Paintball

Vincent's been looking for to celebrating the end of the school year (and memorializing Julian in a way) by playing paintball with a bunch of his friends (and some of their parents) at an outdoor entertainment area in Southern Indiana (they also went last April) for a while now. He's got a lot to do this week, and he woke up with a cough. But he plowed ahead (without sun block - which turned out to be an error). He was so excited to get going that when I dropped him off at a friend's family's house, his friend was still asleep. They drove in three cars to the area, and there half a dozen plus "old people" lined up against half a dozen plus kids. Paintball is like outdoor lazer tag - but not in the dark. You run around with some armor/camouflage and contraptions that turn paintballs into paint and allow you to shoot them at people. (Unlike in lazer tag) taking one hit kills (and you have to quit that game). They played in two teams - later they mixed up the "old people" and the kids - and occasionally individual people not from their group joined in - which team kills off everyone else on the other team wins. Vincent said he did "mediocre," except for one game in which he racked up a lot of kills. Unfortunately, the back of his neck got badly sunburned, and he's incurred several welts from when he took direct paintball hits at close range. Obviously, some of this is pretty violent. There are apparently some obstacles/buildings on the course which can provide "cover." When I went to pick Vincent up, his friend's parents - who we got a little acquainted with because they were hosts of a Dane and Jon, Vincent, and we and they and Vincent's friend and their Dane - Christoph? - visited some - raved about how nice Vincent is - including to his friend's 10-year-old sister. Vincent came home, took a shower, ate some dinner (more on this later), and then quickly went up to his room to go to bed. He's got a big day tomorrow - in terms of stuff he has to do - but I'm guessing he won't actually get up until after 12 noon (hopefully, I'll already be back from my vacation day to work by then). I'm hoping he'll recover, get a bunch done, and we'll still have time to do something.