Yay, Paintball

took a nap after i took the accord in w/ my contacts in. i woke up and it was the most uncomfortable feeling. it felt like my contacts were sticking to my eye lids. after some drops and more drops, they fianlly cleared up. never going to sleep w/ contacts in again.


paintball

kenny showed up at my house around 3pm est. we went to his restaurant and had some chicken and brocolli before we headed off to rexplex for some ball.

we're driving on 78 E and as soon as we get onto the express side, it's just backed up. congested for miles. we eventually get to a cross over and the entire express side is forced onto the local side. the whole time, we see cars driving past us on the shoulder. every once in awhile, a state trooper would push them back into the normal lanes, but as soon as they passed, there would be more cars on the shoulder.

while we were in traffic, we saw a car w/ the license number: WEY 427. very interesting.

as soon as we got onto the local side, it was backed up. after driving a bit, we see that the express side is pretty much clear. kenny and i can't understand why they forced us all into the local lanes. we saw a good number of cars, trucks, suvs, minivans, vans jump the median and zoom down the express side. state troopers actually had to force some of them back into the local lanes. eventually, they must have reopened the express lane because there were just tons of cars coming down at really high speeds.

we finally get to the us 1/us 9 exit. we look over to our left and we see this huge huge accident. theres an 18 wheeler being towed away, there are several cars spun out along the sides of the road. there are several ambulances and one car that looked like it had been crushed. it had its roof completely cut off.

by the time we get to rexplex, we've been on the road for over an hour and a half.

we meet this guy named adam, who's been waiting there since 4pm est. we set up our gear and get ready to play, but they tell us: 5 more minutes. 5 minutes becomes 30. it's now 6:30pm est, and we still have yet to play. adam has been waiting there for two and a half hours now.

after a few minutes, we finally get to play. it's a small 3 on 3. the teams even out pretty quickly and it ends up being just me in the back right and this other guy in his back left. i think there's another person, so i keep sending paint at the left 60 tombstone. i remain patient, coming out both sides of the bunker, laying down paint on the tombstone and my mirror. eventually, he gets tired of waiting and tries to bunker me. he gets to the 50 and i light him up. we hit knuckles and get ready for the next game.

this game is much faster. i run up to the 40 standup and just by lightly tapping it, the bunker falls over. i quickly get on my knees and try to stay behind it. i see someone standing out right in the open, so i light him up. i tag the back right and move for the last guy in the back left. i lay paint on his bunker as adam advances past me on the right and tags him out.

after the games, the guy from the first game that tried to bunker me commended me on my patience to sit in my bunker and wait for him. i find out his name is willie and he runs bigpaintball.com.

the next game we play, its willie, adam, kenny, and some other guys playing against team night cat. they appear to be some factory team put together by night cat paintball to pimp the paint. we later find out that these guys are a bunch of cheaters. we lose the first game, pretty solidly. they didn't move at all, just sat in their bunkers and laid down paint.

in the second game, i run to the back right. my mirror is taken out, and i take out the back left. theres only 2 guys left, so i run up and bunker the guy at the center 60 and tag out the back center at the same time.

we sit around awhile, and then play against some people from jester. they're a novice team, but they'r still pretty good. they cleaned us both games. i got shot out right as i got into my bunker both games.

later, we play against some guys who have custom 98's and A-5's. i tag this one little kid off the break as he's trying to run to the back right. kenny gets out the guy in the back left. and some other guys are tagged out. there's one guy left, so i make a run for it. i see his leg sticking out and light it up. he ends up complaing about how his leg hurts the rest of the night.

the next game, i run up to the 40 standup and tag the back right. i exchange some fire w/ the back left but don't really have an angle on him so i move up to the 50 triangle. just as i get there, i see someone walk out of the snake. i had no idea anyone was there. thinking that the back left is the only one left, i run to the center 60 before running around back behind the back left. just as i'm about to move, i look down and see someone. i pop him in the chest which is about 2 feet away from me. right after i tag him, i apologize because i didn't know he was there. after tagging him, i run around the back center and right behind the guy in the back left and pop him once in the lower back. it ends up being the same guy that i shot in the foot in the previous game.

we play a few more games after that, but i'm pretty much otiose in those games. either getting tagged just as i get into my bunker or shortly thereafter.

around 10:15 we start packing up to head out. as we're driving out of the rexplex complex, kenny's car suddenly stalls and stops. we know that i can't be the battery because the car started fine and we had driven a few thousand feet. kenny checked the oil but couldn't find anything wrong. not knowing what to do, i called AAA to see what they could do. the only thing that they could provide us w/ was a tow truck. since i am only a basic member, i only get the first 3 miles free. after that, it costs $3 US per mile. it's about 20~30 miles from rexplex to parsippany so that's not really feasible.

kenny calls up some friends to see if they have any ideas. while he's on the phone, i pray a short prayer. as i'm sitting there, i remember that something similar had happened to me before while iw as down at rutgers. both instances, i had driven through some rather large puddles. while we were making our way out of rexplex, we had driven through some large puddles as well. i theorized that whatever happened to kenny's car, was the same thing that had happended to mine. i told kenny about it, and how waiting it out would solve it. he continued to talk on the phone to try and figure out how this could have happened. after sitting there for a good 20 minutes or so, we tried it again, and the car started. i was right.

we made it onto the highways and made it home without incident.


soul purpose

tony sent me his revisions to triple helix. i talked to him on aim about some of the changes and just cleaned them up a bit. triple helix has finally moved out of the alpha phase and into beta. after we do the table reads this sunday, we should have a finalized version. as the table reads are being done, i'll do a final revision.

tony and i also talked a bit about casting triple helix. although we haven't done the table reads yet, we have a pretty good idea of who we think should play what part. of course, there are the obvious choices which would be fine and easy. then there are the more challenging choices. some because of personal skill, others because it's casting against type. with these ideas in mind, we can set up the table read how we think would be the most interesting.

while triple helix is off being blocked, becky and i will be taking over perspectives for a bit. i sent out an email demanding hard copies of the first drafts. we're going to sit down w/ each group and go through their monologues, make comments, and get them on track for their second draft. hopefully, we'll have time to go through everyone.

its a very exciting and very tamultuous time for soul purpose. there are many uncertain rocks ahead of us but that's the sort of thing that makes it interesting.

God is so good.