I don't know where to start on this one, it has been a real crappy couple of months. I guess I can start with my daughter, Margaret. She turned 18 on April 2nd,at the end of March I got one of those REALLY nice cell phones, the one that opens up with a keyboard as she likes to text alot. Her and Nicholas have unlimited texting on there phones, which is a good thing as Margaret averages over 5000 texts a month. At the end of April, Margaret starts sending me texts demanding 13,000.00 for school after she graduates. I asked her if she has applied for aid or a grant and whatever they don't cover I will help her mom cover the rest. She refuses to to that and starts laying into me for not having collage money for her. I asked her if she has a job, she won't look for one. Now over the last 5 years whenever she wanted something her mother couldn't get for her, I got it, when she wanted money, I told her to come over, do some chores and earn it. She has squandered ever cent I have given her, and I called her on that. She got really mad, told me that she wasn't getting me a ticket for her graduation ceremony and told me to "F@#$ Off". I told her to apologize or the phone was getting shut off, well the phone got shut off. She wasn't happy!
Seeing that she wasn't getting me a ticket, I decided to go thru the Principal to get one and just sit in the back. I told them the problem and they had a ticket at the school for me. Margaret bought a prepaid phone and minutes(no money for school, bit money for this??). She lasted about a month on that before I got a call from Nicholas saying that Margaret wants me at her ceremony. Margaret asked if I would turn her phone back on, I told her"Not until you apologize for what you said and admit how disrespectful that was". We talked and she admitted she was wrong, so I turned her phone on. Now I don't have to hide at the ceremony.
During school, one of her classes read the book "Into the Wild" a biography of Chris McCandless. Now she wants to go backpacking across the Alaskan wilderness........SIGH.... apparently she didn't pay attention how the book ended....... he died....of .....starvation!!!!! I've been trying to talk her out of it, but it's like getting a German soldier to attend Temple during WW II.....not happening. Anyway at least we are talking.
On June 6th, I attended a reenactment of the D-Day invasion at Operation Paintball in Graham. I have been doing this for the last 4 years, but this year was a real CLUSTERF@#%. There were 3 teams, the Allies, the Axis and the French. if you know your history you can see where this is going. The French turned on the Allies, so in this game the French could attack either side. Apparently none of the young people have read a history book. One mission, I was given an assault team to take a German outpost and hold it for 15 minutes. I was given 10 men from the Allies team and 7 French. Before the assault, I explained if we encounter enemy fire, to move in 2 man teams performing a 3 to 5 second rush. That means as one man is providing cover fire, the other gets up, runs for 3 to 5 seconds, then gets down. Yeah right, of the 10 Allied men I had only 3 made it with me, we took the base, but for some reason ALL the French made it. We set up a parameter and watched for the enemy. as the 15 minutes was coming to a close I took a chance, I talked to my Allied team mates and told them to follow my lead and trust me, WE turned our weapons on the French and told them to surrender, one of the French said they were on our team and I shot him"Anyone else". They dropped their weapons and the game ended.. We waited for the guy running the game to come by so points could be assigned to the proper team, when he got to the German post that we had taken he is surprised to see one dead Frenchman and 6 Pow. Turns out,that at the last minute, the French were going to turn on US and take the base back for the Germans if we had succeeded in taking the base. I was asked " How did you know?" I was stright "A"s in history in high school and I love watching the History channel. The game broke down from there. After our Markers were Chrono'ed at 285 feet per second, someone cranked there's up to 400 fps and there was an injury, we all were rechrono'ed and the offender was kicked of the field. Then a fight broke out because when a guy got shot, was called out, had his gun up and was leaving the field, he kept getting shot. the guy running the game blew up and said the day was over and the field was closed. I was into this day for 200.00, the field fee and 2 cases of premium paint and we only played a half a day...a good share of that was waiting because of people being stupid. the owner stepped in and said "NO". Then the guy running the game quit. The offenders were kicked out and the game got going again. This time the right way.... for the most part. We got in a couple straight hours of good game play with some GREAT firefights, I did really well not getting shot. Then it was time for the "Final Battle" this is the all out "lets use up all your paint" game. The idea is to take the house in the center of the field and hold it for as long as possible. I was supposed to take it easy because of my shoulder and I did until the last game. I went Balls to the Walls!!! It was a 25 min game, my rifle ran out of air and paint at 15 minutes so I tried to finish the game with my pistol. I shed my Tac Vest and rifle and was able to move faster with just the gun belt and pistol. I managed to charge a few positions and take out several people before charging into a German "nest" and REALLY getting lit up!!!! I we counted the welts when I got home, I got hit 20 times in that charge. But hey, I was ending the day with a BANG!!!!
Me before the mayhem
Some guys setting up
