The Berkeley Archives: Jon Yip Talks to Himself

A Systematic Commentary On My Life At Berkeley

Week Ten: At a Loss for Words

10-28-2001

On Friday night I took that BART back and waited for a long time because Dad got stuck in traffic and couldn't pick me up right away. It was really cold, even inside the station. Anyway, he dropped me off at Troy's house for the Airsoft meeting. I was the first one there and Troy was off to some concert, so Dave showed me some of his guns and stuff, and I also got to see his new (real) Sig, which was pretty cool. After everyone showed up, they helped me go over all the things on how to use the radio, hand signals, basic maneuvering, etc., as well as lending me equipment to try on (Grant's BDU's and Zeke's holster thing).

The next morning I got up at 7:00 and quickly packed all my stuff into a bag, completely forgetting to bring along some extra clothes and socks. It turned out that the boots that Zeke brought were too smalls, so I just wore my Reebok hiking boots, which turned out to work fine. I rode with Zeke up to Highway 9 around Boulder Creek (on the way we saw this car overturned and burning, with some dude crawling out from the wreckage. I thought it was an abandoned car until I saw the guy. Fortunately another car in front of us stopped to pull over and help), where we just stopped at a local school and then drove in trucks to a spot of private land right off the edge of the highway. There were nearly 40 people there! It took a while to get all out gear on and load the guns and everything (I was using Zeke's MP5A4) but we eventually got started. This was my first game ever so I'll describe it in detail so years from now I'll remember what happened.

The first game was some sort of "plant the bomb" mission, and I was a terrorist. Soon into the game, Troy (Box Team Leader, don't ask me what it means) sent me to go behind Dave. Well, Dave went somewhere afar off from the rest of the group until we reached the edge of the forest, near a large clearing and path. Soon a few guys from the opposing team waltzed by, but we stayed really still for quite a while; they were actually incredibly close to us but they couldn't see us since we were in the trees, in the dark. Finally, Dave told me to take the guys on the left and he would take the guys up ahead. He opened fire and I immediately started shooting at the guy up the trail on the left. We took 'em out, man! Then some people came back and dove into the very edge of the forest. Dave told me to go over to closer to them and as soon as I peeked out from behind a tree I got nailed in the right cheek, just under my eye (speaking of eyes, my goggles that I borrowed from Zeke were fogging up like crazy). I re-spawned back into the game, and a few minutes later Dave got hit, and then I shot the guy who shot him. So I ran along by myself until someone hailed me with barrage of BB's, pegging my in the right cheek (a different kind of cheek this time), which hurt a lot more than the face hit. The game ended soon after.

The second game was just crazy; there were 3 teams trying to find this tiny little beacon that beeped quietly once in a while. This time the whole Omega team got to be together, and we had a sweet position on this one hill, but suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by people who we couldn't even locate, and before I knew it, everyone was hit and only Troy and I were left. I peeked out from the trunk that we were ducking behind and caught a glimpse of two barrels coming up the hill. I dove back and prepared for them to come up; I knew that they knew we were there so right when I saw their arms and jumped and shot one guy in the thumb, and then he called "surrender" even though he didn't actually see us, but Troy and I didn't want no hassle so we surrendered. The rest of the game was pretty uneventful; I joined with the rest of the group and when we re-spawned we all went out and got shot.

This one guy came running into the base screaming "AAH, it stings like a motherfucker!" and we all thought he was getting shot at, so we moved away from him. It turned out that he really was getting stung because he sat on a yellow jacket nest and they were all flying around inside his clothes and stinging him. He got about 20 stings. Good thing he wasn't allergic or he would have died or we would have gotten in really big trouble for playing with guns.

The last game was a downed-pilots rescue mission, and I was on the rescue team. There was a whole lot of climbing and hiking around and I got my feet wet halfway up to my ankles from the river. Well, Zeke, Al, and I rounded up two of the pilots and brought them pretty close to the base until we received fire and Al was hit. It turned out to be friendly fire from our own base, so after Al re-spawned, we returned to the base, then went to retrieve the pilots' AEG's. That proved to be very difficult because there was a TON of guys waiting for us at the bottom of this hill that we needed to pass. I got hit about two or three times just in this one area. Near the end, with 30 seconds left and Al and I freshly re-spawned, we decided to rush the area with guns blazing and take a few guys down with us. Al took most of the fire because he was in front, but both of us were ultimately peppered from all sides. At least I think I took out one or two guys on that stunt.

Zeke almost shot Troy, who was taking a leak, because he fired a Beretta that he thought was empty into the forest where Troy was at.

I rode back to Troy's house with Dave and Troy; we stopped at a Jack in the Box on the way and no doubt freaked the people out with out camouflage fatigues and face paint. My feet were wet and uncomfortable this whole time. From Troy's house, I got into my own car and went home, and then to Wayne's house, where they were just finishing up their fun event for the day by watching Project A. We played a few games and went home.

Today I went to church, winged a Sunday school lesson on fun events and the corruption of Disney and movies. I ate at Loon Wah with the family, went home and did random stuff, and then came back to Berkeley with Jean and Leon.