ALMOST PARADISE

Wow! I finally get to recap a day of paintball on here.

On Saturday July 8th ( way too late in the summer to be having the first paintball game of the year ) ten of us gathered at the field I've nicknamed, Ruby Ridge. For some pics and a description you can see the previous post. Ben was taking pictures at this game, so maybe I can eventually get some emailed to me to post on here.

We started at about eleven in the morning. The weather was sunny and somewhere in the mid to upper eighties I guess. It was a little hot for my taste, but the heat didn't seem to affect anyone's ability to have a great time! Aside from a couple of quick games of center flag we spent the next four hours playing strictly an attack and defend type game using the old farm house.

All in all it turned out to be a pretty action-packed day. I brought five hundred rounds with me, and only had about forty or so left at the end of a just a few hours. For me, that's a lot of shooting. We had the following players show up:

Brady
Jon
Joe
Ben
Steve
Phil
Blake
Clay
Rusty
Brian

My favorite kill of the day has to be when I was on the attacking team. We had killed all the defenders in the house except for one. After giving him a few chances to surrender and come out with no response, I decided to make an entry into the house. With my team mates covering me through the windows I made a rush from the front door and into a corner in the living room. I looked back at the doorway to see that Joe had followed me and was in the doorway. I was looking at him getting ready to take the hallway, when I saw him suddenly look up at the ceiling. My eyes instinctively followed his to the half exposed, rotting rafters ten feet up.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw Rusty, the last defender, standing above the doorway precariously balanced on the rafters, drawing aim - trying to find a clear shot at me through the rotten boards and slats. With my A-5 set to full auto I immediately fired a good ten round burst into his belly and chest, the final round ending up in a big green splat between the eyes. He had opened fire at me at the same time, but somehow had missed me. Unfortunately for him, Joe and several others opened up on him the same time I did. Stunned and blinded Rusty continued firing his gun off. I was yelling, "he's out! He's dead! . . . Rusty YOU ARE DEAD!" One of his rounds hit me in the upper left thigh before he finally got a hold of himself and quit firing. I'm not sure how many hits he had recieved by that time.

My favorite death of mine, had to be my second time as a defender in the house. I don't remember much about the particulars of that battle, just how it ended. I do remember attackers getting up to the windows and sticking their guns in and firing wildly around the room. Once I shot Joe in the wrist three times as he jammed his gun through the window opening. To be a defender in the house is a crazy experience. The sound of the paintballs impacting on the walls is really wild. The guns all sound so different in there too. It just basically sounds like all hell is breaking loose, and it actually pretty much is!

Anyway, it was down to Steve and I as the last defenders, and the situation was getting desperate. Paintballs where flying everywhere, and we were pushed back into the last two rooms of the house with big open windows all around us. Suddenly I hear Steve yell "grenade!" I could't believe my eyes when I saw a Tippmann Squadbuster flopping around on the floor at Steve's feet spraying blue paint all over his pant legs. I have to say that in my fifteen plus years of paintballing that is the first time I have ever seen a grenade eliminate a player. A few moments later, all by myself, I was eventually overwhelmed and eliminated. I believe Clay did the honors through a window that was on my left.

The other memorable moment was Joe's big charge at center flag. Joe and his whole team decided that they would all sprint in the open towards the flag while shooting simultaneously. They hoped to overwhelm us with aggressive speed and fire power. We read what they were going to do, and when the game began we all went to one knee and hosed them with hundreds of rounds as they ran to the flag. I can honestly say I never let off the trigger the entire duration of the game. None of us did. I would have to guess that it was about twenty seconds of non-stop firing before it was over. I went through probably one hundred rounds just in twenty seconds.

To sum it all up, it was probably one of the most memorable days of paintball I've had. What an awesome place to play, and what a great bunch of guys to play with. I hope we can do it again soon. I invite my fellow players who were there with me to post comments and tell us your favorite kill, and favorite death.

Out.