Trip Report - Patriots-Bills

[DJ-S1]

I made it to the Pats game Sunday night for the annual "Flogging of Drew". I was a big Bledsoe fan, and it still pains me to see how his carrer has ended up. Give this guy a top-5 O-line and he could still torch the league. That said, I'm convinced he will NEVER beat the Patriots in Foxboro. But I digress...

Our venue, the lovely Gillette Stadium:


I have to say that I love that stupid lighthouse, and the whole place in general. Partly because own owner paid for it all himself, and put that lighthouse there because he wanted to, dammit.

Note the piles of snow. We had 4 inches or so earlier in the week, which is just about the earliest snow I can remember in 25 years here.

This was my first chance to see the 2001 banner's new neighbor:


Now, I should point out that most of these photos are not particularly art. (But I'm gonna post 'em anyway!) But this little baby was handheld with my little camera across the full length of the stadium, which I make at, say, 200 yards or so. It may be just the subject matter, but I was happy with it.

Wanting as always to be more like y'all, I starting looking about to document the moment. This was about all I came up with:


I imagine them as 2 old friends, sharing a beer and talking about the old days while waiting for the game to start. "Hey, remember when Gino scored that TD?" or "Stanley Morgan, new there was a wide out."

If this is total fiction on my part, I don't want to know about it.

more to come (he warned)...

[DJ-S1]

Now this thing here, the Skycam, is one of the wonders of the modern world.


It's suspended by 4 thin cables, one at each corner of the top of the stadium. It zips along amazingly fast, stops on a dime, changes altitude gracefully. The cables sway quite a bit, but the camera is a very stable. It's kind of wierd to see it floating there like that. I'd love to see the guts if it, must be flywheels and gizmos galore in that small package. But I digress...

The Revolution-era group was standing next to the current-era color guard before the game, and they got to talking a bit.


I believe this was just after the guy in the tri-corner hat took a look at the dude with all the medals' M-16.

These 1776-ers are a pretty cool bunch, they march through the parking lot before the game stirring up the drunks - er, I mean fans- by shouting things like "VICTORY!" Then they form up for the Anthem:


For the game, they split up into two teams and stand in the end zones. More on that later.

Then came a moment of silence for all the men and women in our armed forces who have given their lives for our country. Then came this:


Terrible photo, I know. Take my word for it, it is a video of Jake Plummer talking about his friend Pat Tillman, who died earlier this year. For those who don't know, Tillman was a player in AZ, making about $3 million a season. When 9/11 happened, he quit - forfieting millions - and joined the Special Forces. He was killed in action fighting for us.

Then the National Guard sang the Anthem:


During commercial breaks in the game, there were several video messages from Pats fans serving in Iraq ("Go Pats, OO-RAH!!"). There was also a video spot from the NFL making the point that the families of those serving our country are also making big sacrifices. Being a Navy brat, that one hit home.

So, Mike Taylor, are you sensing a theme here? Don't ever let your buddies over there think they are forgotten. You are on our minds more than you can imagine. Every other car has a "Support Our Troops" ribbon on it. So if someone over there gets discouraged, tell them you know better. We are all proud that you are our countrymen and are representing us so well.

[DJ-S1]

Now the crowd is fired up, and ready for the game to start. But there's one more video running on the screen, showing Opening Day at Fenway Park last April when Bob Craft and the World Champion Patriots walked out on the field. "We like to think we brought them a little luck..." the announcer says. Then out of the tunnel comes John Henry, owner of the Red Sox, carrying the Holy Grail and can you believe it, I am 100 yards away from the World Series trophy my Sox won!

So then they announce Lucchino (Pres. of Sox) and Theo (GM of Sox) and then "...and representing the players, Johnny Damon!!" And out he bounds, jumping around, hair flying, the crowd goes even more ballistic as he grabs the trophy and holds it over his head! How could it get any better? Why, let's wheel out Curt Shilling in a golf cart! You have to admit, this guy is a PR genius, no 2 ways about it. So he hobbles off the cart on crutches less than a week after having his ankle pieced back together.



That's him in the Brady jersey, if you missed the big cast and the crutches. Damon is holding the trophy in front of his face, sorry ladies, best I could do at that distance.

After all that, the game was a bit of a let-down. We pretty much stomped on 'em, as expected. So I got a few crowd shots.


This sign is a bit of an understatement. Little Bill could put a monkey at left tackle and nobody would question it.

Note the bundled up fans, it was in the upper 20's, light wind. Not unbearable, but cold. Which brings us to these idiots.


Now, look closely. There is absolutely no thought put into those costumes. Not one seconds worth. They didn't even bother to paint a design on their guts, just slapped some paint on there. And the faces? What is that, war paint? We're the Patriots, not the Indians, folks. Top it off with orange, baby blue and chrome wigs. Nice.

Of course, these mental giants are smarter than they look - which isn't too difficult, by the way - because I guarantee that they got put on national TV, which is what they wanted in the first place. So who is dumber, these 2, or the TV network? And throw me in there too, 'cause they made it in to my trip report, too!

There were other fashion-challenged folks, and I happened to get this shot of a person I wouldn't have thought would wear such a thing:


It just goes to show ya, you never can tell what's going on inside someone else's dome.

Now these guys here, they put a lot of thought into their apparel:


If you can't tell, they are giant mugs of New England Clam Chowder. Or Chow-dah. Whatever. Nicely done, guys, except for that lame attempt at a Patriot logo on the 2nd guy's cheek. Geez, my 3 year old could do better than that. But he tried to make up for it by adding the little "tuna" to his chowdah, so I guess I'll go easy on him.

[ian408]

I get a kick out of reading these sorts of posts.

Nicely done.

Ian

P.S. What were you shooting with?

[DJ-S1]

I can hear some of you now, thinking "is this over yet". Well, I'm just going to pretend I didn't pretend to hear you.

I can hear others thinking "where's the girls?" Now you're talking! So here's the conscensus best-looking cheerleader:


and here's the conscensus best-looking beer vendor:



She was putting up with lame comments from the drunks; I could tell because she was laughing a bit over the top, like she was faking. The result of that was you could see her tongue stud. Now I was trying to get her sweet little smile, but at the exact moment I took the shot, she had to show it to them.

Oh well.

[DJ-S1]

Originally Posted by ian408

I get a kick out of reading these sorts of posts.

Nicely done.

Ian

P.S. What were you shooting with?

Thanks Ian, I don't do this often but the mood struck me. They take a while to do, so I'll finish up tomorrow.

I have a Canon S1-IS, which is why they are all a bit soft. I'll explain more tomorrow.

[DJ-S1]

OK, so let's wrap this thang up. I forgot to mention yesterday our discussion about the cheerleaders. We decided our cheerleaders must be the best looking ones in the league. Now we arrived at this scientifically, mind you, not just because they were standing in front of us. The rationale goes like this:

Not all teams have cheerleading squads, and darn few in a cold climate like ours. Now, it was 26 degrees, so check out the outfits they were wearing. Turtlenecks, parkas, long pants, and sneakers. OK, so you can't see the whole ensemble from that one crappy photo; you'll just have to trust me on this one. So anyway, the iron-clad logic: If your cheerleaders are going to be covered head-to-toe 99% of your games, they had better be phenominally pretty. Stands to reason, right? Other teams have the luxury of hiring a 9.5, maybe a 9.3 if she has other exceptional, um, assets. We have no such lucky break. Therefore, QED, we have the prettiest cheerleaders in the NFL. I defy anyone to scientifically prove otherwise.

Now, having shown some of the women, let's now try to satisfy those of you who would rather look at a really nice piece of glass. You know who you are...



I noticed that the white lens crowd tends to stick together. Canon snobbery? Too bad the only one actually working (#49 on your scorecards) was the one with the really huge lens. I like to think the others are being snippy behind her back, but maybe that's just me.

Then there was this guy:


Photographer, or secret agent? I was reminded of Col. Flagg on M*A*S*H for some reason. I never actually saw him raise that camera once, by the way...

[DJ-S1]

If you actually believed that the last post would be "the last post", guess again. Just because I said "let's wrap this thang up"?? Boy are you gullible. Sheesh.

I realized a moment ago that there may be some among, or amongst, you who are wondering if there was actually a football game, or if 50,000 folks just wanted to get together and consume too much alcohol in sub-freezing weather. Well, here are a few crappy action shots just to prove all that drinking was legitimate.

This was during pre-game intros. I seized the opportunity to try some panning-from-200-yards-away. Eat your heart out Maczippy...


I believe that's Germaine Wiggins, for those of you scoring at home. Anyhoo, I realize that's still not technically during the game. So here's a play that happened right in front of us, the 1st play from scrimmage after the opening kickoff. Bills, 1st and 10 from the 1 yard line.



Um, my lawyers are explaining to me that this does not count either, as the play never happened. Through some outright cheating, the Bills ended up getting the officials to move the ball to the 20. Don't ask, it's still a sore subject with me.

So here, finally, is an actual in-game, yes-it-counted play:



Did I mention you were gullible? Here's the scoop: I felt bad about posting 2 pictures of women, and about making that terrible "piece of glass" pun later on, so I wanted to include a shot of Tom Brady for the ladies out there. So shoot me.

So here, finally, is an actual in-game, yes-it-counted play:



The only reason I picked this particular photo is because I wanted to stick up for NFL players earning their ridiculously high salaries. I mean, they couldn't pay me enough money to let big #95 land on me. Yikes!

[DJ-S1]

OK, so now I can explain why all the photos were "soft" and "noisy", and all those other terrible words.

#1. I took the photos.

#2. I was using my Canon S1-IS, with the venerable 5.8-58mm f2.8-f3.1 lens aboard. Now I like my camera, but it has deficiences. Namely:

.....2A: It has trouble focusing in low light.

.....2B: Canon defines "low-light" as "anything other than direct sunlight".

.....2C: While ISO50, 100, 200 and 400 are available, only 50 is really usable.

.....2D: These were taken at ISO100 by necessity, therefore lots o' noise.

.....2E: This camrera sees CA as a post-processing opportunity, not a problem.

#3. I took the photos.


As for the explanation of why I wrote this whole, long-winded, semi-sarcastic trip report when nobody on this forum does trip reports of any kind? I can only say that my 3 year old has a cough that is keeping him up nights, and while he gets to make up for it during the day, I do not. Lack of sleep is a powerful drug, my friends.

And with that, I am going to bed.





PS: Yes, I am well aware that the forum software allows bulletized lists. Or at least, I am aware of it now that it's too late.

[hutchman]

Dj,

The Bledsoes lived in Benton City, Wa. for a couple of years when Drew was a young pup. His dad Mac was involved in the youth athletic organization there and was a real role model for all the kids. We were aquainted through some common friends, but lost track of the Bledsoes for several years. This last summer, I had the pleasure to ride a dual sport motorcycle down the Continental Divide on mostly dirt roads. We stayed with Mac and Barb Bledsoe for a night and renewed old aquaintences. They are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. Drew comes from good stock.

I have not talked to Drew since he was about 13, but from what I hear he is just like his parents. It is nice to see a good kid hit the big time!

Nice shots. They capture some of the excitement of an NFL game!

Hutch