Hello Carson Palmer. Hello Chad Ochocinco

I went to my first regular season NFL game today. (I went to a Cleveland Browns preseason game in 1992. It was cool; Huey Lewis and the news played a concert at the end.) Our work hosts hooked us up with tickets to see the Bengals play the Houston Texans. They even gave Kaleb and I each a Bengals jersey. I felt like a true fan, decked out in my Chad Ochocinco jersey.

I was very excited to go. I figured that we’d be way up in the nose bleeds, but I was cool with that, given that it would likely be my only chance to get to an NFL game. Nope, we had fourth row seats, right on the 50 yard line. Amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever even been that close for a Utes game.


I had a great time. Our hosts had said, “The game’s get pretty cra-zay.” This was not the case; probably because the Bengals didn’t play very well and probably the expensive seat folks aren’t as rowdy as the upper deck crowd. It was just a laid-back, sunny day at the football game.

First Night in the ‘Nati

Wicks' Sweet Ride

I love the ‘Nati. I spent five hours this afternoon seeing the sights with Wix. I’m not really sure what all I saw, but it was a great time. After visiting the Wicks home, we checked out the old railroad station-turned-museum, drove around the University of Cincinnati, and drove through the poor parts of town and the rich parts of town. (Of course we drove around in Wix's 1954 Chevy Pickup. The highlight was when the hood flew up.) We stopped at the Skyline Diner to eat the famous Cincinnati chili and bought some CDs at Shake It, the best record store in town (despite kind of a lame name).



We headed across the Roebling Bridge, the precursor to the Brooklyn Bridge, to Kentucky. We walked across the Purple People’s Bridge, saw a memorial for the guy who invented the Tommy Gun, watched a lot of middle-aged women go to a witch party, ate some great ice cream with some nuns, stopped into a Hot Topic, and spent the 30 seconds before closing in a cathedral built as a Notre Dame replica.


A ghostly me from the Kentucky side of the river.

What else is there left to see? And I’ve still got two days here!