Monday, April 04, 2011

Are you ready for some pain(t)ball?

Yesterday I played paintball for the first time. One of my friends from work organized a lab outing (boss included!) to a paintball facility about an hour outside of the city. There were 14 of us total, so we were divided into two teams and everyone equipped with a camouflage jumpsuit, a face shield, a vest, a paintball gun, and ammunition (600 paintballs in total). We played a series of games, most of which were variants of hide-and-seek or capture the flag, on three separate courses- one had two large wooden forts, one was all natural woods and brush, and one had a bunch of barricades and barrels to hide behind. And onto the paintball...it was really fun and exciting and overall I had a blast but...it fucking hurt!! The very first time I got hit, I was hiding behind a log and poked my head up and BAM!, a paintball to the noggin, right above where my face shield ended. I felt a little bit woozy afterwards, but I recovered, and at least I knew what to expect from then on. I quickly realized that shooting wasn't my strong suit, so tried to make up for it by hiding and scampering, but based upon all of the welts and bruises on my ass, I wasn't so good at that either. I'd post a picture if it weren't so obscene. After the paintball ended, we had a barbecue and a good laugh about all of the funny stuff that happened during the action. Unfortunately, no one brought cameras out to the paintball pitch so I only have the before photo, not the after one of me covered in paint. Someone (JR!) said that paintball is dangerously close to World of Warcraft territory, but even though I had a great time, I don't think I could handle it more than once or twice a year, so I don't think I'm going to join the Victorian paintball militia or anything like that.

3 comments:

Ryan said...

Hiding and scampering is not a strategy, its an abomination. Go for it!

buddymollys said...

scampering sounds awesome -- i can totally picture you scampering with the best of 'em! rock on:)

eileen said...

Hiding and scampering is a worthy tactic! For example, I tried to hide in the brush and sneak around the back of the opponent's fort..which worked well until I tried some sniper shots and gave away my position. Paintball battlefield fail. I was better at the straight-up scampering.