Month: August 2010

MPS Select Team sweeps Boston Elite Soccer Tournament

Jared was one of two players from his team chosen to represent the MPS organization (Bulldogs, Knights, Crusaders) on a combined team in this weekend’s Boston Elite Soccer Tournament in Lancaster.

The team won all three of its games. Jared scored early two goals in the wins against the New England Futbol Club (5-1) and the MCU Portland Phoenix (7-1) (see photos) and set up a key goal in today’s 3-2 win over a tough Seacoast United team from New Hampshire (see video). You can pick Jared out in the video by watching for his orange heels.

[flashvideo bufferlength=5 width=800 height=450 file=http://video.priorfamily.org/sports/jrp/2010/BEST-MPSU12vsSeacoast_F8%20480p%20(16×9).flv /]

Costa Rica HD

My new DSLR also does HD video so I took little snippets of video throughout the trip. Here is the full set of clips un-cut and un-edited (~19minutes). It can’t auto focus like a regular video camera and doesn’t have a viewfinder, but works pretty well. I was worried about filling up my memory cards so just took short clips. I’d edit in some music but the ambient sound is interesting to hear. The squeaking/beeping bird sound is from the rare 3 wattled bell bird. The roar heard at balcony is howler monkey. Don’t miss the humming bird in nest, the “male” howler monkey or Lisa’s favorite snake. Also have some crocks escorting us in small boat to Osa hotel…

[flashvideo bufferlength=5 width=800 height=450 file=http://video.priorfamily.org/events/2010/costa-rica-2010-hd_F8%20480p%20(16×9).flv /]

Costa Rica Adventure

We are back safe. Here is the third batch of photos from Costa Rica. I’ll let Lisa and Kids narrate. If I had to sum up I would use movie anologies — Planet Earth, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Perfect Storm, and Castaway all rolled into one!

Some events were too wet to put on the camera — like our river/ocean boat ride to Casa Corcorvado in an 18ft boat through breaking 8-10ft waves.

Here are links to the 1st set and 2nd set of photos.

Monkeys

Here is a 2nd batch of highlight photos from Costa Rica covering our time in Manuel Antonio National Park and surroundings. Lots of wildlife captured from hotel balcony and in a 4 hour hike through Manuel Antonio National Park. All animals are wild but monkeys there are accustomed to humans (and raid their bags for food) so they let you get close.

If you click through to the picasa album, you can see captions explaining some of photos. I need to confirm identifications of various birds and animals in our guide books and will add more captions later. We also went on a canopy tour and rafting trip but those photos are on CD we can’t get at until home.

I need to confirm identifications of various birds and animals in our guide books and will add more captions later. We also went on a canopy tour and rafting trip but those photos are on CD we can’t get at until home.

It rains in the rain forest

Right now the rain is coming straight down in Manual Antonio at what must be about 10 inches per hour, so the Prior Family is resting up and using the hotel wifi.

It is the “rainy/green” season, so we’ve been pretty lucky so far. Sunny/cloudy in the morning/early afternoon most days. I’ve taken about 350 “keeper” photos over the last 5 days but it will take the home computer power to get them all processed.

Here are some highlights after day 5:

We started in Monte Verde for 3 days and then traveled to Manual Antonio. The last 20km to Monteverde is like the Mt. Wash Auto road, but much rockier and pot-holed. It takes about 1:20 to cover 12 miles.

We’ve seen some wonderful diversity of nature including grabbing a rare photo of a Bell Bird and a Toucan together.More than the sights, its the sounds here. It is like Jurrasic Park — literally — they used bird sound audio from a friend of of one of our guides.

Will check in again in next week before we go off the grid to the Osa.