Make 'em wear it.

Make 'em wear it, shooting faces, "I don't wanna see nothin' but hate comin' outta those barrels." (Compliments of Shadel) Call it whatever you want but it comes down to kills, g's, shock counts and eleminations. The point of paintball is to shoot the other guy before he shoots you.

CPA played in the San Jose/Hollister event this weekend and we played 5 man-single A. The top division in the RPL West Coast tournament series. A move up not only in format, but up a divison, a choice we decided to make after sitting down with the guys. Everyone wants to be the best player they can be, obviously because many of us have put in countless hundreds of hours (not to mention dollars) over-in some cases- tens of years of tournament paintball experiance. We want, as all regional level teams should, to move out of the RPL one day and make it to a level such as the USPL or the PSP. Sandbagging doesn't make anyone better.

This event proved to be interesting, as do all of CPA's events. The format breaks down like this: All the teams in each division play eachother for win points in a best two out of three (a one on one determining any tied series') the top eight move on to semi-finals and play the same format, from there the best four teams make it to the finals on sunday afternoon. That is, of course, if there are enough teams for semi finals, or even for prelims. The 5-A division was lacking enough teams to eleminate anyone from prelims so Saturday was essentially an expensive-glorified practice. CPA stepped on the field saturday morning fired up and ready to play, but was quickly knocked back on their heel's by Wanted, a team that stood by themselves in the A-Open divison, so was placed in the A-5 man divison in order to get their money's work, another high five to Sean Walker and the RPL. CPA was fired up, but not running on all cylinders, missing moves and losing gun-fights, personally, just in this first set with Wanted I missed two 'easy' kills when players ran through my lane. This first set would foreshadow the outcome of the rest of the event...kinda'. Ill explain.

CPA's next opponant was Rockstar Rebels and the situation was similar to the last set against Wanted, poorly timed moves, missed kills, unnessissairy trade-outs were some of the things that plagued the team and made CPA's record a disheartening 0-4.

Next on the schedual was Poso Creek Possy, a team that took second in the divison at the last RPL event in Oceanside. Theyre a good team, and they quickly rolled CPA up adding another two losses to the already loss heavy record. Needless to say things werent going well. The game was a pretty contreversial one, with myself whiping an obvious hit on my hopper in front of a very Poso heavy crowd. On a personal level though the game and the controversy that followed was a very enightening experiance for me. Im originally from the mid-west, a traditionally X-ball playing region of the country, in mid-west X-ball, cheating is part of the game. With players on opposing teams even congratulating eachother of successful 'whipes', getting away with cheating is an art. But thats the mid-west, and thats X-ball. This is neither, and after realizing how much its frowned upon here on the west coast, I personally went up to the team, and the individual whos' hit I whiped and appologized after explaining the differances between the regional styles of play. The Poso boys were welcoming and at least seemed understanding. Im just glad that things got put on the level before a DSO - New Jack City type rivalry was formed. An ugly, ugly thing.
Back on topic, the weekend was starting to look like a long one. We went back to the hotel a depressing 0-6. That night in the rooms was filled with X's and O's and a lot of debating. CPA showed up Sunday with a mixed attitude, but we were ready to play. Wanted opted out of playing on Sunday and took the automatic win in the Open divison. CPA's first set in the semi- finals was against Poso, splitting the set at 1-1 and prompting a third game later in the day. Next, Poso played Rockstar Rebels and promptly rolled them up, winning both games required to win the set in a remarkably short time, aggressive moves and great shooting by the Poso boys made short work of the Rebels' defensive style of play.
Ironicly enough, a combination of earlier altercations and being consistantly being late to their games, the Rebels were kicked out of the event after a loud exchange of words with Poso, in Poso's defense, the Rebels were the ones who instigated it.
So Rockstar is gone, prompting Sean and the RPL staff to start a new series between CPA and Poso, essentially the finals, after all, there were only two teams left.
The Poso boys showed what they had by out gun-battling us and countering the breakout that had proven effective against them earlier in the day. Poso took first and CPA took second.

Looking back, the weekend was more of a learning experiance for us than anything, the fact that we came home with an arguably un-earned second place was a bonus, but we essentially payed entry for an eye-opener instead of a paintball tournament. CPA did not play poorly, consistantly playing down to the last couple points with each team most games, but faltered when it came to end-game stratagy. With some very last minute roster changes and moving up some players from our AA-3 man team, we werent firing on all cylanders. All things considered, CPA is a young team with a lot of bugs to work out, but expect us to be playing much closer to our potential come Oceanside time.
That's all for now, I'll be sure to keep you all updated as work and play allow.

-Nick Lacher
#000

Alright, well I've taken a day off of this already, which speaks to my dedication to this thing. heh. Anyway, yesterday, Saturday, was a day of... well a typical saturday for me around here. I sat around a lot, listened to a lot of music, watched some spike, and wound up getting convinced by my girlfriend to make her a shirt. Well... not so much convinced as; she mentioned it to me and I was instantly getting my clothes on to go to the store and grab the materials. I've always loved graphic design, and while I'm not nearly as good at is as I wish I was, I have enough skills to make her happy, and to occupy a lazy Saturday.So that (and the rest of the shirt which isnt really worth showing as its text) occupied a good six hours or so of my saturday.

Now Sunday is what I live for. Sunday is the day you wake up at six, no matter how hung over you are, get your gear together - which you should have, and actually promised yourself you would do the night before- and open that front door squinting from the sunrise, the air is slightly chilled with that first breath as you shove your hands into your pockets to make sure you've got the essentials. You slide the handle of your gearbag out and roll your way to your car. You wind up having to cram your bag into your back seat along with everything else you have to your name since you live out of it, and its off to the field. Pulling up while there's still only maybe one other car at the field, throwing your ipod into your ears as you gear up and watch the sunrinse, knowing that no matter what happens, no matter if your voice is lost from screaming, if your covered in paint and blood, if your gear is smashed, and if you've got not not a cent to your name, none of that matters. NONE of that matters. I'd like to quote Matty Marshall. "Its a Sick and Perverse thing, We know. But its what we're good at; Shooting People for a Living; Playing paintball. Yeah thats right. Paintball. And the real world thinks this is lame - or crazy - or fun - or a waste of time? They dont understand what we do or how hard it is. Even the wives, the girlfriends, family, friends...They dont understand the battle. Our battle. For glory. For money. For the people you believe in. But mostly for respect. And for this fight that nobody gives a SHIT about... We've traveled hundreds of thousands of miles... to hundreds of towns... shot thousands of times...slept on floors in train stations. Bounced rent checks. Because we're good at this. Because its hard. And Humbleing. Because some days, you really can be a hero to your friends. And if your boys, and my boys ever meet on a field in a gun fight...We WILL fuck you up."

Not many people can understand, or care to understand, why someone would spend their weekends going paycheck to paycheck to play what they consider a game. Something to pass time, to do as a frat party, or with their redneck cousin in the woods behind his farmhouse. This is what keeps me sane. The constant mind-melting monotony of my job would quickly absorb me if it werent for my paintball family and my girlfriend. Shes never really had to put up with my paintball life, but I dont imagine she'd have much trouble since she puts up with my Marine Corps life pretty effectively.

As for life on that front, She had her last day on the job working at Culver's in my home town, and actually is still on the last part of her six hour+ shift. I'm about tired of listening to myself type so I'm gonna sign off for now.

-rcn10

September 11

Wow...lets see. This isnt exactly my first experiance with blogging, but it'll be my first time in a while so bare with me. Today is September 11th, as you all probably know. I'm not going to go into all the 'so many lives were changed' cliche, because everyone's heard it a million times; but know this, I am a Marine, and the events that transpired on that day eight years ago definatly had a lot to do with my decision to join. So, and I know that the days already gone, but just take a moment and reflect a bit on what it means to you to be an American citizen.

On another note, today was my girlfriend and I's one year anniversary, and since shes the only one who is going to read this anyway, I'll go ahead and say that I love you beyond what words can describe. Now I know that I'm not always the perfect boyfriend, and my job takes me further away from you than I'd like, but know that no matter what happens, no matter how far away from you I end up, that nothing can ever change the way I feel about you.

Today at work was...typical. After a good- but rather unorganized- training evoultion, we sat around for literally four hours. Im not sure why I'm complaining about this, because I am in fact in the United States Marine Corps, and should expect nothing less, but its fucking frustrating.

This was somewhat of a short post I know, and KK since, again, I know you're the only person reading this, I'll go ahead and appologize to you, but Its been a long day, and I really wanna take a shower. Heh. So I'm going to close out tomorrow, but I'll say this, Sunday is the final practice before CPA takes their game up to the Hollister RPL event, so I'll have more to post about that on Sunday afternoon.

I love you.

Happy Anniversary.

Nickk.