Yes We Canvention

Dudes, today was the first day of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
My volunteer group gathered at 11:30 AM – we totaled about thirty or so – and went down to the Pepsi Center about 30 minutes later. Our task was tremendous: to make sure that things were “running smoothely” for the “VIPs” in the sky boxes. I have no idea what this meant. Seriously, no clue. In the end, the work was amazingly chill, and Mike and I got to spend a huge chunk of time wandering all around the convention. (Excellently credentialed to boot)
The energy was indeed popping.

Although Michelle was the headliner, the first half of the evening was essentially all about the Kennedys…and them passing the torch down to the Obamas.
Caroline spoke first:

…And then, coming out like a rockstar, Ted Kennedy mobbed up to the party, and gave a nice little shout out to our man Obama:

…Oh yeah, remember how I said this place loved the Kennedy’s…I really wasn’t kidding:

After Michelle gave a most excellent speech (for further commentary on this, you can see a video of me giving an interview to an Indian news organization over there on the right, under the link ‘interviews’) Here’s a little pic of the fun:

Anyway, Mike and I had a superb time…we basically spent the entire day just hamming it up, talking politics, taking pictures, and eating free food.

The shmooze factor was way up again (you can see more picsif you click on the link to “Pictures with Famous People”)…But one of the absolute highlights was when I threw my arm around Katie Couric, and took a shot using the ‘long arm’ technique:

All in all, the day was an absolute success. Sure, my dogs are barking (this means that my feet are tired…) but I had a blast. The City of Denver is chalk full of so many cool people, I can hardly see straight. Everywhere you turn your head, you’ll see another tiny little slice of the country.
Although Denver is a bit more racially homogeneous than SF, I am nevertheless constantly inspired by the awesome diversity of this experience:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 1:40 am and is filed under Convention_Begins (Day_01). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.