It strikes me as inspiring that even in the midst of the current financial crunch, paintball events in my neck of the woods are springing up left and right. I don’t want to make those of you in other parts of the country jealous, but I could play a great game just about every weekend. Where I live, in the foothills of western North Carolina, there are half a dozen great fields within 100 miles, and when I expand the range to include eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia, South Carolina, and parts of Virginia, I have no trouble finding top notch scenario and big game action. I don’t know if it’s the teams, the promoters, the field owners, or the local economy, but I’m wishing I could clone myself, because I can’t be in two places at once. While I’m at D-Day in Oklahoma, I’ll be missing what promises to be an excellent Indiana Jones themed game, and the weekend I return, I may try to hit a 24 hour game only an hour from my house.

Case in point, on the first weekend in August I’ll be attended the Mil-Sim Invitational at Command Decisions. This event will mark a new path in tactical play, and I want to be on hand to launch this new venture. Later in the month (August 16), on the other send of the state, Black River Paintball will host their first Super Game, a GI Joe vs. Cobra event that will be revolutionary, but in a different way. Get this, for $45 a player, those who attend will not only get entry, air, and a ticket for the prize raffle, but they’ll get a PCS camouflage jersey and pants! All the GI Joe players will be sporting digi camo, and all the Cobra players will have urban. And there’s more! Every player on the winning team will take home a marker. That means, if Cobra wins, and they have 300 players on their side, 300 people will take home a marker, matching jerseys and pants, and possibly other prizes - all for $45. This is unprecedented. Visit the game’s site to find out all the details, and if I’ve perfected my cloning technology by then, I’ll see you there.

I’ve updated my calendar with a few more confirmed dates. I’ll be playing “Clear and Present Danger” at Wolf Creek Paintball on March 22. This is a new field (to me), and I’m psyched about checking out some new terrain and hitting the field with a bunch of players, some of whom are subscribers to this blog! We’re putting together a team for this event only, and it should be a blast.

I’ve also added a confirmed date to cover the Platoon Leader Real Mil Invitational in August. Now, admittedly, I’m not the most mil-sim guy, but I will be toting a Tacamo Type-68 in my kit bag this season (more about that in a future post and press release), so I might be able to put together enough mil-sim gear by August to give it a shot. It sounds like a radical departure from your typical scenario game. Here’s more information. It’s similar to what Full Clip and Sonny Lopez are trying on the west coast, but on a different, more realistic and military-oriented scale.

My next confirmed major event is the MPP game at Paintball Charleston. Can’t wait for that one either. MPP puts on an excellent show, and I’ve heard plenty about Paintball Charleston to get me psyched.

Finally, I’m taping an interview for Blast Radius Woodsball Podcast tonight with the host with the golden pipes, Wayne. We’ll be discussing tactics, sponsorship, and Wayne’s upcoming trip to Australia. Wayne and I came up with the idea for the trip together, but my financial and work situations aren’t going to allow me to explore the scenario world down under - at least not this year. Next year, it’ll be a whole new (paint)ball game.

I’ve updated my calendar of scenario dates.  Simply click on “US Tour 2008″ under links to see my Google Calendar.  I still have some dates open, especially in the summer months.  If you’re a field or producer and you’d like me to cover your event or write about a walk-on day at your field, contact me before my 2008 is completely booked.

Here’s a picture taken of me at the Halo 3 game - photo by Splatshots.  This was taken during the first half of the game as I led a charge across this bridge to take out the human defenders set up around some bombs we (the Covenant) had to disarm.  The humans finished the round 200 points in the lead, but the Covenant came back to kick some butt in the second half.

I’ve just returned from a really fun game, Line-of-Fire’s Halo 3, which was actually their fourth Halo game. I know, these Halo games are a dime a dozen, but this one really stood out from the crowd. For one, they built a real, working, awesome, insert adjective here, Warthog. Take a look at the pictures. This thing handled like the video game vehicle (only not so much air time) and it featured a mounted gun on the back - the .50 turret. The game also had a couple of guys dressed as Spartans in the full armor getup, an amazing double barrel Spankr rocket launcher, and a set of missions written to follow the plot of the newest Halo installment. I hate to break it to you humans, but the Covenant emerged victorious and destroyed the galaxy. Sorry ’bout that.

Spankr and ammo

Master Chief, Warthog, and Spankr

Wartog Turret Gun

I had the privilege recently of playing some rec’ ball with Bea Youngs Paxson, Mike Paxson, and Rocky Cagnoni.  The photographer at the field (Line-of-Fire in North Carolina) took this picture immediately after Bea shot me out.  Hey, it was down to a three-on-one, and I held them off until Bea made her move.