Habemus Papam

I was awake late last night after eating dinner and patching up my ghillie veil for an upcoming game trying to find something worthwhile to watch when I chanced upon a local channel showing a chimney billowing smoke.

Normally I wouldn't even stop and bother with the local channel, more so a local news program, but somehow I paused for just the right amount of time for the images to register a thought.

Why are they showing images of smoke? From a chimney....that looks like the one in the Vatican... which signifies whether or not a new pope has been chosen... have they finished voting already? Us it white smoke? Yes it is! Could this be history in the making?

Yep it was white... and it was from the Vatican, but I imagined more smoke (dunno why). I stayed tuned to the live feed, awaiting confirmaion that a pope has indeed been chosen. It was somewhat unceremonious... no announcements (yet), no formal indication of what was being hoped for. Then the bells rang.

A new pope has indeed been chosen.

I wasn't able to know the name of the new leader for the entire Christian community that night, the commentators where saying it could be some time before the new pope emerges to meet the people in St. Peter's Square.

I had to sleep. A new day was looming, not just for me... but for the entire world too. All that was important was that we have a pope. Habemus Papam!

we saw them, but they never saw us... 

and the wait continues...

Despite being without a gun, the troops and I went to Montalban to play airsoft with guys who would be our comrade-in-arms in the upcoming bivouac. I was thinking of either alternating guns or practicing reconnaissance skills.

I still brought my gun with me, I tried to secure the two receivers using an old OD shoelace I had at home. There were still misfeeding problems and it could be (hopefully) just a lubrication issue (thanks to the input of some of the guys from Sparrow Unit). I'm waiting for JM to get some silicone spray to check this theory out.

The game in Montalban was quite good, although I was assigned to the red team while the rest of the troops was assigned to the yellow team. I was able to shoot a few rounds during the first game, but failed to take anybody out.

My second game left me with mostly a defensive/ambush role. I paired up with one of the snipers of the group and played the role of his spotter. I never saw a single enemy. There was one point where another sniper fired a couple of rounds at our location, but moved on to another location. My sniper and I decided to move to a different position to get some action, however the "game over" signal was given before we could engage anyone.

They said that the bivy would be as much a waiting game as anything else, so this was good practice for my patience.

After the games, I gave my gun to Bernard to take to one of the airsoft shops here and get some input on how it can be fixed. He texted me yesterday saying that one of the guys at the shop was challenged to try and fix it. I am again in waiting for a few more days for result of this development...

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