Watching the states dissapear, right before my eyes

Watching the states disappear, right before my eyes

It has never ceist to amaze me, right at the end of a political convention the delegates will take anything which is not bolted down (or cable locked) to the floor. My friend Anna and I stood on top of chairs in the West Virginia delegation and watched as state podium after state podium (along with the various territories) had their signs torn down. While the crowd shuffled out of the building I was still on the job and I had to direct a few of my co-workers to various locations on the floor. On the phone I would tell them to report to the Colorado delegation, only to find the sign torn down by the time they would get there. Delegates are a strange bunch, they travel to one location to select a presidential candidate (which for the most part is pre-selected due to the primary system), put up with lobbyist, and party until two in the morning (If this was Los Angeles we would have partied until the sun came up). When Kerry spoke to the crowd, I watched the speech in a crowded tunnel underneath the FleetCenter bleachers (due to the damn Boston Fire Marshall). My brother was stationed on the seventh floor with a group of DNCC staffers who stood on their toes to get a glimpse of America's future. As he stood there a staffer commented how he could have gotten a better view if he watched the speech on CNN. Hearing this, my brother turned to the staffer and asked "Would you rather watch history or make history?" With that question, the long hours, my lack of sight seeing in Boston, and the various squabbles between staffers in my department was all put in the back of my mind. For the third time in my short life I was part of something greater then what most of us can imagine. The balloons and confetti streaming down on top of the delegates and the honored guest in the top decks, my fellow friends from IBM and HP who managed to watch everything on the floor, and my friends (and Democrats) from Orange County, CA put the last three and a half weeks into a perspective one can never imagine. Pictures, oh do I have a ton of pictures. When I return home I am going to assemble a photo gallery for my blog. Photoblogging was impossible due to the fact that I'm not allowed to use my personal laptop on the private DNCC network. Here is a list of all of the famous (and infamous) people I managed to meet all week: Gov. Howard Dean Gov. Bill Richardson (and I have a ton of New Mexico's famous Salsa!) Larry King Gen. Wesley Clark Sen. John Glen Richard Schiff Rep. Mark Udall (CO) Gov. Mark Warner (VA) (Met him while changing into my suit at DNCC headquarters) Gov. Gary Locke (WA) Bob Novak Wolf Blitzer John Garimendi Mayor Jim Hahn Ted Kennedy Teresa Heinz Kerry Barbra Boxer Ben Affleck (really nice guy. Instead of running past our office he stopped and talked with all of us) Terry McAuliffe Bernard Parks Mo Rocca (of the Smoking Gun, he was nice enough to help clean up after the show) Rod O'Connor (CEO of the DNCC) Sen. Joe Biden The Bloggers on Bloggers Alley I would also like to thank Mark, one of the nicest Secret Service Agents ever posted outside our office door. Thank You Boston! Good Night!