No Pain, No Gain: NFL Cincinnati Style

---

Today was a day of contrasts.

I went to Randy's Church in the morning at Forest Park, Cincinnati. This is the church where Randy works and i got to see him conduct an orchestra performing Mozart's Coronation Mass. Not exactly the drums, guitars and saxophone i am used to. It was really lovely.

Two walls of the triangle shaped main church space were made up of large panels of stained glass that told the story of the bible and history. It was realitively contemporary so after a while you could make out large skyscraper lik buildings and a space shuttle. I think they were completed in the late 1960's.

There were quite a number of larger than life personalities at the church and people were really friendly. Unfortunately i couldn't stay for the big Birthday party (Jesus's birthday party)
they had right after the service because we had to make sure we weren't late for the football game.

The crowds were massive. But the weirdest thing i saw, besides everyone being patted down as we entered the stadium precinct was the Surface to Air Missile Launcher parked about 100metres from the gate where we entered. I am now kicking myself that i didn't take a photos of this to send into Rove's "What the?" show. I am still a little confused at what it was doing there.

Randy had bought these tickets to the game the day that they were released. The game was completely sold out as had every game for the past 16 games. The game was between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns (kind of like a state of origin grudge match).

The Bengals have been playing so well all season that they were expected to beat Cleveland easily. In fact everyone was expecting a white wash. What really happened was that it became clear where each of the players had gone to college; That the Cincinnati Quarterback had gone to college in California became very clear in the -5 temperatures.

I am not sure that i have ever been that cold in my life. My fingers were so cold and even though i was wearing two sets of gloves including some very good gloves i wear up at the snow at one point i wasn't sure if i was ever going to feel my fingers again. But that wasn't the worst of it - my toes were numb, no actually, my feet were numb.

I bega wondering out loud why they didn't play this game in the summer, when it is a little warmer, but apparently people die in Summer training: have heart attacks and heat stroke kind of die. I guess i also shouldn't complain, it was an exciting game and in other places where they play NFL like in Green Bay, Wisconsin it it usually about 10 degrees colder.

The game was alot closer than expected which made the crowd a little restless. I wasn't really sure i wanted to upset the Bengal's fans. The kicker and the match winner was a Scotsman Shayne Graham. Apparently there are two or three Australian guys (usually former AFL players who are kcikers for NFL teams).

Cincinnati 21 Cleveland 20.

I did thaw out eventually and it was definitely worth the spectacle.

---

Photos

Who dey
Some rapper wrote a song abour the Bengals.....who dey think gonna beat dem Bengals??? nobody apparently.

....
except Cleveland almost did. 21-20 to Cincinnati.

The hair that killed something.
the less said the better

the mountains to...
From the stadium, at least from where we were sitting you could see the mountains covered in snow and...

...to the river...
to the Ohio river....

....to the highway...
and the highways that characteristically intersect.

Orange Army
Bengals fans where Orange