Monday, October 31, 2005

One Week to Go

This time next week I'll be sleeping with wires all over my shit trying to figure out why my time spent with my eyes closed hasn't been working properly. I'm a little nervous about it seeing as it's 1am and I am wired awake and didn't have a single drop of a caffeinated drink today. I have to be there by 9pm, so I'm guessing it would be a good idea to wake up bright and early next Sunday so I can actually lay still when I get into bed.

I don't know what to do for Halloween tomorrow. I have my own door, but I live in an apartment and I don't have any decorations, so I don't think I should get any trick or treaters. I'd like to have them stop by, but growing up we always stopped at the houses who had lights on. I never had any experience with apartment buildings. Plus, my building is full of the very old and the very just-graduated-college so there aren't many children who live here. I need to go to the store anyway, so if I go tomorrow I'll pick up a bag of candy just in case. My bet is that nobody stops by.

I guess I should talk a little more about the Halloween party at the bar last night. I got a call at 4pm from Curt with the message, "Halloween party at Murphy's Third Rail, meeting at Wally's new house at 8, be in costume." I don't have a costume, so I just wore my realtree greys and work boots (same shit I wore to play paintball). I was immediately dubbed "The MILF Hunter" when I got to Wally's place. According to the bar's doorwoman, camouflage doesn't count as a costume and I had to pay the $8 cover.

Little Dawggg was in town, so I called him up and told him where to meet us. He came too, but his costume was to dress the exact same as any other day and yell at people for not having a costume on. When asked, he was dressed as a porn star.

You can see pictures of Wally as Elvis, Curt as Jimmy Hendrix, Tara as a pirate, et all in my flickr photostream.

You know what else you can see in there? Pictures of a majority of the 1998 RHS State Championship Offensive Line. I ran into Maione and Stew! It was awesome to see them both and they are doing great. The both of them are helping out with Morristown's football team. Our D coordinator is head coaching there now. I also ran into a couple other dudes from high school that were hanging out with those two.

I also ran into Melissa. I had just been talking about her this week and then wham. There she is. Another really nice person I haven't had contact with since graduation and one of the few I really belive is truly nice, not just outwardly nice. She's working in an office in Flanders. She looks fantastic and still was just as much fun to have around as she was so many years ago.

Some people hate places that turn into high school reunions. I love em. I really like running into people that I knew back in the day. To this day I haven't had a more fun than I did in high school. Those were the days before bars and booze and relationships talking about marriage and interstate dating and bills and bullshit. Back then it was all about having fun and talking about what the future would bring. I miss that feeling. For me now, the future is either very clear (if I do well at my job) or very uncertain (if I don't).

This weekend was an all around success. I had such a good time. As with everything else in my life, once I have a chance to digest it I find places that could have stood some improvement, but that's just because I am always looking for ways to do things better.

I guess I have to relinquish my deathgrip on this weekend. I've been fighting against the truth that I have to go to bed, set my alarm, wake up, put on a suit, and go back to work all day, but I think it's time for me to throw up the French... er... white flag.

Goodnight

Sunday, October 30, 2005

See This Band

http://www.amishoutlaws.com/

This cover band rocks. Had a great time tonight. Don't want to go to bed, but I'm soooooooo tired. Hopefully I'll have the motivation to tell some stories tomorrow. For now, click over to my flickr photostream to see the shots I took.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Operation: Night's Sleep

I went to the doctor over at Morristown Medical Center this morning and had a checkup. They needed my weight (300lbs) and blood pressure (I can't remember, but it was in the green!) and I sat and waited for the doc. She came in and asked me what I was experiencing. I told her like this:

If I didn't set an alarm I would sleep for 24 hours. I wake up feeling more tired than when I went to sleep. Several people have told me I snore horribly and that I stop breathing for up to a few seconds throughout the night. I drink way too much coffee to get myself going and to maintain being alert. I never feel rested no matter what I do. I'm tired 100% of the time. I sleep through my alarm more and more. When I wake up I'm hitting the snooze button a dozen times before I freak out and realize I'm not going to have enough time to get to work. I can't live like this anymore.

She said, "here's a card for a sleep disorder center. That's sleep apnea."

I called the sleep disorder center and they had to call me back in an hour. I was on the phone with a client when they called so I had Helder pick up my phone. I call back, set up a date for a sleep study (November 6th. 9PM) and she starts explaining what they do. I come in by 9pm on Sunday the 6th. They give me a room with a small bathroom and TV and I stay the whole night. They hook up diodes similar to the ones they use for EKGs to my head, arms, and chest and I go to bed. I'm out of there between 6 and 6:30 in the morning and I'm done. The results are then read and "typed" by the staff at the sleep disorder center and they are sent to my doctor who will then get in contact with me. That should take a week. I was hoping I'd be well on my way to a good night's sleep by then, but I guess I've been living with this long enough to go another couple weeks.

Let me just tell you how excited I am to be getting this taken care of. I dream of being able to live a normal life where I wake up to an alarm, have a cup of coffee, and go to work feeling rested and awake. I can't even remember what that feels like. It's only got worse since high school and I NEVER feel like doing shit because I'm always running on E. On top of that I am very self conscious about my snoring. When I stay at a friend's place I always look for somewhere to crash far away from everyone else so I don't bother anybody. Even then I get the, "dude, you snore SO FUCKING LOUD." followed by an imitation every single time. It feels like it can't even be real that this can be stopped. It's almost like I'm getting a wish.

I'll keep everyone posted on any news. I'm sure someone will stumble here looking for sleep apnea information and hopefully I can give a first hand account as things are happening well enough to help people make their own decisions.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Going to Stop Snoring

Today I made an appointment to see a doctor when I'm not sick. I'm finally going in to talk about what I can do to stop snoring and more importantly to fix my sleep apnea. I wake up more tired than when I went to bed and don't really wake up until I've drank an entire pot of coffee or so. I sleep through my alarm more and more. I can't focus in the morning. It's all bullshit. I've answered yes to every single question on every single sleep apnea checklist and I have witnesses who say that I stop breathing when I'm asleep. I'm going to lose my job if I'm only affective for 4 hours a day. Let's just pray that the end result is surgery that fixes my stupid breathing and lets me live a normal life.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Cleaning is for the birds

I never thought I'd have to clean everything for so long. I figured I'd barely mess anything up around here, but if I don't stay on top of things, I end up with a disaster area and an all day cleaning fest. Isn't that fun and exciting? Well, that's about all I have, but I can never let go of the weekend on Sunday night and end up staying up late doing nothing.

Did a lil of this and lil of that this weekend. Really nothing worth putting in type. I did have a great day at work on Friday. Unfortunately that came with a side of death(?). I was going out to an appointment and saw an end over accident with 2 SUVs. It took a chunk out of the highway and backed traffic up on all major alternatives to 80. When I got there there weren't even any emergency workers on the scene yet. Someone was talking to the driver of the one car, and he looked like he was alert in the driver's seat, but I do my best to stop rubber necking, so I fired by as fast as I could. When you see shit like that it makes you wonder. I'm sure they didn't see it coming or have any idea that it was going to turn out like that. They could have been perfect drivers and then something bad happens and wham. It did rain all week and bring up all the oil out of the pavement. I've been noticing my back wheels trying to break free when I take turns and whatnot since the rains came through. Hopefully it will stay clear for a few days.

I didn't look up any information on the crash. I would rather walk away knowing that the dude was alive when I passed by and that people were taking care of him than to read somewhere that he died.

After that shit I met with a client, did a couple drop ins, stopped by to see some people that may become clients from my network, and ended up back at my apartment around 6. I was going to go back to the office, but after a 20 minute drive took 2 hours I was in no mood. I know my boss is going to bust my balls just because I did a good job with everything else. The better you do, the more stupid shit he finds to pester you with. He grilled me on what I was doing before I left and when I had perfect answers to all his questions he told me, "button your top button" because it was friday and I had my top button undone on my suit before my apointment. He had nothing else to bust me about, so he says, "button your top button." All I can say is, "LOL."

OOOOOOOOOOOk. I'm done.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Weather sucks

What's amazing about us as people is that we have always, and will always be influenced by the weather. I don't think the temperature has changed in my apartment in months. I run the AC in my truck during my 5 minute drive. I sit in an "air conditioned" office all day. Why is it when the weather is dark and shitty that I feel like I can't move? I tried hard to get shit done today at work, but every time I put my head down and started plowing ahead, something knocked me off track. I did do much better today than yesterday, but still not where I want to be.

Only real news from today is that my stupid hood on my stupid 10 gallon tank went out. That makes 6 bulbs that have burnt out this month in my apartment. It's like the second the summer was over all my lightbulbs went on vacation. I really don't want to replace the hood as of yet, so I'm going to try to fix it, but the chances of that working out are slim. Plus, it's electricity and water, so if I don't post for a while... send an ambulance.

My friend Mike gave me a call today. He just got back home to Texas. It feels like paintball was months ago. It doesn't feel like he was just out here. It's almost like time flys, but it feels like forever. I guess when you are always forward looking your time sensors get thrown off. I'm always looking forward to something. I think that's how I get by.

I've also noticed that my writing has sucked ass recently. I appologize, but YOU decided to stop by, so YOU suffer.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

It's 1AM and...

I have decided it's a good time to post a note to this ol blog.

I asked a couple people today if they knew that it was supposed to rain on Saturday. Everyone I asked said, "You didn't? I heard it was supposed to drop 8 inches." Of course I didn't know it was going to rain... at least not like THAT. So, why is the perfect storm significant? Because I went to NYC for another great night out and NYC means walking. I don't own an umbrella because I love the feeling of rain and I own a gortex jacket. I never really expected to be walking around in the eye of a hurricane. I guess the people at gortex weren't expecting me to either.

Here's the story. We meet up, it's raining. She has an umbrella because she has some sense. We walk to a diner in your everyday shower. We leave the diner, still raining, but not really hard enough to make you think twice about it. We walk down to a bar (allegidly an NYU bar) and have a few drinks. 9:30 rolls around and I have to get going so we leave the bar... into the ultimate rain storm. I then proceded to walk the 5 or 6 blocks it was back to my truck in rain that felt like I was swimming. My glasses were pointless because they were covered in rain drops. Without my glasses during the day I'd be fine. At night it's a different story. I couldn't even read the road signs when I was right under them. I actually had to call her up to re-ask for directions because I couldn't tell which way I had to go by sight. I figured my phone was a goner with how much rain was coming down, but it's cool. Crisis averted. Anyways, the rain felt awesome while it was happening, but my clothes were so wet that I started shaking the second I got into the truck. I actually drove home from manhatten with no shirt on because it was soaked to the point of futility. Even the hot air from the heater felt cold because it was hitting wet cotton and skin. I felt like I was actually being weighed down by the water logged clothes I was wearing.

Then came the drive home.

I had a great time and normally when I enjoy myself and have no place to hurry off to I don't spend a ton of time looking at directions back home. Especially in the city. Every time I've been to the city I've just looked for signs, went back the way I came to the best of my knowledge, etc. This time I got so turned around I ended up lost for a good half hour and decided it would be best to just follow the water until I saw signs for a bridge. This is, remember, during a rainstorm as strong as any I've ever seen. This is in the top 3 rains I've been through. 1 being the hurricane that hit CT my freshman year of college. 2, the day it rained like the end of the world at Millersville. 3, Saturday night in NYC. I couldn't see shit, my truck was hydroplaning all over the fucking road, and there were still so many people on the road with me that it made it almost impossible to look in one direction long. I couldn't tell which lane was which for just about the whole ride home. I took 80 the whole way back and I don't think I broke 45mph. There was flooding at every other exit and I was really starting to wonder if 80 was going to be closed down. Luckily I got home in one piece with some happy memories and no shirt. When I got out of the truck, after riding topless for so long with the heat blasting, I hopped out and thought I was going to freeze in place. I immediately ran up to my apartment, stripped out of everything, and threw on a nice big sweatshirt and my favorite red sweat pants. I felt like I had been wet for days and got to experience that feeling you only get from spending time outside in the elements where you come home, clean up, and kick back in a nice warm chair with nice warm clothes on and just enjoy not being wet anymore.

Of course, it reminded me of football. I can't even tell you how much I hated that feeling for so long. Where you would be out in the freezing rain, snow, hail, wind, cold, etc and then you'd come inside after kicking your own ass for 3 hours and put on nice comfy sweats and get back to your nice warm townhouse. At that point I'd just be mad that it was so cold. I didn't appreciate how good it felt to be warm after freezing for hours. Saturday, it just felt nice to have spent the night the way I had planned and then to bundle up and relax.

Things are definately looking up in NJX70 World. I'm excited to wake up every day because you just never know.

so there.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

ARRRGHHHH It's drivin me nuts

I love my job.  I really really love it.  It’s painful, difficult, and stressful, but I love it.  I love the people I work with, my office, the two guys I share it with, my plants, my sandbox (mini sand garden with 4X4s in it), everything.  Every week I learn one more thing, or have one more conversation with one of the guys that reminds me why I wanted to be in this office to begin with.  Today it was a guy who’s going to get me started on a new campaign starting tomorrow.  It’s exciting.  He also let me know that as long as the dudes in the branch have my back, I have nothing to worry about.  I’m still going to talk to one guy who could really help, but it’s sounding more and more like I’m not doing so badly after all.  It’s slow to start, but my clients are happy and I’m moving along.  It’s all going to work out in time.

I’ve got myself into bit of a pattern.  It’s not that I do the same things at the same time every night or anything, but things need to work out a certain way or I get twitchy.  That doesn’t mean I’m OCD or anything, but there are options I have on a daily basis that make me happy.  If any of the things I’ve become accustomed to doing is out of place it makes me furious.  I like to post to my blog, check myspace, look up site stats for my sites, email people, listen to music, talk to friends, etc.  A few years ago I needed to get on the internets every day for a bit to feel regular, but now it’s gone so far as being on the internets isn’t enough.  I need to be at certain sites or I get pissed.  Blogger is down as we speak for scheduled maintenance until 10pm.  It’s driving me up the wall.  I got an email that someone commented, and when I clicked it, nothing happened.  There’s something about having almost a year of your life written down and stored somewhere in space that scares me.  In a blink of an eye it could be lost.  Great, now I’m going to spend time archiving everything… fuck.  Anyways, when something isn’t working online, it’s enough to get me very worked up.  God forbid my internets are down.  Stupid nerdery.  Well, at least Blogger now has a plug-in for word that lets me type posts here and upload them with one button.  I can type everything out and just wait until 10 and post it once blogger is back up and running.  

I am proud of myself.  I handled a situation I didn’t understand with as much class and civility as I could muster up and let it just slide on by.  I know a major part of this event was the fact that I’ve been very lucky.  It’s starting to look like every time someone pokes her head into my life it’s right before something awesome happens for me.  Last time it was the day I passed the series 7.  This time I was devastated by a communication I wasn’t ready to receive again, but by the end of the night I forgot it even happened.  I had sent an IM to a few close friends to ask them what they thought of the situation, but nobody responded.  I went to the train station, had dinner, came back and when my friends asked me what’s up, I had a different story to tell.  I actually forgot to mention the incident until someone asked me a related question.  Before that night I wouldn’t have been able to talk about anything else until I had spoken my mind about it, afterwards, it didn’t really seem all that important.  Thank you for trying one more time.

On a related note, I met someone who finished my pirate joke.  It is the only time in about 3 or 4 years that anyone’s known the punch line and I’ve told it to EVERYONE (including a pirate).  It always was the conversation starting A Bomb and then WHAM!  Someone fired a preemptive nuke at me.  Unbelievable.  Not only did she nail the  pirate joke, but she also knew about www.ytmnd.com and just about every other funny thing I could throw at her.  Impressive as hell.  

Anyways, I’m going to bed.  I’ve been having trouble forcing myself to go to sleep this week.  I feel like I need to stay up another few minutes for whatever reason and then I look up and it’s 3AM.  It really fucks up my whole morning when I can’t get to bed at night.

Oh, and if you really want to see a fucking freak show, go to www.realdoll.com

Also check out these two sites:

www.whitestkids.com

www.milkandcookies.com

Monday, October 03, 2005

Field Report



Paintball rocked. It rocked so hard that I fell asleep on the couch at about 10:30, woke up to a phone call at around midnight, got to the computer and wanted to write SOMETHING and fell asleep again. Today I was worthless at work. I don't even know what I did all day. I was so tired all day from the abuse I volunteered for on Sunday that I was a jelly fish sitting at a desk. Here's how the day went down:

0600 - Alarm goes off
0700 - I wake up with alarm blaring, wake up Mike, drink coffee
0730 - Arrived at Brad's place to pick him up... but no answer... he was still sleeping.
0800 - Finally wake Brad up and get going
0930 - Arrive at Skirmish USA
1000 - Get served the first of many times
1800 - Leave Skirmish USA, hit china buffet, go home

When we got to skirmish it looked like an army staging area with teams of people of all ages (I'm talking 9 year olds to 60 year olds) wearing full camo, guns of all shapes and sizes, cases of paint flying around, people gearing up, etc. It was actually a bit intimidating. We step up and get our reservation finalized and they assign us table C. Table C was empty, so we figured it was just a good place to get our shit together before we rolled out... then the rest of our team started filtering in... After about another 10 minutes it was Mike, Brad, me, and a team of Asian chicks (with a couple asian dudes and one white kid). We watched the serious players get matched up with other serious teams and they got on the busses. Now it was just C company and one other table. The other table was all young guys, about our age and two chicks. A dude comes over in a ref uniform and starts taping up our arms with colors. Charlie Company got orange tape, Alpha Company got green... green fucking tape on green fucking uniforms... how is that fair? It really didn't matter because you could tell who was shooting at you and who wasn't, but it just seemed funny. So we get on the bus and roll out for our first game. We pick up our gun, mask, and belt pack and head over to the rest area. I couldn't help but think we were finished because our team just looked a little less... how do I say this... good at paintball. Boy was I 100% correct.

Round 1: CAPTURE THE FLAG CLASSIC: Whistle blows, I sprint 40 yards to a stack of tires and drop down for cover, Brad goes right, Mike goes far left. I start seeing motion and put some shots down range. It was hard to see if you hit anyone, so when you did get a kill you just kept shooting until their hands went up. I hit at least 2 people, but I will get into reasons why I don't know if they were kills or not later. I see 4 moving right to left and I shoot the dog shit out of them. Mike does the same. I call it out and Mike's all over them. Then I take a shot to my face under my mask. First paintball to ever hit me hits me in the jaw UNDER my mask. Then I take about 10 more shots to my left side as I'm fumbling for my barrel plug signifying I'm out. Dissapointing round, but it was my first and it was fun as shit, so it was cool. I walk to the dead zone and see the other team working very well together and just figure my team was behind me doing the same. As it turns out... they were all in the dead zone way before I was. They all walked out like they were walking the streets on patrol and got shredded to ribbons before the round was 30 seconds old. They didn't even look for cover. The other team was laying down covering fire before moving, working in squads, etc and fucking destroyed us. I wrote it off as just my first game and moved on.

Round 2: CTF CLASSIC (FLAG SWITCH) - This round started on opposite sides as the last one. I knew my team was going to be decimated, so I tried to get to cover behind a tank and just hold them off... unfortunately, I was one of 7 people behind that tank because the other people that were on our team were following the three of us around because they had no clue what was going on. So this round lasted the full time. I layed down some serious serious fire. I know for a FACT I hit at least 4 people this round, but if they don't break they don't count, if they wipe the paint off before a ref sees it, it doesn't count, if they just keep shooting and disregard the shot, then it doesn't count. So I blow through 3 clips of paint and am not even sure what I hit. Ref calls 3 minutes left, so I decide it's time to make something happen. Brad and this little dude were sitting with me behind the tank and I told them, "guys, we got to make something happen. I'm going to lay down covering fire, little guy, stay deep and get behind something. When you get there, start shooting and we'll follow and move up to the middle." He replies, "I can't... I'll get hit." and Brad says, "FUCK IT LET'S GO!!!" By this time ref yells "2 MINUTES!" and I'm like, "fuck it, on 3... 1, 2, 3!" and run out guns blazing. I made it all the way to where I wanted to get to and was down on the ground behind the tires that I thought were safe. As it turns out, tires are round, and you can shoot someone behind a stack of tires from basically any 45 degree angle. I got ripped to pieces 1 second after I got there. It was just enough time for me to feel good about getting there. That sprint damn near killed me. It's 100 X harder to run in the woods with a gun than it is to run on a football field. On a field you can just run and keep an eye on the target. In the woods you are watching where your feet are going to land, you are firing at unfriendlies to keep their heads down, and you are constantly looking from side to side for anyone you didn't expect to see. I was so mad after that round. I blew through my paint, didn't confirm a kill (I know I hit those fuckers) and we lost the round.

Round 3 and 4: 1 FLAG CTF - This field was small as shit. It looked like Training for you RS3 fans. There was a flag in the middle and both teams were trying to take that flag into the OTHER team's base. 2 more guys joined our party that knew what the hell they were doing, and this is the only time I was disapointed in my personal performance. We dropped prone to the left of the field and I fired some suppressing fire for him to move up, but when he did it for me, I balked and lost my angle. He got eliminated, then I got into a fucked up situation. I saw a guy run to my left and cut him down. His buddy layed down fire at me and forced me to put my head down. The guy I hit at least 5 times then stands up over the hill I was laying down on and fires about 10 shots at my fucking head from about 10 feet away. first two hit and I put my hand in my pocket for my plug... then a few more shots came. I couldn't pick my head up because paint was flying like crazy over my head and this guy was just plugging the fucking dogshit out of me. I put my hands over my head and he kept shooting. The whole time I'm calling that i"m out and trying to show that I dont' even have my gun in my hands. I took 2 or 3 right on top of my head and then put my hands up and took a few more to my hands before he finally stopped. He thought it was funny, I confronted him and told him it was fucked up. I should have stood up and gave him a mouthful of CO2 tank, but I just walked off pissed off. After that we ended up hanging out with the other team and the fucked up multi shot kills after you clearly hit someone in the fucking face stopped. I'm getting mad typing this, but they ended up being real cool guys. I'm going to shoot them an email after I'm done with this actually. Oh, and we lost the round.

Round 6: ATTACK DEFEND AT TIPMAN CASTLE - This was unbelieveable. We had lunch and then got ready to defend Tipman Castle. They brought 150 people together for this match. It was 50 defenders against 100 attackers. The defenders wore purple sashes on their heads, but when a defender went down he ran out, rang a bell, tore off the sash, and was now an attacker. There was a flag on the second floor that had to be taken out of the castle for the win. If it stayed 20 minutes, the defenders win. Everything from the walk in, to finally being gunned down when they rushed the castle with 1 minute left was absolutely the most intense shit ever. I'd never seen so much paint fly. It was like a wall of pink paintballs appeared wherever someone showed their face. Tipman Castle is 3 stories with towers on all 4 corners and two in the middle, multiple rooms, a ton of doors in, and windows all around. I went to a window that I liked, but when I went to the other side to make sure it was being watched Mike took my window. I took the backdoor post from down a hallway. I started out by going upstairs and checking out the whole place. It was amazing and intimidating. We were walking inside a huge structure we had to defend that was wide open. No angle was safe, no place was good, it was all about getting the shot off faster than the guy coming to kill you. Upstairs was safer because people couldn't creep up to a window, pop up, and blast you, but we had so many people upstairs that I made the decision to stay downstairs and face my death. I knew if I was smart I could at least slow them down even if I didn't take them out, and that's what happened. I had 5 kills, one of which was the greatest shot I made all day. I shot a guy through a crack in the door, down a hallway, out another door, and through a missing board in a fence, right in the face. I also got in a few gunfights with guys who were experienced and were packing their own amazing equipment. Nothing felt better than putting a painball right in this one dude's face. He was leaning out from behind a door frame and sticking every single paintball exactly where it had to hit and 10 times faster than I could fire with my rental gun, but I still won the fight with an amazing shot. I leaned out and nailed him before he even realized I was coming back out. After I hit him I hit another guy looking in a window, then another one, then back to the door for #4, and the window AGAIN for number 5. At this point people knew where I was. I could see all the doors but one and 4 windows. I just kept looking at one then the other while dodging paintballs. I was pouring sweat from the adrenaline, and I knew I was going to be shot. It was all just a matter of time. I made this decision actively. I knew the ground floor was going to be taken. When I looked around to see who was around me, everyone was dead. I was the only defender I could find, and once someone finally realized that was the case they charged me and I took 3 in the back with 1 minute left in the round. All we needed to do was hold out 1 more minute to win, but I thought we were done. As I was leaving the attackers were pouring into the castle. It was over... or was it? Brad was upstairs still and he had a lil dude up there with him. Brad said later he could hear them pouring in and the lil guy was being shot at from all over. Lil dude looked over and goes, "I'm scared." (I took liberties with Brad's response... enjoy) "You are going to get that gun of yours down range and start firing. We're going to make it out of here. Ready, start firing NOW!" They both took a side and starting laying down fire. They held off a wall of attackers that were hell bent on grabbing the flag and getting it out of the castle and the defenders won! There were two hallways that the attacking team had to run down. They were narrow and slippery from paint, so all they had to do was not run out of paint before the time ran out. Awesome job. We were all so fired up afterwards that we took another water/piss/paint break and got ready for our last round.

Round 7: HEMLOCK TOTAL ELIMINATION - Finally! We get to go to one of the "wooded" fields. The other fields were wooded, but they were mostly structured and not as "natural." This field was awesome. Dark, deep, quiet. There was even a river. I decided I'd play it cool, but that I was going to work with one other guy and get all the way around behind the other team by following the river bed. Then I get the call from behind me, "yo! 2 of them crossed the river and are coming right for us!" I looked, and there they were. There were two guys in black shirts climbing through very dense brush. I waited a second for them to reach a little clearing and cut them both down. They weren't putting their hands up, so I just kept laying it on. I actually started feeling bad because I was watching ball after ball explode on this kid's chest and figured he was just caught up in the bushes. Turns out he was just going to keep going until a ref called him out... which didn't happen. While I was laying into these two... which was a good 10 to 15 seconds of fire from a forward position... another guy saw/heard me and shot the shit out of my back... again. I took more shots to the back then I did to any other part of my body. My team was worthless and did nothing to stop anyone from moving at will. By this time I was getting frustrated with dishonest people, was tired as fuck, couldn't see out of my mask anymore, and the other two guys were the same. The green team was on their way out, so we left too.

MY ONLY COMPLAINT ABOUT SKIRMISH USA:
There are not enough refs to handle the terrain and people can be very dishonest. I called myself out every time I knew I was shot. It doesn't take much. You feel the sting of 10 marbles hitting you in the chest at 280 feet per second and you put your hands up. I know I was hitting people who didn't go out because I shot the fucking shit out of our ref a couple times by accident. I'd see someone moving behind a tree or some shit and just start shooting. I'd hit them with every ball from the first one till the last one and they wouldn't be expecting it, so it was obvious that they were hit. Then I'd see a guy barely jogging 20 feet away and rip him to shreds and he'd keep going. BULLSHIT!

Anyways, it was a great day with great friends. I was 100% exhausted. I had nothing left last night. I tried to post something yesterday, but I fell asleep (see first paragraph). I am done typing... now