It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you, without a dope beat to step to...

Ah yes, my subject line refers to what Aaliyah and Timbaland eloquently stated in the Romeo Must Die sountrack back in the day :) Yes, yes, I know it has been a while since I posted anything on my blog but here I am on a beautiful Sabbath Day resting my body from the rigors of two overtime weeks and updating all my people who read this (if there are any left) on the events of this Puerto Rican's never dull life.
Ok so first off I have to explain what I've been up to since the end of school in the first week of May. I flew down from Omaha to Ft. Lauderdale to spend some time with my aunt who had an apartment there. I left my car with Kim since she needed one for the summer and I packed 3 suitcases and 2 carry-ons to my location in Florida (thank you Southwest Airlines for allowing one person to carry that much luggage :)). So I got to Ft. Lauderdale and spent some time with my aunt there and then the two of us went to visit her daughter and son in Orlando during the weekend since I hadn't seen them in about 4 years. My cousins are pretty cool people, we all grew up together and the last time I had seen Alfred was in 2001 when he was on leave after boot camp in the Marines and Ivonne hadn't visited PR since 2000 or 2001. So we spent that weekend up in Orlando but we had to go back because my aunt was selling her apartment and I had to help her move out.
That was an experience in itself because basically everything that my aunt had was going to be moved to Orlando plus I had all my overpacked stuff to take as well but we were able to get everything out and off we went to Orlando again on the May, 22nd. In the meantime though I was able to check out my grades for this past semester when I went to the library and saw that I was able to somehow pull off one the biggest surprises I have ever encountered. In spite of the liberal professors I had to face off against and all their moronic teachings, I somehow got 3 A's and 2 A-s...for a semester GPA of 3.87!!! :) Oh yeah, I almost did a Michael Jordan-esque fist pump after hitting a game winning shot when I saw my grades because it had been by far my toughest semester yet. It hadn't been easy because the classes were harder and because of everything that we went through emotionally and spiritually but somehow God helped me out on doing the best that I had ever done in a college semester. The glory and honor is His because I seriously don't know how it came about, I just know that I am grateful and things are looking up. Plus, I'm back on the Dean's list after a 2 semester absence :-P.
So I have been in Orlando since the 22nd of May and basically working at Subway like a madman :) There's a funny story as to how I got my job at Subway because there were 3 places all next door to each other that I was going to apply to. There was a Blockbuster Video, a Pizza Hut, and a Subway. I applied first to Blockbuster and here in Florida they have these little phone/computers where you apply electronically and it took about 40 minutes and I just had a feeling I wasn't going to hear from them. After that excruciating application (they asked the same question 40 different ways, it was like a psych test or something), I went into Pizza Hut and they said that that specific store wasn't hiring yet but there was another one down the road somewhere that was, but since I don't know the area I just took an application and said, "ok, I'll figure it out." Last but not least, I went into Subway and asked for an application and since I had nothing to do I just filled it up right there and then since I saw that the manager was sitting down on the next table doing a food order. "This was my chance", I thought since I had worked at a Subway 3 years ago and thought I could go back into the flow of things and I was desperate for work/money to afford all the summer expenses. So I gave my application to the manager and 5-10 minutes later I walked out of Subway with a job and at least 30-40hrs a week of work. Once again, God answering the call when I need Him :)
Even though my cousin does have a computer and cable connection (incredibly fast) her computer was acting up because it had a virus(es) which I haven't been able to fix so I hooked up my laptop to the cable and I've been able to read my email, check up on my Fantasy baseball team, and talk to a couple of people online.
My mother and grandma came on the 26th of May to Orlando to visit and they stayed for 3 weeks. They basically visited because my older brother had his first daughter born prematurely in March and so my Mom is a grandmother for the first time :) My older brother and his family live in Tampa so we visited a couple of times and Mom and I actually stayed there one weekend too (it was Pentecost weekend actually). It was wonderful to see the baby and yes, it is very cool to be an uncle for the first time as well. The baby's name is Lily Leilani, and she is a special baby because she's named after my Mom and she's doing wonderful and is healthy (which is very important since she was prematurely born). She's a great baby, all gooey with long fingers and toes (oh yeah, she's going to have toes like us :)) and just a joy to take care of. She barely cries too, only when she needs to be fed and changed and she actually likes to take baths!!! That's amazing considering that most babies are anti-bath, she actually cries when you take her out of the water. Truly a joy to be with. Speaking of which, it was great to see my brother as well because I hadn't seen him in 4 years as well because he had been living in Tampa and I've been in Iowa as well so it was great to see him. He had rented the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith video game for PS2 and was awesome on it. It was an ironic feeling watching him play a game like that because it used to be when we were younger he would watch my younger bro and I get all into the games and since I haven't played a whole lot in the past couple of years I think I found my niche again. My bro (whose name is Ruben) was having problems in defeating General Grievous with Obi Wan Kenobi so I volunteered my services and asked him what the controls were and off I went to fight against a very hard enemy. I was getting all into the game too and without any practice or anything I finally defeated the General after a handful of tries and then gave the control to Ruben because my fingers were hurting, lol.
Anyways, after a great Pentecost weekend we all came back to Orlando and I've basically been working my butt off at Subway which has yielded some great celebrity experiences this summer :) First off, my first week I met Drew Gooden who played with the Orlando Magic for a couple of years with Tracy McGrady and is now playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers with Lebron. I saw him come in through the door and I was like, "I think that's Drew Gooden", but I didn't want to say anything because I wanted to be sure I got the right name but I mustered up the confidence to talk to him and made his sandwich and talked a little bit and shook his hand. It was a pretty cool experience because I had never met anyone famous in person like that before!!!
And just when I thought I had seen it all last week during lunch rush one of the best basketball players and ultimate nice guy comes in. The one and only Grant Hill is there carrying his daughter and I was like, "Whoa, that's Grant Hill!!!!" and I was getting all excited because I was doing the bread, cheese, and meat part of the sandwich and Grant Hill was right in front of me. I congratulated him on an awesome comeback season and he said thanks and then ordered 2 Kid's Packs, one for him and one for his daughter. It was so awesome because there was a huge line to the door almost and I kept my eye on him while I was making sandwiches for all these people during lunch rush. Let me tell you guys, I was making sandwiches at a Flash-like pace because Grant Hill actually sat down and ate with his daughter and I wanted to make sure I got at least something autographed. So after the line died down I told my manager that I needed to at least get a napkin signed and I grabbed a napkin and one of the markers we had and as he was leaving I asked him for his autograph and he signed my napkin and we shook hands and off he went with his daughter. AWESOME EXPERIENCE I TELL YOU!!! Now I have an autograph and experiences to go with the summer, plus a little money (I have accumulated overtime the past two weeks), and I get to see my awesome girl back in Omaha this next week.
I fly back to Omaha on the 22nd and then I'm planning to go with Jon, Kim, and maybe Ann for the wedding reception on July 4th weekend in KC. Let's see what happens for that and then Jon and I are planning the road trip to L4T and LYC to spend 3 weeks of nerrdiness with the whole crew :)
Well, I don't when will be the next time that I will be able to post but I wanted to write something since some of you have told me that I should let you guys know how I've been doing and let you know that I haven't disappeared. I love you all and I'll see many of you soon. Take care, keep safe, and drive carefully. Happy Sabbath :)