BattlePriest:
Battlepriest..... wierd name?...well yes I actually am a priest. Ordained by the Universal Life Church in Modesta CA. Although anyone who wants to can get ordained, legally by the ULC. I have and do actually use my ordination as a priest. I have performed 2 weddings and have been know to be a spiritual guide for some. I also bill myself as the unnoficial Airsoft Combat Chaplain (If you cant have fun with who you are, whats the point in having fun right?)

My team Geeks with Guns so has about 4 active members, myself and my best friend Yod9 being the founders. At our largest, we had 6 active members, but we seem to have trouble finding people to join us, because we arent in a position to play every month, or even every big game of the year in the Chicago area. Our recruiting policy restricts us to team members over the age of 18, if for no other reason than legal responsibility, but also because we simply want to have a team of adults who at least have some life experience. I do admit that I have met some players under the age of 18 who are very very good, and carry themselves quite well.

GWG Arsenal (list incomplete)
http://gwgairsoft.airsoftspecialists.com/armory.htm

I am also the owner/administrator of http://www.airsoftspecialists.com , an airsoft product review site. I have several reviews and articles there, so please have a look.

I am also a budding Airsoft Videographer, and have published several videos to date...You can see most of them if you look around our Videos sub-forum in the Airsoft photos and Images section.

Our home field used to be Challenge Park in Joliet IL. http://www.challengepark.com They have recently ceased hosting of airsoft events but they are currently the best venue in the country for paintball and they were that be for airsoft for at least a year.

There are also 2-3 other fields nearby that are privately owned and cost nothing to play on. the CAA (chicago airsoft association) is the organizer of several of them. There are also event hosted by Aggressive Sport Joliet, both monthly Skirmishes and 2 day scenario events at various fields in the Chicago Area. We also have lately the local CAA team Sparrow unit, hosting public games at locations such as Paintball Blitz in Gurnee Illinois. With all these choices, there is a relatively good sized game to go to (20-60 players) at least twice a month in the Chicago area.

I started out in Paintball. From about 1990 to 1999. I played on a store sponsored team in various Amatur paintball tourneys. "The Mercenaries" sponsored by "Duck's Blind Paintball" In Davenport IA. I started out playing indoor CQB at the Ducks Blind indoor field which was true indoor urban combat. It was built into a 3 story hotel/motel/apartment building in downtown Davenport. I have 2 trophies from tournaments played in that indoor field. They eventually got shut down by the city though, cause they didnt like the paintballers hanging out on the sidewalks at the end of the day. I eventually quit playing Paintball due to the rise in popularity of the "speedball" genre and the neon colored guns and gear. I was in it for the tactical and combat simulation and not becuase it was an extreme sport.

Hmm lets see, did I leave anything out?.. Oh yeah, Im a Technician/Engineer working as a Biomechanics Research tech.

This post has been edited by Lacessit: Dec 12 2005, 02:54 PM

Paisley Pirate

A ne'er do well from an early age, Paisley survived by running a betting racket on how much faster one stalk of wheat would grow than another... later it was found that he rigged the betting with Miracle Gro.

About this time, he developed an affinity for weapons of all sorts (mostly because of a big mouth, a bigger intellect, and no self control) and also the fact that he was usually the youngest (and also smallest) member of his class in school.

Took to saving the environment at an early age by recycling old Playboys and selling them to friends... this was how he could afford all the bling on his customized purple bicycle (some sort of import that could outrun everyone else, for fear of being beaten...) This racket was stopped by his parents, even after they found the money that came from it...

About this time, Young Paisley discovered both firearms and the martial arts, studying aikido and kendo heavily, and both hunting with a .22 and shotgun, and iron target shooting, competing in age groups up to 4 years younger than he really was due to his unexplainable lack of growth for several years... making him look like a 5th grader in a class of seniors in his high school... Why seniors? Well, all the numbers rackets he ran made him a mathematical genius, being extremely gifted in the art of mathematics and in sciences... why in one test that consisted of 200 questions, he only missed 1, that being what 9+11 equalled....

Unfortunately, his gift with numbers did NOT translate into the world of writing... you see, Paisley Had (has) a terrible secret... he's dyslexic. And sometimes it appeared even when messing with numbers...

Truant officers and social workers continued to try to bring him to civilized society to little avail. They tried to make sure that he was well rounded and educated... to their peril. Seems he kept taking all the knowledge they could give him, just to use it to twist against them at every turn. Finally, when he was a senior in high school, the diabolical chemicals he had conceived of and taken years before either wore off, or he figured it was time to quit playing the punk kid and grow up... besides, it kept getting harder to get a date when his face was smoother than most of the girls...
So, he grew 9 inches in one year... and began taking his revenge on all the bullies... for by that time, he had gained a large sum of knowledge in various fighting skills, and was willing to use them...

Finally, they threw him out of the little high school where he had plotted and schemed with such great success, so disgusted they were with him, they gave him a diploma just so he COULDN'T come back... and he was at a loss as to where to go next. He had had a dream to go on to some place where he could get his hands on ever more powerful weapons... some place like the Naval Academy... but, alas, some punk grocery store produce department weasel boy beat him out by one point in the highly competitive testing... then went one day and came home crying like a NancyBoy... that our anti-hero had to find another way to get his hands on ultimate destruction... finally (by a huge amount of brute force hacking of some mainframes) getting his hands on a full ride scholarship in the Army ROTC program at one of the more odd state universities in the known world... There he studied hard, at girls... and games, and then he found his passion...

Fencing. Yes, our Paisley found his destiny as a swordfighter... a dandy, a swashbuckler, and a threat to all campus crusaders who dared to entreat on the commons yard of the school whilst he and his goon squad practiced. Also about this time, he formed a great group of alliances that play out until this very day with men and women of power and integrity (in other words, he still has the negatives!) and learned there was more to the world than just petty rackets and schemes...

He also grew an amazing 6 more inches in college, to tower over the punks and bullies, who now when they see him, smile and say, "Sir."

He also found his second passion, Airsoft! He found a Daisy Softair gun, and along with his gang of hoodlums, terrorized a huge number of people with their swagger and shooting and mayhem. This lasted a while, but slowly dwindled away, as the better guns just weren't available then.

Sword fighting continued to drive his life. Through ingenious cover stories for jobs, he continued to look fairly respectable, even landing a wife and having a couple of kids (that he is willing to claim...) Then tragedy struck... financial ruin and heartbreak... so he kept up the sword fighting, and kept on winning events, driven by his anger and bloodlust. That was about the time he got his pirate ship, the Persephone, and ran it with an iron fist to this very day.

About 3 years ago, several of this dastardly pirates' crew found airsoft guns again... he remembered with glee his Daisy, even finding it in the drawer where he had lovingly left it years ago... pulling it out, and shooting the first Leutenant in the ding-ding... just because he could... ah yes, shooting skills are fun indeed.

A gifted and talented worker of all things mechanical, he has been known to rebuild guns from a bag of parts, "for fun!" working on all kinds of guns, just because, and generally shooting the crap out of anyone not on his team in airsoft battles (and sometimes, even his own side if they don't give the countersign quick enough... )

His fits of psychotic rage seem to fit well with this hobby (fencing, too, imagine that) and his well educated brain is just slick enough to woo the women and keep one step ahead of the law...

Fear this psychotic monster if you should ever face him... he'll cut your heart out and laugh while doing it... then explain to you where your block failed, and demand to do it again, and again, until you get it right!

He'll shoot your eyes out from 50 paces (with iron sights) and draw a happy face on your belly with his
Aikido Rifle... then gleefully laugh when you realize he's been in plain sight the whole time, with advanced alien technology light folding camo...

...........

The son of a retired social worker, in real life, Paisley Pirate is a mild mannered manager for a multi-national company, who also is a certified fencing instructor. He has trained in various martial arts, and also with real firearms.

His college training was in aeronautical engineering, with a background of automobiles (family run garage) and also a weird hobby of political science.

He has been married twice, divorced once, has 2 children (girls, who both play airsoft, too)

He plays competitively with rapiers in the SCA in every kingdom but at home (because his home lies in the ONLY kingdom in the SCA where they don't play with rapiers... go figure) and has been recognized for his work with teenagers in teaching the Art of Defense, and encouraging them to better themselves and their world.

He's been a Mod here for almost a year, and loves to help new people out, to encourage our hobby to grow.

(and he likes to talk about himself in third person a lot...)

Paisley Pirate

PS, everything I wrote above is true... just embellished slightly... you figure out where...

PPS, Oh darn! I forgot the part about marrying my own sister... to her new husband! heheh

This post has been edited by Paisley Pirate: Oct 2 2006, 03:36 PM