I scored! Twice!

Day 1 on the NMIFA Co-ed Soccer Summer League was a success. My team, which has yet to be named, played against Dean and Dora's team, also yet to be named.

The female players on my team are Katie Busenkell, Becky Covarrubias, Meaghan Hassel Shearer, Nola Hix, Brianna Martin, Laurie Peterka, and Rebecca Warfield. The guys on my team are David Banes, Mike Blasberg, Ian Catlett, Julian Fitial, Jetsada Phonsutjit, Jimmy Pua, Rio Sawhill, Glen Smith, and Angelo Villagomez. I put eveyone who showed up yesterday in bold. We're still registering players, so I'm sure we'll add a few more in the next couple of weeks.

We have more guys than women playing this year (so far), so if you know any women that want to play soccer, have them give me a call.

(please)

So back to the game, both teams didn't have enough players to actually play (because this is a scrimmage week), so we asked people from the other teams to come out. We picked up Tamarie and one other person. The other teams best players were Peter Houk, Peter Lokan, the league's #1 Draft Pick, Dave Duenas, and Madison Smith.

We kept the score 0-0 for most of the first half, but with about a minute to go I dribbled through several players (including Dave Duenas) and took a shot on keeper Dean Tenorio to score.

In the second half our team came out strong. In about the 35th minute, Jimmy Pua, playing soccer for the first time, crossed the ball from the left side through three defenders over to Julian Fitial, who tapped the ball in for a goal. Both of those guys were playing in their very first soccer game. Becky was still explaining the rules to them when the game was starting.

I've been playing soccer on this island for almost two years and yesterday's game was the first time I scored in an official game. This kid scored on his very first day!

No fair!

The other team fought back and scored off of a penalty kick. One of our players had a hand ball inside the box. For a while it felt like the other team was going to tie things up. Peter Lokan took shot after shot after shot, but most of them went wide. The ones that were on target were stopped by our keeper Tamarie (she's going to be trouble, she's actually on another team).

It wasn't meant to be though. In about the 50th minute the other team had a corner kick. I got a head on the kick and then dribbled the ball down the entire length of the field to score.

The game ended 3-1.

******
Tonight's game is Steve and Nicole's yet to be named team vs Jason and Tamarie's yet to be named team. Kickoff is at 5:15. This is a scrimmage game, so if the two teams do not have enough players (like we had last night), players from other teams will be allowed to play.

We still need players

41 individuals have registered for the NMIFA Summer Co-ed Soccer League. We want to start the league next week, so get your registrations in! We'll need about 90-120 players if we are going to play with six teams...and we want to play with six teams. It makes things more interesting instead of playing the same teams over and over.

Download the registration form here and email it to me at nmifacoed at gmail dot com. If you have any questions you can call me at 285-6462.

I hate to name names, but yes, Brad, Kathy, Walt, and many others...hurry up and get your registration forms in.

Co-ed Soccer Summer League Info

The NMIFA Co-ed Soccer Summer League is set to kick off next week for a second year of co-ed action. Registration for the league is ongoing and organizers are looking to fill the rosters of six co-ed teams.

Teams will be picked over the weekend via a school yard draft. The two co-captains of each team will pick a player, then that player will pick the next player, and so on until the rosters of all six teams are full. With this kind of a draft, players will get to play on the same team as their friends, while also ensuring that the skill level of all teams will be roughly equal.

The Summer league lasts for 8 weeks starting on June 10, with games played on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons. Each team will play one game per week.

Games will start at 5:15 on game days and will consist of 2 thirty five minute halves with 5 minute halftimes.

The Co-ed Soccer Summer League is an adult league, but younger players looking to compete against some of the island’s veteran players are encouraged to register. Last year’s youngest player was 13 year old Sami Birmingham-Babauta, now a Sophmore at Saipan Southern High School. All skill levels are welcome to participate, as this is a non-competitive recreational league.

This year there will be six teams as opposed to the four teams that competed last year. The sponsors for the 2007 league were Porky’s, Wild Bills, Godfather’s, and Fiesta Resort. The league is still looking for sponsors for this year.

The registration form can be downloaded at http://nmifa.blogspot.com/ (it can also be downloaded here). Completed forms can be dropped off at the NMIFA office located on Beach Road in Garapan or emailed to nmifacoed@gmail.com. The registration fee is only $15 and includes a Co-ed t-shirt and 8 weeks of play. For questions contact Co-ed League Commissioner Angelo Villagomez at 285-6462.

Co-ed Soccer Registration

The registration form for Co-ed soccer is available here. Please print it out and return to me this week. We are going to pick teams over the weekend.

You can email the completed form to nmifacoed@gmail.com or give the form to me. My phone number is 285-6462.

The cost to register is $15 and includes a Coed t-shirt and 8 games. Games will be played on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursday from June 10 - July 30.

More Co-ed Soccer

Last week about 15 people showed up for our Co-ed pickup soccer game. We're stretching our legs and honing our skills for the upcoming Co-ed soccer league.

Come on out and play with us. Everyone is welcome regardless of skill level, just keep in mind that this is an adult league. Younger players are welcome, but be forewarned that Brenda Schultz has been known to drop the F-bomb every now and then. Really.

We'll start playing right after work on Thursday at 5 PM.

I'll bring my ball even though Michael Thomas made fun of it last week. If you don't want to play with my ball, which by the way is approved by the Korean Football Association, bring another one.

We're still looking for some captains. Norm and Dora Camacho, Greg and Mel Borja, and Angelo Villagomez (that's me!) and Meaghan Hassel-shearer (Irish?) are captaining three teams. We need three more pairs of captains if we are going to have six teams. Any volunteers?

Stretch Those Legs

Environment, Soccer, and Blogging...oh my!

It's co-ed soccer time!

Everyone is invited to a co-ed pickup game up at the airport at 5 PM today. All players and all skill levels are invited (even Brad Ruszala), so please forward this message to interested players.

See you there!

(can someone bring a ball?)

Mark Your Calendars

Men's and Women's soccer is over, so you know what that means, right?

Co-ed Soccer!!!

We're going to form six teams this year. There will be games on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays during the summer. I'll call a meeting sometime next week to determine captains, but in the meantime, let's stretch those legs.

For the entire month of May we are going to have pickup co-ed soccer games at the airport field. We'll start after work, which should be right around 5 PM. Feel free to bring your kids, some drinks, and something to grill. You provide the flame and the meat, I'll provide the empty stomach.

We'll see how Thursdays go, then we'll discuss the idea of having a second day of pickup games, perhaps on Sunday afternoons.

This will be an adult league. Younger players are welcome, but keep in mind that they'll be playing against some 200 lbs grown men...like me. Some of our younger players are developed enough to play an adult game, while others aren't. Just keep that in mind.

All skill levels are welcome. This is a recreational league in every sense of the word.

2007 in review

This blog turns three today. Time for a recap of the last year in blogging:

I woke up on January first to find that Beautify CNMI was named the 2006 Saipan Tribune Person of the Year. That was only the tip of the iceberg. 2007 was one for the history books, quite possibly the best year of my life.

We started the year off with some pretty ambitious goals. Beautify CNMI wanted every single person in the Marianas to volunteer at least one day to our campaign and Walt and I were determined to create a Saipan Blogosphere with the We Love Saipan Network.

I also started my job as the new and first Executive Director of MINA in January. I signed a contract to work part-time, 20 hours per week. I spent the weekends volunteering for Beautify CNMI events and playing soccer on Sunday afternoons in a men's league.

In February I decided to go out for the CNMI soccer team. I had low expectations and an overdeveloped beer belly. I told myself that I'd be happy if I just made the team as a substitute player. We practiced 6 days per week for the next two months. I stopped drinking about two weeks in and eventually dropped about 20 pounds.

I still managed to coordinate Beautify CNMI through all this. I would send out an event calendar on Fridays and then update everyone with the activities results the following Monday. Our blogger network continued to grow, too. The Saipan Blog also started popping up on the first page of a google search for "Saipan" in February.

Some part of my body ached every single day in March. I also contracted the Yosh Gabaldon Plague after drinking from the team cup. That put me out of commission for about two weeks.

Soccer pretty much consumed my life all month, but I still had time to begin my official courtship of Ms. EJ Lee.

At the end of the month I started in the first CNMI vs. Guam soccer game. We lost 3-2, but the show of support from our local fans made the two months of push ups and wind sprints worth it.

Beautify CNMI also started hitting its stride. By mid-March there were usually 2-5 events per weekend. We couldn't make it to all of them, but the movement kept growing. People start to plan their own cleanups and call them Beautify CNMI cleanups.

The first weekend in April I traveled to Guam with the soccer team to play in our second game against Guam. We ended of losing 9-0, but it was one hell of an experience. I just wish I had been able to play in that game.

April should have been called Beautify CNMI month. We were awarded with a 2007 Environmental Award from the EPA, Friends of the Mariana Islands earned a 2006 Earth Team Award, and we had our one year Anniversary dinner at Aqua Resort Club. A bunch of us also spent an entire weekend at the Flame Tree Arts Festival promoting MINA and Beautify CNMI.

I made it over to Tinian for only the second time since I've been on Saipan in April. I won about $50 playing crappes and went cliff jumping at Taga Beach.

In May we officially received our EPA Award. May was a typical month on Saipan, with Beautify CNMI and sports on the weekend.

The first week of June I attended an environmental conference in Majuro, Marshall Islands. It was my first time visiting islands in Micronesia outside of the Marianas.

In June we started planting Flame Trees and other tree species again. We also put on our summer camp.

The Saipan blogs really took off with our Best Saipan Blog Contest in July. We also start playing coed soccer. Our team, Taya Talent, doesn't win a game the entire season...and I'm OK with it.

I think the blogger trolls started coming out around this time, too. I think it had something to do with the impending federal takeover and the upcoming election...and the fact that there are a lot of crazy people out there.

August is more of the same. Marianas Dive gets going thanks to Harry and Mike. I'm still doing a boatload of MINA and Beautify CNMI work during the week and doing cleanups and playing sports on the weekends.

In September the blogger trolls got ridiculous. A pair of blogs are created for the sole purpose of hounding Jeff, Bruce and me.

As for Beautify CNMI activities, e managed to paint the lighthouse and started our first Parks & Trails activities.

In October I was traveling throughout Southeast Asia. I visited Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

I was still in Thailand in early November. When I got back we had a strategic planning session for MINA.

By the time December rolled around we were still doing Beautify CNMI activities on the weekends. We've been going strong for almost two years.

We Love Saipan is now consistently showing up on the first page of a google search for "Saipan." There are over 100 bloggers on Saipan, with about 25 publishing regularly with a good number of readers.

It was a very succesful year. If you want to know more, scroll back through the archives.

2008 looks very promising. I already have a trip to Pohnpei and a trip to Guam scheduled. I'd love to play soccer again for the CNMI, but I think I have to be put back on the email list in order for that to happen. For some reason I've been blacklisted. I want to get up to South Korea some time next year to visit someone who I know is moving there. I'd also really like to get back to Florida some time next year. I haven't seen the family in over two years. Before I know it, it will be three.

Oh well, Happy New Year everybody!

And Happy 3rd Birthday Saipan Blog.

Brokeback COED Soccer

What is going on in these three pictures:

Why is Norm's hand in a fist and what is he doing to Bruce?

Um, yeah, no comment on this one.

You're fabulous, Yosh! Simply fabulous!

More pictures from the Dread Pirates vs Pika Raiders game can be found on the NMIFA blog.

Taya Talent Undefeated!

The Morgan Rose Pika Raiders were no match for Brad & Angelo's Guns n Roses...just kidding. We tied 1-1.

John "I once shot myself in the eye with a pellet gun" Mafnas scored in the first minute of play off a wide open pass from Adam. Damn it!

We tried to return the favor for almost the entire game, scoring only in the last ten minutes off of a corner kick from Allen to Chris Nelson.

Hell yeah!

The Coed League is going great so far. Both games have been really exciting, nobody was seriously injured, and all of the teams seem to be pretty evenly matched (Suck on that one Yosh and Dale).

After the game I went home to take a shower so that I could go see....HARRY FRICKIN' POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX!!!!!!!

After a quick dinner at Cafe at the Park with EJ, I met up with Sami, her friend Jesse, Bree, Dough, Litcelle, and Bev for the 9:50 showing.

One of the great things about life in Saipan is that you can show up 60 minutes before the start of the biggest movie of the year and be the first one in line to get into the theater. If I had been in Orlando, I'd have had to camp out for three days.

Although it was not my favorite book, I think Order of the Phoenix is my favorite movie. A few plot lines were left out, like how Luna Lovegood gets Rita Skeeter to write the story that changes the public's perception of Harry and how Neville Longbottom starts getting better at magic, but whatev, I loved it. I especially like the asian girl with the Scottish accent. I've already asked EJ if she can start talking like that.

Oh yeah, there was no Quidditch, either. No Quidditch!!??!!??

About half way through the movie I had a revelation.

I am Harry Potter.

Here is the proof:

1. We both have hot Asian girlfriends
2. Neither one of us can have a conversation with an older person without the older person mentioning our respective fathers
3. He likes butterbeer, I like beer
4. He's an half-mudblood; I'm an half-a-haole
5. He doesn't like the Dark Lord Voldemort and the Deatheaters; I don't like the Boy King George W. Bush and the Republicans
6. He is on the Griffindor Quidditch Team; I am on the CNMI Football Team

OK, I think that is enough.