Happy Birthday Kyle

Okay, Kyle's birthday was more than a week ago, I just have not mentioned it yet in my blog postings.

His Birthday was Sunday November 7th. But we celebrated on Saturday. Like last year, Kyle wanted to take some friends and play paintball. He also wanted me to play. I was quite honored. His friends were a little skeptical at first. In fact they were arguing about who had to be on my team. But as the afternoon wore on, I was able to hold my own and by the end of the day they were giving me high fives.

The place we went to play was called "Predator Paint Ball" in Hillsborough NC. They have several courses to play on. When we first arrived, we checked in, paid our admission fees, filled up the CO2 tanks and purchased some paint. Then the five of us headed toward what I will call the "ready area". This is where you load your paint balls, clean the markers (the politically correct thing to call paint ball guns) and just plain rest between rounds. We staked out an area and readied the markers. Kyle and his friends all had their own equipment. I borrowed a marker from one of Bob's friends so I needed a little help getting things ready.

Before you play, I learned, you need to calibrate your marker. These weapons are capable of shooting a paint ball 350+ MPH. The folks you are playing with agree to what a reasonable velocity is then everyone calibrates there markers accordingly. Those things can hurt when they hit you so you have to balance being able to fire at things far away with how much it hurts when it hits you at closer range. We calibrated ours to around 270 MPH, suitable for a woods type course. This took some time, specially Kyle's new marker. After all was said and done; markers calibrated, loaded, gear stowed and such we were there probably 40 minutes before we were able to step out on the field.

The Saturday we went, Predator was rather busy; several parties and regular teams were there. Even still we really did not have to wait too long at any time to play. The first several games we played 3 v 2, in a woods setting. It was fun, scooting behind trees and laying behind logs, pinning people down with crossfire etc. I had my share of "kills". There was another group of five waiting for the field at one point and we agreed to play against them. They looked more like a team. They were all decked out in camouflage. Even their markers had camo on them. We managed to chase them, basically off the course, and finish them off leaving us with 2 active player. Not to shabby for a bunch of kids who play only occationally and an old man who has never played.

Towards the end of the day we played on what I think is called a "Speed Ball" course. That was a lot of fun too but much more challenging. The course is smaller, fenced off and, except for these inflated canvas obstacles, is wide open. I did pretty well not getting hurt by any of the many balls that hit me up to that point but in the speed ball course, because we were closer.... Well I still have 3 or 4 decent welts/bruises to show off. Perhaps we should have dialed down the markers. Honestly most of the welts were my fault. I made a suicide run at the dorito shaped bunker with 2 opposing players behind it. I managed to hit one in the mask before the other one pummeled me at close range.

A couple weeks before, Kyle had bought himself a single action marker. One shot, pump action that holds only 10 balls at a time. After that you have to reload with these little tubes. It is more challenging and you use A LOT fewer balls. The rest of us had semi automatic markers that could hold 200 balls at a time. It is easy to go through 200 balls in just a few minutes. That is one reason Kyle bought his marker; Paint balls are not cheap. The new marker put him at a disadvantage (Specially in speedball) but seemed to enjoy the challenge and he still managed to notch a few kills himself.

It was a successful birthday "party". I had a blast and Kyle and his friends seemed to as well. I am definitely going to have to play again.