Paintball

On friday we had a team building outing at DFW Adventure Park in Roanoke. We all showed up at 10am in our various states of ready-ness for the day. some in full army fatigues, some in their hunting gear, and many others, like me, in t-shirt and jeans. The mood is mellow, and the faces look sleepy.

Now its time to get our gear together for the battles to come. you can feel the energy levels rise a little. We split up the 30-40 telligenti into 2 teams: team 0 and team 1 (dev. geeks.. haha), and head out for our first game.

Finally we are ready. Team 0 and team 1 line up on opposite ends of a 100 yard field scattered with huge wooden spools and various barricades. The refs give the signal and we're off. Suddenly these mild mannered developers are running, jumping, diving, yelling out enemy positions and plotting their demise. Paint is flying everywhere and the place literally sounds like a battle field, sans large explosions and airplanes. People are screaming in pain, others are laughing and some are just trying to catch their breath under their masks.

When our little 10 minute battle was over there was nothing but smiles and war stories. A little blood hear, some torn clothing there and even a painfull looking shot to the neck. This went on until we had exhausted ourselves at about 3pm. Dirty, sweaty and sore we packed it up and went home to heal our wounds and treat our soon to be discovered chigger bites. My count is 9 or 10 paintball bruises, and about 20-25 chigger bites. Some were much higher than that!

Today was our first day back at work since our little adventure and I haven't heard a single complaint about the day. I think it was a great success. I feel like i know my fellow telligenti better, and i hope they feel the same about me.

Big thanks to JasonA and Rob Howard for a kick ass day.