After almost 5 months of time spent upgrading the website, today is the official “relaunch” day. I took the plunge and converted the website to a mobile-friendly version, completely eliminating the old site and all of the ‘free’ members that never used it. I’m starting fresh with the hopes that we can finally build it […]

These are some random wishes I noted for myself: Optimus Prime will be ours by 2017! The Transformers films by Michael Bay are far my favorite movies of all time.  I have full intentions of one-day building an Optimus Prime truck replica with my family, and traveling around the country to show it off!   […]

These are a few of the people that were in my life at some point. Mostly friends. I’ll add to it over time as more come and go. ——————- 1998 Danilo Moura I met him and his brother Darius through working as a Valet.  Danilo became a really good friend of mine.  We took a […]

We’ve all had those school exams that no amount of studying can prepare you for. It’s the one test that can significantly boost your overall GPA, and yet fate seems dead set on going in the opposite direction. Only a few months into my first year of college, that test was suddently on the horizon […]

Just a newer tradition for us: for most of the year (2019), we’ve been ending each day by watching Transformers Prime or Generation 1 Transformers cartoons. Ryan loves these moments, as do I. We’re all together as a family spending quality time instead of getting lost in our phones or work. Because we are all […]

Every night when it’s just you and I, pretty much since you were a baby, I always make it a point when saying goodnight to ask you 2 questions. “What was your favorite part of the day?”  And “what do you appreciate from today?”. And then when you’re sleeping, I whisper little inspiring things to […]

I don’t know what it’s going to be like 30 years from now.  But we currently live in a world where technology has taken over every part of our day.  You can’t go anywhere without seeing someone on their phone, texting, reading, playing, etc..  And the same holds true at the dinner table.  Conversations amongst […]

I wish I had saved the stories I wrote down during this time.  It was mega cool stuff that I will promise to write about here asap.  To say the least, it was really awesome being able to drive a cop car on the streets and just patrol the neighborhoods.  Though I wasn’t allowed to […]

Dec 2019 – I’ve been having weird pains around my heart from time to time. They are so sporadic though that I doubt any doctor could diagnose it. It’s almost like a stinging sensation that lingers sometimes. Other times it vanished within seconds. In fact while I type this, I can feel a small pain […]

One of the experiences I’ll never forget was a moment when I was maybe 13 or 14 years old.  We had a big winter snowstorm and I was the one outside shoveling.  The snowblower worked well until I started doing my neighbor’s driveway.  It conked out on me only a few feet in (and it […]

The first time I experienced a fluttering of my heart (to the point that it was noticeable anyway) was back in 2006. I’ll never forget the scenario either.  I was sitting at my office desk and had just found out how much money I owed to taxes (because I had my own business, I would […]

Best teeth ever (so far) I’ll readily admit that behind the scenes I did not practice very good dental hygiene.  Brushing my teeth was something I would do maybe once a week, if not longer.  Occasionally I would rinse with mouthwash at night, but even that was a rarity.  Believe me it is not something […]

This was a story I wrote for the America’s Footprints blog in 2016. I kept the story anonymous and didn’t want people to know it was me. That’s why I refer to my ‘daughter’ instead of my son. But this story is about the times I spend with you Ryan, and about how I notice […]

This was an article I wrote for the blog in December 2015, all pointed to Ryan. It was about the time as a father that I convinced Ryan I had x-ray eyes, and could see what he was doing when I wasn’t even there. It’s also how we got him to eat carrots at dinner, […]

Ok this one is something that you will not fully understand for some time yet, But one day you will, and you’ll probably get chuckle from reading this.  As you know, mommy and I shared a bed together that you would invade practically every night.  Which that in itself baffles me because when you were […]

It hasn’t been easy finding the time to grow AmericasFootprints.com and balancing it with time for Ryan.  But I am grateful to have the opportunity to spend as much time with him as I do.  In my previous career as a trainer, I was fortunate enough to be home more often than at work.  And […]

Tonight is Friday and the church you take classes in was doing a retreat that you didn’t want to attend. Mommy wasn’t home and you suggested father son bonding time. So my compromise was to do something you wanted to do and something I wanted to do.  For you it was bowling. For me it […]

Pretty much from the moment you were able to move around on your own (crawl and walk), I was always by your side.  If you would go through a small infant tunnel in gymnastics class, I would follow you.  If you jumped on a trampoline into a ball pit, I did the same.  If you […]

This was a story I had written and posted to the blog on America’s Footprints. It basically explains a bit more about the Optimus Prime build, what it took, and why I did it. ——————————————————- Autobots vs. Decepticons.   Cybertron.   The matrix of leadership. If any of these sound familiar, then you have probably […]

I’m not a writer. So this is hard to put into words. Perhaps writing this will help me alleviate what’s pent up inside me right now. This summer…this year…these past FEW years…have been the shittiest of my life in turns of my feelings. I have been in a depression that just gets worse daily. And […]