Since I've gone back to school and with the normal busy-ness of life, my wife and I decided some time ago to have date nights with the children. This way, we ensure some quality time is spent with them and we get to go out and have some fun too. Yesterday, I had the day off from work, so Daughter Number One and I took the opportunity to finally have a daddy-daughter date.

Rather than going to watch a movie or something like that, we hit our local Lasertron!


I can't begin to tell you how fun this was. The game area was like something out of Tron. Blacklights, disorienting sounds and flashing lights add to the surreality of the event.

It was just my daughter and I playing (gotta love homeschooling!), which was cool. But it would be a lot of fun if there were about 10-15 people playing. Much more that that and I think strategy would be thrown out and it would be a big cluster melee.

Back when I was in Army Advanced Individual Training at Fort Benjamin Harrison, IN, my company went to play paintball. There's this place in Indianapolis (or was, I'm too lazy to Google it right now) that's a converted underground parking garage. They have all these packing crates set up throughout and have added blacklights and all sorts of sounds. That was great fun. The best paintball experience I've ever had.

This laser tag game was reminiscent of that, but a bit more sterile. I wouldn't take my kids to a paintball game like that place until they were in their teens. This laser tag is safe and fun enough for them now.

The other cool thing I discovered yesterday was our local drive-in theater. A product of a by-gone era, these things have all but dried up and blown away. I was quite happy to see that we still had one up and running. Going to have to take advantage of it soon.