Floridan Fun Spots

Well, I've summed up the tournament and now it's time to sum up the vacation. Florida is Florida; it's warm, sunny, and always a good time. Our first day we headed to Clearwater (on the gulf I believe), looked at the Christian College campus and then headed to the beach.

Side note: If you were watching online and noticed us doing a line dance when we scored against Philly, that dance was influenced by the campus of Clearwater Christian College. You see, apparently they have a dress code and we noticed that all of the women were wearing skirts. So every time we saw this, we said "skirt", and tried to count all of the skirts to be seen. It was probably the most skirts I've ever seen worn at one time in one location! Anyways, Andry and I made up that line dance at our regional final and then it became the "skirt" dance at nationals. We would chant "skirts" every time we moved from side to side. There's a fun fact for ya, now ya KNOW!

Okay, back to the beach... We played beach soccer for an hour and waded in the waves as well for a bit. Here's a clip I took on the beach:

We went for lunch after and I had a Doner Kebab (or gyro) for the first time in a long time! Sooo good.

At the hotel, the hot tub was the place to be and a couple of our guys actually bought some revealing Speedos to showcase as a joke. Here is Mr. Price himself displaying some skin:

Hilarious!

~~~

We took losing in penalties to Clearwater pretty hard, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the Florida atmosphere. On our day off, we decided to go shop, chill at the pool, and go eat at Applebee's as a huge Prov crew (both the women's vball team and us). After our dinner, we had a huge mini-golf competition (which did get quite heated) at one of the several massive and elaborate courses they had on the highway. The one we chose was spectacular. Elevated holes, lots of streaming water, gators, bridges, tunnel options, steep drops, etc. It had it ALL. I love mini-putt, especially when it's extreme. I got a hole-in-one on the steepest hole I've ever seen. It was almost a straight drop, about 12 ft. I immediately threw my putter in the air and gave out a Chewbacca roar. Good times.

Anyways, Saturday came and we attended the final in the evening. It was hardly a contest, let's face it. Clearwater won 2-0 and put it away early within the first 15 minutes. If only that semi-final had gone OUR WAY! BAH. Meh, here is a clip of us on the sidelines, watching the game we were inches away from being in (literally):

After the game, we had some time to kill before waking up at 4:20am the next morning to leave for home! So a few of us went across the street from the hotel and checked out the carnival, entitled Fun Spot. It basically only had two massive bungee-type attractions. The one apparatus threw a bunch of people in a spinning capsule, at least 100 feet into the air! Ridiculous... we didn't take part. We just mingled as the employees closed up shop haha.

So those were our major outgoings in and around Kissimee, FL! Our week went by as quickly as it came; what a fun trip. I can't believe our season is over already.

P.s. I'm pretty sure I saw an armadillo for the first time down there. I gave the same reaction as when I saw a wild possum in my backyard multiple years back... an exciting yelp. It curled up right when I took the picture!

Return of the Dragon / Remember the Rain

Again, before the release of Saint Kris' new mixtape, here are two more videos that portray Kris' passion for his writing in a perfect way... Kris being Kris. I'm loving the vibe and can't wait for the upcoming mixtape release! Props to Cam (Nice! Productions) and Eric (Sungnation) for filming excellent work and to all three for being awesome. Check these OUT!

Saint Kris - Return of the Dragon from Nice! Productions on Vimeo.

Saint Kris - Remember the Rain from Nice! Productions on Vimeo.

The Ups and Downs of Penalty Kicks

Well, I'm trying to get CCSN to post our semi-final game against Clearwater, but in the meantime here is our first round game against Philly!



It was such an exciting game, and probably the second most nerve-racking/crazy game that I've ever been a part of (first, being the one against Clearwater; which was the NEXT DAY)! Unreal stuff! We conceded an early goal and a penalty kick before we decided to charge back and make things interesting. With two quick goals and then a sweet third to go ahead, it looked like we had the game wrapped up. But with Philadelphia comes a certain English man named Gary Bruce, and he pounced on a deep through ball, slotting it home to tie the game! Through double overtime none of us could seem to grasp that golden, elusive goal! PK's were needed; scary times were upon us indeed! If you want to see the PK action, watch from the 2 hour 25 minute mark up above. 'Twas an amazing experience. Seeing Kaiten place home the winner gave me the CHILLS. What a good feeling, especially because we got Papa John's pizza afterwards... icing... on the... CAKE.

Ah, it looks like CCSN listened to my proposal and posted our semi-final thriller! Watch the drama of penalties again in this video. Sadly, we experienced the heart/gut wrenching feeling of a PK loss this time 'round:



This was an UNREAL game. Even though it was 0-0 at the end of double overtime, I'd say it was more exciting than our 4-3 PK victory over Philly! This was our best defensive outing of ALL season, and we almost came out on top because of it. I hate how such a spectacular game had to be decided on point-blank kicking and guessing. We were SO CLOSE to the final!

If we would have won in the semis, we would have eluded the Florida mid day heat and played all three games during the evening! Instead, we played the third place game at 12:30pm in the blistering sun and our energy was completely drained (if not from playing 110 mins in each of the previous two games)! Ridiculous. Anyways, we lost 3-0. A truly disappointing showing on our part, but that's just the way it goes sometimes! I seriously think that we would have won the whole thing if the penalties favoured us instead of Clearwater! In the final, Ohio didn't give them the challenge and scare like we did... we were SO CLOSE.

Alright, so that's my summary of our games and the tournament. I'll talk about and post some short clips of our "vacation" time from throughout the trip too! Stay tuned.

Game Time

If you don't know already, I'm down in Florida with our Prov soccer team competing for a NCCAA National Championship! We've been down here since Sunday, but the tournament starts tomorrow. It's gonna be a fun set of games. We play Philadelphia Biblical University first and apparently they're a decent match-up for us. Can't wait, I'm fired up to finally play! Here is the prediction from the sports site which covers the tournament:

"Outcome: There has been some classic PROV vs. PBU matches in the past, I expect nothing less. Is Gary Bruce (PBU) healthy? Is Prov's defense up to the task? These are the questions that enter my mind when trying to decide the outcome of this 4, 5 match. In the end, I'm going with the Wizard. Martin Ward has been here before and I expect them to thrive in a lower key role that is the #4 seed. Gary Bruce could cause them match up problems, but one man won't be enough. PROV 3-1 PBU." - CCSN

We'll see tomorrow! We're up for the task, Gary & PBU... Look OUT. Watch at ccsnonline.com to see our games with live video and commentary! Look for the tab CCSN LIVE and click Soccer National Tournament. Our first game is at 7:45pm EASTERN STANDARD TIME Wednesday evening!! CHECK IT OUT! ... that is if you're interested. No hard feelings if you don't... Maybe.

Life Lesson: "You don't say good luck, you say DON'T GIVE UP!" - The Roots

LET'S DO THIS.

Time for a Change

As you can see up above ^^, I've removed my main "Manuel the Philosopher" picture. It's time for something new. That time is coming soon, probably once I'm done with Prov soccer and most of my major school assignments. SO... my blog will remain picture-less and *cough* plain *cough* (yet neat) until then!!

I'm going to revamp this sucka and embrace a whole new look.

Life Lesson: Change may or may not be good; it depends on how you embrace it.

Yeaaaaah that sounds cliche, but I thought it sounded pretty profound as I just came up with it 5 seconds ago!

PEACE

Extra Ordinary with Saint Kris and Crew

I know I'm (at least) the 5th person to post this... but I'm gonna put it UP because I blog about what I love, and this is something special that I'd love to share. Kris (as rap/hip-hop artist, Saint Kris), Cam (as Nice! Productions) and Eric (as Sungnation) are collaborating, creating music videos for Saint Kris' new mixtape, Extra Ordinary. I'm so proud to know these guys. The three of them together equal creativity at its best. Check this preview OUT! More to come, can't wait.

Saint Kris - Cool Ya Off from Nice! Productions on Vimeo.

Extra Ordinary is the title of Saint Kris’ 2nd mixtape, which is to be released in December of 2010. Saint Kris has teamed with Sungnation and Nice! Productions in hopes of displaying his true essence from both an audible and visual standpoint.

A series of music videos will be released that will display the genuine nature of Saint Kris as the production team moves from the Music Video format to a firsthand behind the scenes look at the Extra Ordinary Kris.

Sungnation and Nice! Productions accomplish this concept by breaking the illusion of film, by filming the filmer. This approach was used to communicate that Saint Kris understands who he is (a regular guy), and is not afraid to accept it.

http://sincedayoneentertainment.bandcamp.com/track/cool-ya-off