i keep a diary

May 30, 2008

Paintball with Yodle

My awesome (former) Yodle co-worker, Ammon Brown organized an unofficial work trip to go play paintball at Skirmish out in Pennsylvania!

me
If you've been reading this site for any amount of time, this probably goes without saying: Me = Not a Morning Person. In order to play paintball with my co-workers I agreed to a 5am wake up call. Here's me making sure I'm actually in real life after only getting about ninety minutes of sleep. TIME TO PLAY PAINTBALL!
poke ˆ tired ˆ me
Walking through Stuytown admiring the spring time green!
stuytown
The courtyard outside our building has paddle-tennis and bocce ball courts!
stuytown
And on the way out the street I passed trays and trays of beautiful flowering plants that they were getting ready to plant all around the Stuytown grounds. (Whoopsie! Sorry about wasting money on flowers and defaulting on the 3 BILLION DOLLAR LOAN! Love, Tishman Speyer!)
flower ˆ stuytown
Our bus left at 6:40am. Oooof.
bus
Ah, the peaceful pastures of Pennsylvania.
field
We got to Skirmish a little after 9am right as it stopped drizzling and started to clear up!
skirmish
SKIRMISH!
skirmish
I've dicked around in the woods with painball guns before, but I'd never played paintball at a huge professional place like Skirmish and I was totally blown away by the scale and organization of the operation. AWESOME!
skirmish
aziza, ben r
Aziza and Ben busted out a bottle of whiskey and we all had a few "warm-up sips" before existing the bus.
bus ˆ yodle ˆ aziza ˆ ben r
matt
Matt showed off his jock strap (and his pecs). (Psssst, ladies! He's single!)
gay ˆ matt
emanuel
Emanuel stepping off the bus and tying on the sea-foam green bandana that signifies the kickoff of his ritualistic paintball preparation proceedures! I'm actually just making that up. The truth is, he actually wears that bandana every day! Ha!
bus ˆ yodle ˆ emanuel
So excited.
crowd ˆ paintball
Filling out my form poorly.
skirmish
Wait, HUH??? What kind of hillbilly, bait and switch, invite you to play paintball and then rape you in the woods with a hose (apparently) kind of shit is this?
best ˆ skirmish ˆ wtf
nathaniel, todd
That's probably not really going to happen, right?
yodle ˆ nathaniel ˆ todd
aziza
Probably not.
yodle ˆ aziza
matt
Who cares? PAINTBALL!
yodle ˆ matt
me
I stowed away my three peanut butter jars of paintballs in this fancy little hip-satchel. Mercenary chic!
cigarette ˆ hoodie ˆ paintball ˆ me
With everyone outfitted, we walked closer to the playing fields to pick up our guns.
best ˆ paintball
matt, me
Me and Matt.
sunglasses ˆ matt ˆ me
Getting guns.
paintball
Into the woods!
paintball
me
Face protection.
paintball ˆ me
While my co-workers were gearing up, I wandered into one of the ammo shops and bought a bunch of TACTICAL SMOKE GRENADES. We hadn't even started playing yet and I remember I kept thinking to myself: "They just sold me tactical smoke grenades! PAINTBALL IS AWESOME!"
paintball ˆ smoke grenade
After loading up on guns and ammo, we headed deeper into the woods to play our first match.
paintball
matt
There are many like it, but this one is mine.
paintball ˆ matt
aziza, matt
The referee gathered us to explain the rules...
paintball ˆ yodle ˆ aziza ˆ matt
...and then sent us trudging into an awesomely creepy set of houses that looked like they were leftover from some Hollywood Western made in the 50s.
paintball
Right?
Playing the first match confirmed the suspicions I'd had earlier whilst purchasing tactical smoke grenades: PAINTBALL IS FUCKING AWESOME.
paintball
nathaniel
(But it's not very awesome when you get hit at close range). Here's Nataniel showing off two close range shots he took in the arm in the 3rd match we played.
ouch ˆ paintball ˆ nathaniel
Resting up between games.
3:30pm. Yet another ammo refill!
rajiv
We've been playing painball for many hours and it is fucking EXHAUSTING! Not only are you running around full speed while carrying heavy gear, the fact that you're running through the woods and hunting other humans (and trying to to get avoid shot by the people hunting you because it HURTS) sends your adrenaline spiking through the roof every single game. It's intense.
paintball ˆ tired ˆ yodle ˆ rajiv
aziza, matt
4pm. Resting up for the final match!
paintball ˆ yodle ˆ aziza ˆ matt
ammon
Ammon, the man who organized the event! Thanks, Ammon!
mask ˆ paintball ˆ ammon
me
Beleaguered me.
mask ˆ paintball ˆ me
Before the match started, I made sure I had the last of my TACTICAL SMOKE GRENADES handy. I'd used the other three I'd purchased in the heat of other battles, but I was so completely absorbed in the games that I didn't want to take photos and risk getting killed. But the smoke grenades were so awesome that I was determined to document me using the last one in an actual paintball-combat scenario!
best ˆ smoke grenade
Awwww, yeah! About 20 nail-biting minutes into the last match, we were trying to silently creep through the woods to track down the other team when we fell into an ambush! I threw the last grenade, snapped this rad photo, and then a couple seconds later the smoke provided a dense enough cover that allowed a couple of us to right-flank our ambushers! AWESOME!
best ˆ paintball ˆ smoke grenade
Leaving the field after the last match.
paintball
So much fun.
paintball
emanuel
Emanuel!
paintball ˆ yodle ˆ emanuel
matt
Matt posing for one last "HOW AWESOME IS IT THAT I'M HOLDING A PAINTBALL GUN?" photo before we had to hand our guns in.
paintball ˆ matt
ammon
Ammon showing off a close-range arm shot that had already started turning a deep purple behind the still-bright-red impact spot. Ouchie!
bruise ˆ ouch ˆ ammon
Bus ride home.
bus
It was a perfect day of mock-killing in the woods! There was even a rainbow on the way home! Thanks again for organizing such a fun trip, Ammon!
driving ˆ rainbow