The alarm clock was still sounding off loudly as I sat and watched SportsCenter at a moderate volume. With each beep I wondered how long it would take for them to wake up and start their day. Moments earlier I had entered through the front door of the house with a key hidden under a pot. I only knew it was hidden there because I made the arrangement with my cousin who studies at The University of Hartford in the next town.

In between the prior night highlights of the NBA playoffs, the alarm came to sudden halt and I could hear the rustling of a lone person walking toward the bathroom. I knew without hesitation that it was my mother that woke up first. Calculating the moment she stepped back into the bedroom with great anticipation, I reached for my phone and started to dial.

After a friendly greeting that asked me to “please listen to the music as your party is being reached,” I heard Puffy drop his oh so annoying hype man lines over a R&B beat. Just as I started to feel content with the music, my mother picked up the phone with a confused tone. Ten seconds of small talk passed like it was more like five seconds until I finally asked, ‘are you going to wear that white T-Shirt and brown pants to work’? Needless to say, my mother was completely freaked out by this. What she didn’t realize was that I was sitting in the living room one flight down and could see into their bedroom.

My mother started to wander around the top flight of 69 Lancaster Drive after several small inquisitions. Eventually she started to follow my voice in what appeared to be an unconscious manner until she finally realized that I was no longer in Denver, rather, I was sitting in the home that I spend so many maturing years. The phone hung up!

What followed next is still slightly blurry but I can recall being squeezed and barely managing to say, “You’re choking me mother”! That moment was followed by words that resembled “Michael…Michael is here. My baby Michael is here. Michael. Julio Michael is here!!!!!”

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At this point is pretty apparent that since I last left you, I took a surprise trip back east. The original reason for the trip was to attend one of my best friends’ bachelor party. Even as I type I’m not sure if I was really able to surprise A.J. but I do know that my mother was shocked to see me.

Just days earlier my parents sent me a package for my birthday (for those of you that don’t know my birthday is actually in February). Inside was a Yankees bench jacket that I have coveted since the age of 10. For years I always stressed the fact that it is much more hip to wear baggy clothes. So when my mother shops for me (and believe me, I am grateful that I am even still considered for a gift) these days, she reverts to my teenage years when it was perfectly normal for me to wear a size XXL. Needless to say, this Yankees jacket was a XXL and I was completed engulfed by the large navy blue sleeves complete with the team patch.

I share all of this because it was what eventually sparked my motive to completely shock my parents.

Last Tuesday I comforted my mother by saying, ‘It’s okay, when I come out there next month we can exchange the jacket’. Little did she know that I would be on a red-eye flight that night from Denver’s DIA to Bradley International Airport in Hartford, Connecticut.

Fast forwarding a bit…my time in Connecticut was great. A little short and jammed packed but every moment was well spent. One of the highlights was definitely the time I got to spend with my niece Adrianna Skye. I have posted some pictures for you to view.

So many things have happened since I have been away from my laptop. Bush vetoed an “emergency” spending bill, Barack Obama now has Secret Service protection and I learned about the off beat news of former NBA player Robert “Tractor” Traylor who was arrested for aiding a drug kingpin launder money (the drug dealer happened to be his cousin).

Sit back and enjoy the pics. I have some writing to do to catch up and also share some of the things that have been going on in my life. It has been an interesting last few weeks to say the least.

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P.S. If you have never tried paintball, you may want to grab a few friends and make it happen. It’s a good time. A blast if you will - no pun intended (okay just a little bit).