And then there were bruises

The Edmonton trip has come and gone and now I am back to the grind. The bad part about the trip was the lack of a weekend. Sure I had two days "off" but after getting back Sunday night I really didn't feel like I had any time to relax. Thankfully that paled in comparison to the joy I had from shooting little kids.

The main reason we were in Edmonton was for Nigel's birthday party which consisted of a few hours of paintball and some other less important stuff like presents, friends and BBQ.

Grimes: But.. but this was a contest for children!
Lenny: Yeah, and Homer beat their brains out!

I don't know if I've ever had more fun while paintballing than this last time. Well I guess I shouldn't say more fun but different fun. We didn't have any structured games, we just ran out and shot everyone until the round was over. When I've gone before we played capture the flag and protect the president. There is a certain visceral thrill to just shooting people, especially the ones that won't shoot back. Most of the kids wouldn't advance, they would just stay behind the first piece of cover and take pot shots. This "strategy" did work out for some of them once in a while but usually it just resulted in myself or my dad shooting them in the face or ass. I know I got a few ass shots because I would come up from the side and the only thing showing around the edge of cover would be their butt. One of the kids had a real tough time of paintball because he was not the most adventurous and he actually had something like shell shock on the field. I found him hidding behind some cover too scared to advance but I think he was peer pressured into going. Some people aren't cut out for it I guess.

There were two women playing too. Lindsay came with full intentions to have some fun and Nigel's Aunt came aswell. Lindsay's day came to an end quickly when she was shot in the head twice in the first round. One was freindly fire. I don't know if she was mistaken for the enemy or if she crossed someone's line of fire but she was not a happy camper when she got back to the safe area. Nigel's aunt didn't fare much better but I think that was partly my fault. I think I scared her a bit in the car ride out there with stories of welts and bruises. It was only fair though as her driving scared and annoyed me. I made her surender without firing a shot and she high tailed it off the field relieved that she was not in pain.

At the end of it all I wasn't in much pain. I'm used to getting shot quite a bit but without too much paint flying my way I only got hit 5 times but one of them was a neck shot that wasn't too pleasant. The worst was two close range shots by Nigel into my love handle. One of those bled a bit but I got him back with a shot to the kidney.

The other reason we went to Edmonton was for a TV. Dad gave us his old 27" TV and it is soooo much better than the 13 we had been using. He also gave us a little Sony surround sound system, a slow cooker and will be getting us a deep freeze. I think it was quite generous of him to give us all that stuff and it is very appreciated.

We had lots of fun but it was a long way to go for two days. My car saw more kms in one weekend than it would in a month or more. I was impressed with it though, it cruised along at 120ish Km/h at 3700 RPM without a hiccup and used about $80 worth of gas. We averaged 38mpg, 37 there and 39 back. I would be interested to see how it would do if it had a sixth gear but I guess I'll never get to find out.