I'm GH-Gravel. I load trucks on the night shift at a parcel hub outside Louisville. Ten at night until the last trailer leaves. Then I drive home, eat cereal and go cap flags.

Tribes came out in December. I bought it the week after Christmas with gift money from my aunt. By the middle of January I had talked nine other guys into wearing a tag with me, and here we are. Some of them I knew from high school. Some I met on public servers when they shot me. That's how you meet people in this game.

We play capture the flag and only capture the flag. We are not the best clan on the Net. We are not the worst. We show up, we play our jobs, and we don't whine. Mostly.

9/25/99  Beat [VEX] last night on Raindance, 5 caps to 3. Riprap capped three times. He has asked me to put that in bold. Riprap capped three times. Happy now. Ballast held the flag stand for twenty minutes with a mortar and a bad attitude. Results are up on the matches page.

9/19/99  Pup-Hatchet's two weeks are up. We voted Thursday. He's in. Say hi to GH-Hatchet. He plays light defense and he repairs things without being asked, which nobody else in this clan has ever done.

9/6/99  Labor Day. Everybody else had the day off, so Ballast called an extra practice for Monday afternoon. I was asleep. He says everybody showed up but Wingnut, who was "test flying." In what, he didn't say.

8/29/99  Slag got his cable modem hooked up. He is now the second guy in the clan who doesn't have to listen to the dial tone. His ping went from around 200 to under 100. He won't stop talking about it. We miss the old Slag.

8/14/99  Lost to =DoA= 2-4. They had a guy in a scout flier who dropped right on our flag stand every single time. Wingnut took it personally. He has been practicing landings on the stand ever since. If you see a flier upside down on Raindance, that's him.

Everybody in this clan has a job. You play your job. If your job is the flag, you don't chase a guy halfway across the map because he called you a name. The flag is still back there. It doesn't guard itself.

If you walk in Tribes, you lose. Everybody good skis. Here's how.

What it is. When you're going downhill and you hit jump right as your feet touch the ground, you don't slow down. The ground never gets a chance to grab you. Do it over and over down a slope and you pick up speed the whole way. Nobody tells you this in the manual. Players figured it out, and now if you can't do it you're a sitting duck.

How to do it.

1. Find a downhill. A long one. Raindance has plenty.
2. Point yourself down it and tap jump as fast as you can, every time you touch down. Most of us use a little ski script so we can just hold one key down and it keeps jumping for us. Ask in the channel and somebody will help you set it up. It's not cheating. Everybody uses one.
3. Don't touch your jets on the way down. You're wasting energy.
4. At the bottom, when the next hill starts, hit the jets. You'll fly up it on the speed you built.
5. Top of the hill, let go, find the next downhill, do it again.

Tips. Light armor skis best. Heavy armor skis like a refrigerator, but it does ski. Carry an energy pack if your job lets you. If you need a quick boost, you can shoot the disc launcher at your own feet and ride the blast. It costs you some health. Cappers do it all the time. Don't do it next to your own guys.

Practice on an empty server with nobody shooting at you. Takes about a week to get it. Then you'll never walk again.

1. Play your job. See above. I will keep saying it.
2. Show up. Matches are Friday nights. Practice is Tuesday and Sunday. If you can't make it, say so a day ahead. We all have jobs. Some of us have night jobs. Tell somebody.
3. No hacks, no aimbots, no exploits. A ski script is fine. Anything that plays the game for you is not. Get caught and you're out the same night.
4. Don't shoot your own guys on purpose. Mortars happen. Accidents happen. If it happens three times in a row, it's not an accident, Rebar.
5. Wear the tag right. GH- in front of your name. Pups wear Pup- until they're voted in. See tryouts.
6. Be decent on public servers. You're wearing our tag. Don't trash talk newbies. Trash talk us all you want.
7. The flier belongs to Wingnut. Ask before you take it. He'll say no, but ask.