This one will appeal to each of you....

So much to post after this weekend! Firstly, we had the horrific Halloween dinner on Friday night. Tori, who FLEW through traffic (told you you didn't need to, hon) made it and we had a meal of "Roast Beast" and several other assorted horrific yummies. Tori also brought a cookie decorator kit she got from Stop & Shop and we had fun being creative with them on Saturday night. Andrew made a VIP guest appearance for the Friday dinner. He seems to cling to Shelley wherever she goes and hasn't really spoken much with the rest of us poor schlepps. But he's a nice guy. Maybe if he kept the fuzzy bat bouncy headpiece on for more than 10 seconds he'd fit in better? =P

Saturday... once I could breathe again thanks to this nasty nasty sinus infection keeping me down, takes about an hour each day for me to clear it out enough to function... I was finally able to convince Tori to climb the mountain with me. We did fine getting up near the top. We did not use the wire, instead we free-climbed. But when I finally found a route over the rockface (as opposed to climbing the sheer cliff!) we got within 5 feet of the top before Tori let me know she is afraid of heights. So..... we couldn't get over that section and I had to calm her and talk her down from where she was. Thirty minutes later we were able to move laterally under the cliff and climb/walk over. Once on the top....? We DROPPED for about five minutes. Ah, safe! LOL But then I got this itch.... it said... self, we've never explored far to the right end of the path, why don't we find out where it ends? So, having already done ONE insane thing today, I convinced Tori we ought to see where the path comes out. Let me just say, Tori, you are a TROOPER. We ended up walking the entire length of the mountain. All the way to Tilcon and then we came back via RT 68 and the side roads into the next neighborhood, etc. I think we were both ready to pass out after that. I felt pretty good, actually. Tired, but good. No major aches or pains. Though I felt bad for having to assume such a forceful tone with Tori on the cliff. I felt I had to to get her mind focused on what she was doing so I wouldn't have to call Life Star. Glad you made it in one piece, Boo.

Hmm, what else? DnD breakfast on Sunday, a nice treat. Then I commenced with the cutting of the plum tree. Got it all down and managed not to take out the gutter, siding, or kitching windows. Go me! I did that using the 12" chainsaw on the extendable trimmer arm. It's not powerful enough or meant to cut the trunk of a tree, so my dad tried to get the chainsaw working. Couldn't do it, but after 20 minutes I managed to sharpen it and coax it to life and the rest of the tree is history. It actually makes the back yard look much larger.

And I have to admit that I spent about 3 hours tonight after dinner playing BF2 online. Finally made Lance Corporal and decided to unlock the G3 for the assault player and the M95 for the sniper. The G3 actually turned out to be useful in the Warlord map where I kept respawning in the insurgent's rear flag point and mowing everyone down. Eventually, I switched to a sniper and kept dropping claymores everytime before leaving the room. I was pretty satisfied when I spawned, dropped a pair of claymores and zipped out the window (going for flag across the way, just to mess with the guys) and was rewarded by the claymore detonating and taking out FOUR enemies. LOL At first, I was pretty crappy with the M95. It took two rounds of Night Flight for me to begin to feel proficient in it's use. Played as the SAS and put a whoopin' on the Insurgents. First from my spot covering the plane.... I should note that the enemy team in this case was pretty skilled and at least three of them made continual concerted efforts to move as a group. They DID manage to spot me eventually, and even moved in on me. I got the two in the back, but the first guy was a bunny-hopping asshole whom I couldn't hit with the rifle. I switched to pistol when he got close but no luck, so... I RAN! As luck would have it, he killed me but it was as he stepped into range of the claymore I always lay out as a lateral defense and he got blown to kibbles. Reminds me of another round of Warlord (medium size) where I was using the M95 and got up to a roof on the right side. I was able to spot and kill 3 of the enemy snipers. See, the problem with the server I was on is that it autobalances. So I couldn't join the stacked team. I was stuck with a few decent guys and a bunch of lame-o's. So all I could do was just fight my own fight - we had no chance of winning. So I kept behind this tall wall on the roof (not an AC unit, but not a door either) where no one could see me. Then I would shift out slowly until I spotted an enemy sniper and I'd get a headshot. So I got one on the satellite roof, one on another roof covering a flag, another back towards the enemy base, and then I happened to look down on the roof RIGHT below me to the north and there's an enemy aiming down on one of my guys. So I guess I got four of them. I also managed to kill a guy who came up the ladder after me. He got a face fulle of claymore. But at that moment another sniper got me from point unknown. But it had to be above me, because then he zip-lined in. The funny thing is that I had placed another claymore at my feet in case someone snuck up on me. Well, he came around the corner and got his body blown off the roof. Ooops! Then while I waited to respawn I learned a decent rule to sniping.... take advantage of the zip-line. I realized they were hunting for my last remaining teammate and they just kept zip-lining in everywhere. SOOOoooo... back to the Night Flight map. I'm the sniper on my team, and there's this guy KellerMeister or something on the other. We are both, as it turns out, sneaky bastards. We kept orbiting around one another until we'd find each other and it got nutty. At one point I was on the Airport Terminal roof and I realized he was on a hangar rood opposite me. He took out one of my guys behind me by the flag. He hadn't seen me in the relative dark of the corner and I popped him one, but didn't kill him. They dropped supplies on the roof for him, so he healed. I sat silent. A minute later I was able to make out the crest of his skull and squeezed off a careful round. Got him! The round kept going and my SAS team was losing. I got wacked at some point and respawned at the original starting point. I found a GREAT spot up on the construction building. After laying my claymores towards the stairs, I hopped up on a pile of lumber and went prone. From here, I was relatively well-protected. And hard as HELL to spot from the flag area. So my guys captured it. Then I saw 4+ enemies moving for it. From where I was sitting I could actually shoot DOWN on that roof, so I was very calmly taking my time and popping them non-stop. Rob, I kid you not, I got at least 10 kills from there before they even SPOTTED me! Some poor medic healed one guy three times before I knocked the medic down. One guy finally spotted me and loosed a few rounds, but didn't hit me. I popped him almost instantly. When he came back, it was obvious he had told his buddies where I was. They brought in two snipers, one on the ground and one on the 2nd floor. I got them both. The one on the ground was scanning looking for me, but never found me. Or if he did, it was too late. In any case, that was a lot of fun. You ought to remember that spot because it is MUCH juicier than the position covering the plane. From that lumber perch I could shift and cover most of the roof as well as the flag. If I hadn't become overzealous in my shooting at one point, they never would have found me. Their first instinct (after running or going prone from fear) is to look down or towards the inward areas of the map or other rooftops much closer to them. I didn't try, but seeing as I am slightly above that roofline I bet we could clear the roof and then zip-line to it from the construction roof. Handy!

A new map I did tonight was Surge. Haven't tried the large map yet though. The one we did had 3 flags. I think it was the small map. I mostly sat in the crane at various levels and offered fire support until they spotted me. Then I would move to the sides and do the same. Decent map. Got a lot more experience on Mass Destruction tonight. More fun from the Chem building windows. It also appears that I have a specialty for clearing the junkyard. My team lost all our flags and I was the last one alive (typical). So I snagged that one and held it against 4 guys until my team came back. Was shown an interesting spot I hadn't noticed until tonight - you can climb onto the roof of some of the train cars. From a prone position there, you can cover the Spetznaz approach. I found this out he hard way.... But I was also able to pop the two snipers who were up there. That is the problem with the other snipers. If I SEE them when I am killed, I WILL kill them. Almost without fail. So I made sure tonight to move regularly. In the case of Night Flight, that worked to my advantage. I had been out sniping guys near the plane. My team had no hope of winning in this first round (I was Insurgent and had not yet unlocked the M95). As it turned out, I was the last man alive and we had no flags. If I had known that, I would have moved for me. Alas, I did not. But I must have played for another 7 minutes with the other team absolutely unable to find me. I popped this one guy MedicHook (who is actually pretty good) 3 times by the plane. I got him the first time on the ramp. They thought I might be inside. I got him the second time on a respawn. As soon as I killed him I ran to a new spot, counting to 10 before dropping to prone and turning around. Not too long later I see MedicHook emerge from the edge of my vision on the right heading towards my last spot. He had circled around where he thought I was. He was right, but I had moved, and he caught another headshot. By this time I figure they must have dropped a UAV over me, as all hell broke loose and half his team showed up with flashbangs and grenades. Unfortunately for them, I had quickly ducked inside an open hangar and managed to kill one and wound another before the support guy got me.

And I have to say, I REALLY hate it when guys dive prone while firing wildly and manage to kill me with ONE SHOT from a weaker weapon. That's pretty annoying and it happens all too often.

One last story. At some point on the Warlord map while playing as SAS I ran into some guy shooting at me while running through an archway. I had gone prone and hit him with the M95. He could have SO killed me while I reloaded, but apparently he was both almost dead as well as out of ammo! He ducked behind a crate. I thought just to get out of my sights, then I saw hiw rifle verticle while he exchanged clips. So I took the chance (I was also almost dead) and charged him with the pistol. I got there JUST as he was about to lock and load and put three or four in his chest. It felt good until I went around the corner and got hit with a grenade.

Never got around to figuring out how to fly the helo. The only sensible way would seem to be to remap the keypad for it, but then I would have to move some other keys. So I first need to reset the others before learning to fly. I was too interested in getting my first set of unlocks to worry about the helo. Maybe tomorrow night if Rob is up for it.

TGI Monday, guys!