Archive for the ‘Paintball’ Category

Paintball, Scenario Event

Joel and me, standing around in the rain at the “Tribal Conquest” scenario event,
at On Target Paintball in New Jersey.

GPL Event #4

My team and I played in GPL event number 4 yesterday, but we didn’t do all that well. The previous three events we finished 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, but this time we came in 22nd.

Yep, 22nd.

I might be able to attribute the drop-off to a shifting roster (we were missing a guy, and were rotating in two new people) or the blazing heat (95 degrees, with 80% humidity) but that’s a heck of a decline.

The heat was oppressive…one kid was hauled from the field on a stretcher by an ambulance crew after succumbing to heat exhaustion. One of my teammates vomited on the field prior to the start of the game. I drank so much water it hurt. The intervals between games grew longer and longer and drew the event out to the point that they called off the finals about halfway through due to darkness.

Fortunately we get to drop the lowest score at the end of the tournament season, so this one shouldn’t effect us too much. We just need to get our act together before the next event in October.

GPL Event #3

I played in a paintball tournament last Sunday and my team finished 3rd again. For those keeping track, that’s 3rd, 2nd, and 3rd in the first three events, with 3 more tourneys to go. The steady accumulation of points has us #1 overall at the halfway mark. Not bad for a bunch of guys who never practice! I’ve posted some pictures from the event here.

Update: Well this is cool… a pro photographer was there and he was taking scads of photos. He grabbed quite of few of our team when I was playing. Here are the ones featuring our team:

Photo 1 (I’m 3rd from left)

Photo 2

Photo 3

Photo 4 (me, kneeling)

Photo 5

Photo 6

Photo 7

Photo 8

Photo 9

Photo 10

Photo 11

Photo 12 (me wearing the black hat)

Photo 13

Photo 14 (me on the right)

Photo 15 (me on the right)

Photo 16

Photo 17

Photo 18

Photo 19

Photo 20 (me with the flag…I got 3 grabs and hangs during the day…)

Kind of silly, but finding this stuff made my day…

Friday Stuff

Michael Yon has a great blog…once you start reading you’ll find it tough to stop.

This guy performs the Star Wars trilogy on stage, alone, in 58 minutes.

Another in the long line of weird stuff that the Brits eat: Marmite.

Photos of people Crying while Eating. (Why?)

The hilarious Amazon.com reviews of Harry Raddick. (My favorite here…)

The King of Cambodia thanks you “for insulting me.”

New blogroll entries: Hot Sauce Blog, and ad Hominem.

Book update…I’m over 300 pages into The Lost, by Jack Ketchum and I’m ready to render a few opinions. It’s grosly misclassified as a horror novel, perhaps a new designation is in order. Perhaps talky gore drama. Or Wordy Butcher Babble. After a couple of murders in the first chapter, nobody dies until the very end. There’s 200 pages of character development and nothing particularly horrific takes place. The book is an exercise in mental voyeurism. I’m not sure why Stephen King is so high on the this writer, he can write internal dialog (that is, characters thinking about stuff) but the rest is unremarkable. Lets see if the final 50 pages hold any surprises.

We’ve got a very small weekend planned. Neighborhood wide yard sale, and Diane works on Saturday afternoon. We may try to take Lauren to her first movie on Sunday (Madagascar.) It’s been getting “ok” reviews, but for kids her age I don’t think it’ll really matter if it’s Oscar worthy.

Finally I set up this gallery of photos for the guys from the paintball store. It’s got almost 50 pictures from last weekend’s action. Check it out.

More paintball pics

A bunch of pictures from last weekend’s tourney can be found here. I haven’t gone through them all yet to see if there are any of me, although it seems like mostly 7 man stuff. Still it’ll give you a good idea of the fields and the action.

Busy weekend

On Friday afternoon Diane and I went to see Revenge of the Sith (second time for me.) Diane liked it, and I haven’t changed my mind. I still rolled my eyes over the “Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo” bit, but it’s a good flick there’s no denying. My parents arrived soon after we returned from the theater, and as she hadn’t seen them since December, Lauren has a grand time basking in the glow of their attention.

On Saturday we took a trip to the New Jersey State Aquarium (complete photo set here.) The aquarium had just re-opened after a major renovation. Supposedly they doubled the size of the place, but I didn’t notice much of a difference other than a section with a couple of hippos and a greatly enhanced gift shop. In many ways it looked like they rushed to get it open in time for Memorial Day weekend – and a good thing too as it became absolutely packed as the day wore on. When we were done we lunched at PF Chang’s, shopped around the “ultra-chic” Promenade at Sagemore, and then headed home.

Sunday I played in paintball in GPL event #2. Our group had so many players show up for this one that we were able to form a 7-man & two 5-man teams. My squad started out pretty rough, finishing with a draw in the first game and losing the next 3. We got our act together from that point on and finished strong, winning the last 4 games in a row. We missed the playoffs, but it became clear that we had the talent to compete once we had a little time to gel as a team. Team GXP (the team I played with in event #1) went on to finish 2nd overall in their division. Nice! A few pictures from the event can be found here.

Monday was all about conspicuous consumption. Taking advantage of the Memorial Day sales, I hit the Apple store, Best Buy, and CompUSA. Diane’s parents have been shopping around for a new computer for a long time, and they finally pulled the trigger on a new 17-inch Apple iMac G5. It’s the same one my brother and his wife got last year for Christmas. I also upgraded their memory to 1 gig, bought them a new printer and digital camera, so they should be good in the technology department for a while. Photos of the haul can be seen here.

Not to be left out, I purchased a Canon SD400 for myself. It’s a tiny 5 Megapixel camera that you can carry literally anywhere. Cameras aren’t much good if you don’t have them with you so I’ve been interested in getting a smaller camera for a long time. Next year I’ll probably buy a digital Nikon body (maybe a D70) to go with all the lenses I have lying about, but this one is going to be my main camera for awhile. Diane inherits my “old” Canon S40. It served me well…

Lastly, here’s some more info on the Yorkie Bar. Seems I’m not alone in finding it strange.

My Sunday…

I played paintball today. What did YOU do, you lazy bums? It was actually practice..drills and such that I despise, but we got some games in as well. My next tournament is May 29th. Here’s a shot of the medal we won last time around.

All this and the Survivor finale tonight. Does it get any better? I think not.