My Background

I was born in Gainesville, Florida in 1974. I grew up with my two bothers, my mom and dad. My family was and still is a very important part of my life. My mom was born in Puerto Rico, my dad in the Panama Canal Zone. My mom and dad's family moved to Miami where they met. My father was offered a job at the University of Florida. So my parents got married and moved to Gainesville. I have an older brother by 5 years and a younger one by 2 years. When I was in 2nd grade I first started really showing my Dyslexia. I was made fun of by most of the kids in my class, but more upsetting to me was that my teacher made more fun of me than anyone else. I was always a large boy fairly tall for my age as well as broad shouldered. So when I failed the 2nd grade and had to take it again I was standing well over a head above every one else in the class. On top of that I had developed a crush on this one girl in the class, Amy Hook. Cute little girl sandy blond hair blue eyes. But by the time I got the nerve to talk to her I was already an outcast, then when I failed 2nd grade she pretended that she didn't know me. So I went from a extremely extrovert happy child to a introverted child that was disappointed with the hand he was dealt. I started going to a private school and taking judo in the 2nd grade until 7th grade, the judo I stayed with. In elementary school I would beat up bullies in the school. I did skip 4th grade. With the help I got in the private school I was reading at an extremely high level, my vocabulary was said to be extremely high, by the end of my 6th grade I was doing algebra and geometry, but my spelling was still very bad. Do to cost I went back to public school. For some reason they saw fit to put me in lower level math and normal English. So my first year back I hated public school and the way it was taught. I Kept my head low and cruised through math passing all the tests and doing none of the homework. I failed English because they didn't have room for me in the ESC (or is it ESE) English class. I breezed through my science and history classes until they said the spelling of something counted. I had gained quite a bit of weight and was on the tall end of average height, being 5' 9'' and 220 lbs. by the end of 8th grade. now I didn't have to go find the bullies they found me. The new kid that was big not to mention the fact that the only person I knew when I started was a large 8th grader that I had broken his arm by accident in a judo match the summer before. The kids in the school feared me but liked me. Everyone knew who I was, they all said they liked me. But I never hung out with them and they really didn't invite me. I made closer friends with my older brothers friends than anyone my age. So I became a very bitter lonely person which carried on through high school. The girls I asked out didn't help. The older ones that I identified with better laughed and played it off as a joke the ones my age either ignored me or patronized me long enough to get away. So I became even more bitter, lonely and afraid of women where love was concerned. Near the end of my Junior year I was talked into joining the football team I was also told by my Judo sensei that I should join the US National Judo team. I had gotten quite good with two gold medals in the Sunshine State Games. I had also had a hand in training a woman that went there. I started training with her my freshman year in high school. She was brought to the class and told to work with me. She had been on the UF shot put team and done her 4 years. She is by far the strongest woman that I had ever met. we must have been training for quite some time before she found out how young I was. So in the summer of 1991 I started going to football work outs in the day to be followed with Judo at night. In June I also started getting involved in something that was going to change my life, the SCA inc. My older brother had gotten involved in it, and knew that I would fall in love with it if he could only get me to go and meet some of the people. The problem was that the meetings where at the same time as my Judo practice. So after me telling my brother no for two months in June I was talked into going out to dinner after my class and their meeting. I was left at a table with two women that where in very bouncy moods and where talking in a language of movie quotes, and quotes of things they had done and said before. I was confused and startled, but did agree to go back again next week on the condition that my brother stay with me so he could translate. My brother was right, after meeting them a few times I started going over to their place meeting people and having a good time during the night hours. I would get up around 10am go to the gym at school lift weights and do some drills, then go home get something to eat do some work around the house or something, then off to Judo on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and sometimes on Wednesdays. On Tuesdays I would then go out to dinner with the SCA group. Then depending on how beat I was, I would normally go over to Donna's place (it was the normal hang out for many people, brother moved in he left home) and watch movies. At about 5am I would high tale it back home and try and sneak in before my mom or dad got out of the shower. Well as the summer came to a close and school started Football got very intensive and I had to almost totally cut out Judo as well as the late nights. I did get labor day weekend off and my brother and I went to our first SCA event. The coronation of Trive and Carmeneta. I had a blast. Then later that week in football practice I injured my neck. You see because I started playing on the varsity team they all thought I knew what I was doing. They never told me that when you hit head to head you have to shrug your shoulders up so that your helmet is resting on your shoulder pads not putting all that force on the neck. Well thanks to judo I have a really strong neck, so I would just stick my head out and go at it. Well this time I wasn't quite ready and when we hit my head snapped back. I had put three disk, two vertebra, out of place and torn two ligaments in the front of my neck. After seeing my doc. he referred me to a chiropractor who I went to the next day. He took some X-rays and told me what I had done to my self. He then used this thing that looked like a spring loaded caulking gun to pop my disks and vertebra back into place then gave me a neck brace. So I sat on the side lines at football and at judo for the next two months but I finally got to go to a SCA meeting for the first time. After football season was over I put most of my time into Judo and getting ready for going off to the national team. I went to three more SCA events, and had gotten VERY close to the local group of people in it.Homba Den had been formed after that first event I had gone to. The hang out was known as "The Den" They where my first group of REAL friends, they where more than that, they where family. It was thanks to them that I opened up some in school and got to know the guys and became friends with all of them on the offensive line. Even one of the girls that was helping the team as equipment manager. So leaving them to go to Colorado was really hard on me. When I was there that was about all I did. I did get in contact with the SCA up there, I even met a really nice couple Sr. Harun (I know I have the spelling wrong) that would have taken me in if I had the time. After being up there for several months I decided that I should go back home. I got home about 7:30 or so only to find out that Julie (the football teams equipment manager) had died and the funeral was in about two hours. So I took my clothes out of the van and came back in to take a shower. I was getting dressed when my brother (also a friend of hers) came in the room. He had left school as well as several others to go to the funeral. We went then I had my brother drop me off at the den. They had moved into a house by that time. It wasn't but about half a mile from my parents place. I tried to go back to Judo but I was burnt out. so I got a Job and started getting really involved in the SCA. In the summer of 1993, I became a official member of Homba Den. In 1994 I started being referred to as a constable in the SCA, and that summer I started seeing someone. So at the age of 19 almost 20 I was seeing some one for the first time, and what a relationship it was. Over the next two years we where together thick and thin. The death of my grandfather, the birth of her son (she was pregnant when we started seeing each other) the countless threats from her X-boyfriend, her bouncing back and fourth from her X to back to me. When she did finally leave me it was for another man that she ended up marrying so I guess it's not so bad, though it almost killed me at the time. It still hurts when I think about it too much but I have put it behind me. In the summer of 1997 I became the Constable of the local SCA group known as The Barony of An Crosaire Kingdom of Trimaris. I worked at Shands at A.G.H. as a Sterilization Tech. I then moved to Tampa and tried to get a job for North West Airlines with a friend of mine. That didn't work out and my friend moved out of town. I now work for Disney World at Pleasure Island with my older brother who talked me into going there and moving in with him. He also worked at Pleasure Island and had been trying to get me to go work there for several years.