LonnyGomes.com

On the night of Friday, December 18th, 2009 it began to snow in the DC metro area. The snow for the entire next day and didn’t stop until night fall. In some areas, more than 20 inches of snow was recorded. At the end of it’s furry, this storm set the record for most snowfall for December in the District of Columbia.

I had the “pleasure” of experiencing this historic event by effectively being snowed in my neighborhood. The buses were down and the Metro soon came afterward and already having 2 incidents with my car in the snow I definitely wasn’t going to be driving! Being that I did most of my growing up in a middle-class New England town where there never was a shortage of snow come winter time, experiencing winter snow storms in the city is truly a unique experience. I had a similar experience in 2003 where I was stuck in New York City in a huge snow storm and one thing I noticed both in DC and NYC is that when the snow starts to fall in the city, so do people’s inhibitions. People forget about their age, about their differences or social standing and all come together to make snowman, slide down hills on improvised sleds, and have snowball fights.

With the advent of social networking and smart phones, collaboration is much easier to achieve. Some people organized a snowball fight to take place on 14th & U. I wasn’t aware of this plan but I happened to be walking on U Street and heard people laughing and screaming in the distance as I approached 14th street. It was actually quite a site and I took part in one “battle” for a bit which was timed based off of the red lights. About 10 or so minutes after I left the scene, a few of the “snowballers” threw a snowball (or two) at a hummer driving by. The driver got out of the car and proceeded to show his gun. He didn’t point it at anyone but the gesture definitely was an abuse of his power.

The one thing I do feel that many people haven’t been saying in regards to this situation is that the kids really shouldn’t have been throwing snowballs at moving traffic. The cop’s reaction was unprofessional and although it may fly in the hood, it’s not gonna work with the U Street crowd who are armed with iPhones and youtube accounts! Below is footage from the incident. After the detective pulls out his gun there is a kid that still nails him in the face with a perfectly placed ball of snow!

Despite the snowball fight incident, it was beautifully refreshing to see DC covered in generous layers of white fluffy stuff. For that one day, the snow covered the harsh realities of life and for a moment brought joy to an otherwise politically charged and divided city. Below I captured some images and video of the snow storm, or as it was referred to on Twitter, the #snowpocalypse of ‘09.

Well, that tittle sounds worst then what it really is. I actually have yet to make it to El Yunque. In fact I’m approximately 2 miles away. I probably should have learned by now that cheaper isn’t always better.

Estela helped me get a bus to go to “El Yunque” (it’s a rain forest in Puerto Rico) and I had two options. One guy offered to take me there for $40. There was another guy who had a group of people and was going that way. He said he would do it for $3. Without getting the details, I went with the $3 deal. I mean one guy is saying $40 and another is saying $3, what would you do?

It took about 40 or so minutes … To be honest, I wasn’t really sure how long it took because I was actually dozing off! Someone had to wake me when my stop came up. The driver just tells me to take a road and follow it straight up the mountain. Well, I start walking and the neighborhood is a little shady from the get go. As I walked farther, the sidewalks became more narrow and poluted with trash and dried weeds. It seemed as if this path wasn’t walked much.

I finally got to a point where the sidewalk on stopped both sides. Around that point I passed a section of the path where a snake had shed their skin. And this snake looked HUGE! And as if it was scripted, it started to rain!

I took this all as a sign that I saw enough of the rain forest today! I walked back to the road where the driver dropped me off and I walked across the street to a souvenir shop. It was there where the lady told me that there are no taxi’s in this area!! That’s gonna complicate things when I try to head back to Rio Piedras!

Right now I’m in a restaurant called Don Pepe’s. Apparently, it used to be owned by Mexicans. Anyway, I ordered this arepa … It’s good, but it’s not like the ones on Queens Blvd in Jackson Heights! After I ate about half of it, I decided to take a pic of it.

A Puerto Rican Arepa

I’m back from the cruise but not back home yet! I am staying in Puerto Rico until tomorrow (December 30th) afternoon.

There is so much to say about the cruise. There were a lot if hiccups along the way but it was a great time and it was good to see family again. The last time I saw everyone was under different circumstances … It was a grandmother’s funeral.

Anyway, I’m not going to say much about the last week right now but will be periodically posting stories and pics about the experience.

Yesterday we got off the boat around 11:00. My mom — who never got her luggage — went to a hotel with my aunt while others tried to find a tour guide to check out the city. We ended up finding a guy that dropped some of us off at the hotel where my mom is at so we could go to a near by beach (pictured below) while the rest took the tour. It worked out perfectly because the bus was big enough to hold all the luggage so we didn’t have to cart it around. I ended up deciding to not take the tour and stopped off at the beach. My mom was there, I had yet to checkout the beaches in PR and I was supposed to meet up with my couch surfer host soon.

We hung out at the beach for a while and then decided to get Puerto Rican food. Sadly the timing was a little off and the tour bus got back to the hotel just as we put our order in. We waited for a good 25 minutes before it was ready. I ordered arroz com pollo and jugo de acerola and it all worth the wait.

Soon afterwards, I met up with Estela, my couch surfing host, and her aun Mariat. We had more Puerto Rican and talk a lot about her experiences and why she thought Puerto Rico was like no other place on earth! Hah!

When it got later, we dropped Maria off and Estela showed me around Loíza. She is really nice and more then helpful. Apparently, it is really packed there on Sunday nights. I had a “arcapulia” (I know I’m spelling that wrong!!) which I liked and danced merengue since I would have embarassed her and myself if we danced salsa!!

Oh, and also we stopped at this place for a meeting called Open House. It’s not really a church meeting, bit more of a diaologe about religion and social matters. There was an interesting vibe there and I liked it.

Well, today Im off to the rainforest. It’ll be a self guided tour, but let’s hope and pray that I make it out well! Haha, not even sure how im gettibg back but everything will be fine.

Well, she got on a transfer flight but the ship leaves at 10 PM tonight and she won’t get in until after 11. The plan us to meet us at the next port, which will be Saint Thomas.

I went back to the airport to try and pick up her bags … The United people were no help at all. They have no way of scanning the bags, so all the unclailmed bags are lined up along a wall.

I didn’t find my mom’s bag but did find my cousin who was in a similar position. And also, in the baggage line with us was none other than the Dad from the hit TV show, “That’s so Raven”. I know this because I was FORCED to watch a “That’s so Raven” marathon while I was at my cousin Ruth and Naomi’s house for 1 thanksgiving! I was too stars-struck to talk to the guy. And I’m sure he probably isn’t to proud about it either so I just took a picture.

Hope it didn't say do not enter!

Yesterday I was at “El Morrro”, which translates to to “the hill” in Spanish. It was one of the fortresses the Spainards bult to protect the island from incoming attackers. Obviously, something went wrong because now Puerto Rico is part of the United States.

Having just visited Spain, I could see the the similarities in architecture and construction. It was different to the ones I we saw. In Spain in that “El Morro” is part if a large wall that perimeters the whole northwest tip of old San Juan. It’s pretty impressive and I would recomend visiting El Morro if you ever are in the area.

Anyway, my original plan was to walk along the oustise perimeter of the fort. From the map, it looks like you can do the later but in reality it just stops at some point. There was this sign that I’m assuming said don’t enter but I could read anything! Maybe the battered and illegible condition of the sign *could* have been an inidication of what it used to say but I went ahead and disreguarded it.

It was there where I was reminded of one of the firat Brazilian Films I’ve seen. The film is called “Terra Estrangeira” and I believe it was directed by Walter Salles. There is a scene with this old ship that the two characters were reflecting upon. During the scene a song was playing in the background. In fact, it turned out being somewhat of a theme of the movie. The name of the song is called “Vapor Barato”. There are two versions of the song that I could find, one was by Gal Costa and Zeca Baleiro, and O Rappa did a reaggaish version.

Anyway, while I was in the “restricted” a ship much like the one in the movie sailed by. I know this will sound weird, but it was kinda a surreal moment.

Depending on where and when, parking can be close to impossible in our nation’s Capitol. I’ve easily spent 45+ minutes searching for parking in Adams Morgan.

When parking is tight, people get desperate. I’ve got a small hatch back, so I can fit into a lot of places but I don’t know how these bigger cars do it. I guess where there is a will there is a way. And hey, if you can get in the spot, you can get out right??

DC Parking Job

I was driving home and really “had to go”. I ended up stopping on a side street and going in this rather shady alley … the type that the girl in distress runs into where the ax-murder can easily corner her in those B-movie horror films. Who would have thought that a dimly lit alley where crack heads go to take a hit would lend itself to a photo opportunity.

There was this door just laying down there and for some reason I felt that would be a cool picture. Unfortunately, I only had the lame camera that is on my phone. If *only* I had a real camera at the time, this photo would have won awards!

Alley Door

Taken while on the train on the way to Jackson Heights … I really don’t have much to say about this picture besides check out her belt (be sure to click on the picture to get a “clearer” view).

Check out the belt

After seeing this picture, a particular song comes to mind …

The word popozuda is actually “uma giria” (slang) word spoken in Brazil. To put it bluntly, it is a term used to describe a woman who has a large posterior. To my surprise, this slang term is actually documented in Urban Dictionary!

There are equivalent american slang words for popozuda such as “onion” or “badonkadonk” to name a few. Anyway, Brazil has gotten this reputation for having a lot of “popozudas”.  But everyone knows everything is bigger in America!!!!  Never underestimate what a hearty diet of fried chicken and cornbread can yield! The crazy thing is I took this picture at a local Subway sandwich shop. If you really want to see what’s up, just swing by a Popeye’s Chicken!

Popozuda Americana

I was doing a google search today and came across this article about my brother from way back when he was in college. Back then, he played basketball for Eastern Illinois and he currently is still playing basketball, but professionally in Israel.  In the story, it talks about about his childhood and the writer quoted my brother saying the following:

The Panthers’ junior guard remembers trying to outplay his first tough opponent – his father, Lonny.

And during his seventh grade year while he was living in Windsor, Conn., Gomes got close to defeating his dad.

But, he said, his father wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“Me and my dad always had one-on-one battles in the yard,” Gomes said. “He would foul me and push me; he wouldn’t let me win.”

But the following summer, Gomes’ game got the boost it needed to get him over the top against his dad – a seven-inch growth spurt.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a nicely written article and it was true that by his seventh grade year, he really went to the next level, but *BEFORE* the seventh grade it was a different story, but you wouldn’t know that by reading the article!

The thing that got me was when it says “[Josh] remembers trying to outplay his first tough opponent – his father, Lonny.”

Truth is it wasn’t his *FATHER* but his *BROTHER*! As you can see, from the photo, I started my hooping career while I was still crapping in my pants.

Ballin

The rest of the article was good, like I said it was well written. But what the article DOESN’T mention is about the times I would beat my brother so badly in basketball that I would send him in the house crying. It also *DOESN’T* mention how my baseline fade away was the envy of the neighborhood kids. The article also doesn’t mention how I used to dunk on him at will back in the day. Nope, none of that is mentioned. I mean, yeah … we always tried to beat our dad, I mean what kid doesn’t want to be able to beat his dad in something. But our dad wasn’t his *FIRST* tough opponent … it was his big brother (who happens to be much shorter than him now a days!)

The picture below is from back when we were in Connecticut. I am in the far right in the picture my brother is the one wearing the black Larry Bird shirt (which used to be mine!). The hoop in the background was where history was made. It was a where I ruled –until my brother got faster, taller, and better than me!. I may not be a shot caller but I used to be a baller! So Josh, how about you show me a little love in your next article!

Back when I was a still the baller