Paintball

PAINTBALLS WERE FLYING fast and furious Saturday at the inaugural Cabin Fever Paintball Tournament at SuperSports Arena in Eldersburg."They've held events like this in California and other places on the West Coast, but to my knowledge this is the first like it on the East Coast," said Mark Hughes, SuperSports manager and tournament organizer.What made the event unusual was that it was held indoors in a 12,000-square-foot arena -- a facility typically used for soccer, lacrosse, volleyball and flag football games.

Bel Air is home to the only Airsoft specialty store in Maryland. While other large sports retailers carry airsoft guns among thousands of other non-airsoft products, East Coast Airsoft is the sole airsoft-only store, carrying a wide variety of airsoft guns and accessories. The store also offers repair and upgrade services through its experienced gun tech specialist. Airsoft, to those unfamiliar with the sport, is a game most relatable to paintball. Airsoft, however, is designed to have a more realistic feel, and is aimed at people who want to simulate real battle.

Paintball vandals randomly splattered several homes and vehicles in Westminster and New Windsor early Monday, state police said, causing an estimated $1,000 in damage. In Westminster, damage was reported to houses and vehicles in the 200 block of Garden Way, the 400 block of Kate Wagner Road and the 3300 block of Sykesville Road. In New Windsor, the damage was reported in the 1100 block of Nicodemus Road and the 1800 block of Bowersox Road. Westminster police are also investigating paintball vandalism reported Monday by residents on Marhill Court and Leigh Master Lane.

You might have heard how Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl made up a wildly incorrect statistic about Planned Parenthood and then, once he realized his mistake, put out a statement that said his previous remark was "not intended as a factual statement. "  Well, today, comedian Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) has been lampooning Kyl on Twitter, making up crazy statements and then saying he never intended them to be factual.  As of 3 p.m. he's posted 30 jokes about Kyl.  Here are my favorite 10:  10 : Jon Kyl's torso is covered in superfluous nipples.

FARMLAND preservation programs have always been seen as a good thing for the public, a commitment to open space that does not require purchase and possession of the land by taxpayer expense to maintain the property.Carroll County has an ambitious goal of keeping 100,000 agricultural acres out of development. It's a basic recognition that farm fields are a significant part of the county's environmental attractions. Even people who live in the middle of towns like the idea that farmland nearby cannot be developed.

Anne Arundel County police are investigating a wave of paintball shootings in the Glen Burnie area that have splattered buildings and cars, and - in two seemingly random attacks - hit and injured people. About 15 incidents have been reported since Sept. 27, prompting police to step up patrols in the area in hopes of catching the paintball-firing vandals. The injured were James C. Whitmire Sr., 21, hit in the neck about 3:30 p.m. Sept. 28 while driving a work truck on Ritchie Highway, and Denise R. Jarvis, 41, shot in the eye while attending an outdoor concert at Glen Burnie Town Center on Sept.

County police are investigating a wave of paintball shootings in the Glen Burnie area that have splattered buildings and cars, and - in two seemingly random attacks - hit and injured people. About 15 incidents have been reported since Sept. 27, prompting police to step up patrols In the area in hopes of catching the paintball-firing vandals. The injured were James C. Whitmire Sr., 21, hit In the neck about 3:30 p.m. Sept. 28 while driving a work truck on Ritchie Highway, and Denise R. Jarvis, 41, shot in the eye while attending an outdoor concert at Glen Burnie Town Center on Sept.

J&J Outlawz Paintball Recreation Field Location: Houck Road, north of Carrollton Road, Westminster Owner: Charles and Barbara Frock of Houck Road Developer: Wayne Columbia, Hampstead Description: The plan calls for a 12-acre paintball recreational field on a former farm. The property will have no structures, lighting or outdoor public address system. About 75 players could use the fields on weekends. Weekday activity would be by reservation. About 50 parking spaces would be available on a gravel lot. Players would use biodegradable materials and the owners would use netting to screen the fields from surrounding neighborhoods.

Lori McComas, dressed in a lovely royal blue evening gown and white sneakers, comes out from behind her bunker, blasting away with her semiautomatic rifle.Unfortunately, someone else gets there first, and a paint pellet explodes on the handle of her gun. The game is less than a minute old and she is eliminated.The game is paintball and the weekend warriors in the camouflaged outfits and goggles say they have a modest goal: to make their sport the next beach volleyball.The sport's best are competing for $35,000 in prize money in the D.C. Cup, a five-day national tournament that started yesterday in Bowie and continues through Sunday.

Bel Air is home to the only Airsoft specialty store in Maryland. While other large sports retailers carry airsoft guns among thousands of other non-airsoft products, East Coast Airsoft is the sole airsoft-only store, carrying a wide variety of airsoft guns and accessories. The store also offers repair and upgrade services through its experienced gun tech specialist. Airsoft, to those unfamiliar with the sport, is a game most relatable to paintball. Airsoft, however, is designed to have a more realistic feel, and is aimed at people who want to simulate real battle.

Matt Porterfield's restless and moving "Putty Hill" is about a pocket of working-class Baltimoreans reacting to the overdose death of a 24-year-old man. It finds seductive underlying forms in what outsiders might consider shapeless lives. When skateboarders and BMXers streak up and down and over a course of concrete dips and valleys, and a teenager tags a wall with a spray-paint baroque version of "Rest in peace, Cody," they prove that they have poetry in them. The director doesn't impose his poetry on them.

At first sight, you might think it's a giant moon bounce, a quarantine area or an eco-friendly livestock barn. Actually, the 100-foot-long, 80- foot-wide, inflatable oval arena is the site of Sudden Impact Paintball - the newest addition to the 126th annual Maryland State Fair. Even after 45 years of running the fair, Howard "Max" Mosner (president and general manager of the Timonium fairgrounds) isn't afraid of change. In fact, he embraces it. "We're always looking to bring new attractions to the fair," Mosner says.

"I hate this. I always get so nervous on the first game." says Eric Tedrow. He stands rigid, gun pointed at the dirt, forehead sweating and knees cocked like a sprinter in the block. To his left and right are seven teammates, from teenage boys to middle-aged men, many in camouflage pants and jackets. All of them stare forward across the field at their opponents. Someone needs to take charge. Tedrow, 18, starts barking orders. "Take right. You take back house. If he goes down, you bump up," he says, gesturing to the people around him before facing forward again.

J&J Outlawz Paintball Recreation Field Location: Houck Road, north of Carrollton Road, Westminster Owner: Charles and Barbara Frock of Houck Road Developer: Wayne Columbia, Hampstead Description: The plan calls for a 12-acre paintball recreational field on a former farm. The property will have no structures, lighting or outdoor public address system. About 75 players could use the fields on weekends. Weekday activity would be by reservation. About 50 parking spaces would be available on a gravel lot. Players would use biodegradable materials and the owners would use netting to screen the fields from surrounding neighborhoods.

RALPHIE'S QUEST for a Red Ryder BB gun in A Christmas Story strikes a chord for anyone who was ever a 9-year-old. Despite the warnings of adults that he could shoot his eye out, Ralphie cannot be deterred. What happens when he gets his gun? He nearly shoots his eye out, spared only by his now-broken glasses. We laugh at his obsession, the irony of the moment, his quickly concocted cover-up (as an icicle injury), and the cluelessness of his parents. But the problem with this charming Jean Shepherd tale is, unfortunately, some children do get seriously hurt with BB guns - and pellet guns, air rifles, carbon dioxide-powered paintball guns and their ilk. A recent report in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Pediatric Association, notes that between 1990 and 2000, these compressed-air guns were involved in the deaths of 32 children under age 15. In 2000 alone, an estimated 21,840 people suffered injury - nearly 900 of whom had to be hospitalized.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - In a victory for the Bush administration's campaign to root out homegrown terrorism, a federal judge convicted three American Muslims yesterday of conspiring to help a Pakistani group wage "violent jihad" against Indian forces in Kashmir and possibly U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Federal prosecutors had portrayed the men, two of them U.S.-born converts and one a Pakistani immigrant, as radical Muslims who had prepared to fight for Islamic causes overseas by acquiring weapons and playing paintball in Virginia, as well as training at a camp for mujahadeen fighters in Pakistan.

Riding a bike in Baltimore's suburbs may be hazardous to your health. Cyclists say they are increasingly in peril from drivers hurling objects and insults as vehicles zoom past on narrow suburban and rural roads. From casual pedalers to racers, most riders have at least one story to tell: A soccer mom in a minivan tried to run me off the road. Some punk teen-ager shot at me with a paintball gun. One driver blared his horn and swore at me. "This area is one of the most difficult places to coexist with motorists," said Howard County resident Nils Dennis, a bicycle racer for 23 years.

You might have heard how Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl made up a wildly incorrect statistic about Planned Parenthood and then, once he realized his mistake, put out a statement that said his previous remark was "not intended as a factual statement. "  Well, today, comedian Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) has been lampooning Kyl on Twitter, making up crazy statements and then saying he never intended them to be factual.  As of 3 p.m. he's posted 30 jokes about Kyl.  Here are my favorite 10:  10 : Jon Kyl's torso is covered in superfluous nipples.

Riding a bike in Baltimore's suburbs may be hazardous to your health. Cyclists say they are increasingly in peril from drivers hurling objects and insults as vehicles zoom past on narrow suburban and rural roads. From casual pedalers to racers, most riders have at least one story to tell: A soccer mom in a minivan tried to run me off the road. Some punk teen-ager shot at me with a paintball gun. One driver blared his horn and swore at me. "This area is one of the most difficult places to coexist with motorists," said Howard County resident Nils Dennis, a bicycle racer for 23 years.

Talk to old-timers in southern Anne Arundel County and they'll tell you about the days when yellow perch spawned in Lyons Creek. But what was an integral part of spring 40 years ago is no more on the little waterway that feeds into the Patuxent River near the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary. Runoff from development, debris swept downstream by flooding and piggy people dumping trash have plugged the creek in about a dozen places, preventing the fish from getting to spawning areas. "Every year, it gets a little worse," says Jim Brincefield, a Deale charter boat captain and a member of the Coastal Conservation Association.