vikingshadow
01-27-2007, 10:49 AM
Been awhile since I wrote a story, so here ya go! tl;dr? Go away! Use your schooling for crying out loud!
Well, as you all know, I've been a bit excited that I decided to pick up playing the game again. I even went and bought a new gun and have been upgrading it. Most of my excitement was that almost all the guys on this team I was asked to play for were older, more experienced guys who just wanted to have fun and play a good tournament here and there.
Most of the mods know I put a lot of thought into deciding to get back in, and as most of you know, once I make up my mind, I go all out. So when I decided to get back in, I started paying more attention to the game, reading mags again, researching guns and whatnot....
Everything was going great UNTIL the guy that was setting this whole thing up, my friend and ex co-captain of Catalyst had some tragedy enter his life recently. I'm not going into it, but it's pretty serious, enough that after 20+ years of balling, he's getting out for the next year or so, even going so far as to sell his pride and joy EGO.
Unfortunately, I haven't even MET the other guys on the team yet; that was going to happen today at the Indoor place in OKC, but because of the personal things going on with my friend and the weather, the practice has been called off. Now, the snake guy apparantly is trying out for another team, the other two are doing other things, and I'm left in the cold, pardon the pun.
To make matters worse, my friend and I are the only guys that played/s around this area that are close to my age and no one within 15-20 years has the tournament experience we have. We wouldn't even get to play most rec players at most fields! Personally, I won't play younger kids (like 10-13 yrs, mainly due to my job, age and tournament experience. It's just a moral thing for me...) I will actually play 14 and older IF they've played before and are big talkers, which they usually are - then it's a pride issue. However, these guys around here are mainly into football and basketball and paintball rarely enters their minds once they get their licenses.
Add to that, I've had a sneaking suspicion for more than a year that the local field owner is trying desperately to find a way to close the field down. He never really was into paintball, and only took over when his partner left town for another job. He just keeps it open for the rec players (kids) and over the past year, my friend actually worked every other weekend out there. Had it not been for that, I think we'd have lost the field sooner. I mean, the guy actually "accidently" burned his entire air field down, as well as some of his woods field! He was burning trash, left to "run an errand" and the wind swept the fire all the way across the field. Not that it was a tragedy - he left the bunkers out in the weather for over two years, and they were falling apart. We spent more time patching bunkers than actually playing!
Granted, my friend brought in a few dozen spools and cubes so now in place of the air field, there's a spool field, and the owner was talking about a new air field, but with my friend have this problem right now, I don't see that happening. Especially with me not spending much time out there so he could talk me into working. We don't actually see eye to eye anyways, so that probably wouldn't happen anyways.
Now, I figure the Paintball gods are frowning on me since I just dumped 400.00 into a gun, plus another 150.00 into upgrades into it, and I don't really want to sell it. I think I really still want to play, but don't relish the thought of going out to the field every Saturday or Sunday and waiting hopefully for someone other than 10-12 year olds to show up and play woods. It'd give me plenty of pump practice with my Phantom, but nothing else. I also don't want to start up a whole new team just to get into the BS that made me quit in the first place. Then of course, there's the two hour drive to get to the next closest field....or the 2.5 hour drive to OKC to play.
I guess this is just a long winded rant, but dang it! It sucks living in a paintball wasteland! What do I want to accomplish from this post? Well, for one, not boring my wife with it, just you guys. And two, getting it off my chest and to let you know that I may have a couple paintball guns up for sale.....:(
Well, as you all know, I've been a bit excited that I decided to pick up playing the game again. I even went and bought a new gun and have been upgrading it. Most of my excitement was that almost all the guys on this team I was asked to play for were older, more experienced guys who just wanted to have fun and play a good tournament here and there.
Most of the mods know I put a lot of thought into deciding to get back in, and as most of you know, once I make up my mind, I go all out. So when I decided to get back in, I started paying more attention to the game, reading mags again, researching guns and whatnot....
Everything was going great UNTIL the guy that was setting this whole thing up, my friend and ex co-captain of Catalyst had some tragedy enter his life recently. I'm not going into it, but it's pretty serious, enough that after 20+ years of balling, he's getting out for the next year or so, even going so far as to sell his pride and joy EGO.
Unfortunately, I haven't even MET the other guys on the team yet; that was going to happen today at the Indoor place in OKC, but because of the personal things going on with my friend and the weather, the practice has been called off. Now, the snake guy apparantly is trying out for another team, the other two are doing other things, and I'm left in the cold, pardon the pun.
To make matters worse, my friend and I are the only guys that played/s around this area that are close to my age and no one within 15-20 years has the tournament experience we have. We wouldn't even get to play most rec players at most fields! Personally, I won't play younger kids (like 10-13 yrs, mainly due to my job, age and tournament experience. It's just a moral thing for me...) I will actually play 14 and older IF they've played before and are big talkers, which they usually are - then it's a pride issue. However, these guys around here are mainly into football and basketball and paintball rarely enters their minds once they get their licenses.
Add to that, I've had a sneaking suspicion for more than a year that the local field owner is trying desperately to find a way to close the field down. He never really was into paintball, and only took over when his partner left town for another job. He just keeps it open for the rec players (kids) and over the past year, my friend actually worked every other weekend out there. Had it not been for that, I think we'd have lost the field sooner. I mean, the guy actually "accidently" burned his entire air field down, as well as some of his woods field! He was burning trash, left to "run an errand" and the wind swept the fire all the way across the field. Not that it was a tragedy - he left the bunkers out in the weather for over two years, and they were falling apart. We spent more time patching bunkers than actually playing!
Granted, my friend brought in a few dozen spools and cubes so now in place of the air field, there's a spool field, and the owner was talking about a new air field, but with my friend have this problem right now, I don't see that happening. Especially with me not spending much time out there so he could talk me into working. We don't actually see eye to eye anyways, so that probably wouldn't happen anyways.
Now, I figure the Paintball gods are frowning on me since I just dumped 400.00 into a gun, plus another 150.00 into upgrades into it, and I don't really want to sell it. I think I really still want to play, but don't relish the thought of going out to the field every Saturday or Sunday and waiting hopefully for someone other than 10-12 year olds to show up and play woods. It'd give me plenty of pump practice with my Phantom, but nothing else. I also don't want to start up a whole new team just to get into the BS that made me quit in the first place. Then of course, there's the two hour drive to get to the next closest field....or the 2.5 hour drive to OKC to play.
I guess this is just a long winded rant, but dang it! It sucks living in a paintball wasteland! What do I want to accomplish from this post? Well, for one, not boring my wife with it, just you guys. And two, getting it off my chest and to let you know that I may have a couple paintball guns up for sale.....:(