkos, DoD and J_Rivers would be like!

If you ever plan an AR get together I think most of us would want that live streamed, Killinugood, hook us up! 

If Hollywood made a movie about your life, whom in this community or your friends would you like to see play the lead role as you? Why?

My first reaction would be to say Medic because people already think we are the same person.  Actually, I would say Two_Fase because he would make me look like taller, calmer and much nicer than I actually am.

Have you traveled anywhere amazing in the states or internationally?

I've been to all but 11 of the 50 states and to 23 countries with my family in our educational travels.  My favorite was a "too short" trip to London and Paris.  Ten days are not enough time to see even a fraction of the rich history these cities offer.  We'll be going back for a couple of 30 day stays at some point.

Where are you dying to travel to?

I would like to go to Japan, China and Fiji, probably Fiji the most.  These places take so long to get to, I have been putting them off for years.

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Like I’ve stated before, Aqua, you are the reason why we are all here, you gave a place for our small tight knit UT3 community a place to argue, laugh and maybe cry, haha and I’m sure I speak for most when we say thank you for giving us this website. 

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this interview like I did! I’ve admired this guy when I first got to know him and I still admire him today! Look for more interviews coming, who will be next? Stay Tuned! Thanks for reading! :)


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