Don’t Stress It

Obama is Coming! (Finale) 16 September 2008

I got the press pass. I saw Obama! W00T!

Wait — I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning.

People started arriving on campus at 5:30 AM for the 9:30 AM speech. Oh well, you’ll have to remember there were people in line for tickets at 4:30 AM when they were only going to start giving them out at 10:00 AM, so I guess it takes a special kind of zealot to actually get into these things.

All that aside…. So they closed off pretty much my main route to get into the main part of campus. Now to just get to the cafeteria I have a choice of either running the gauntlet of rabid Obama supporters, cops, and secret service agents, or going three blocks out of my way just to get to a building two blocks away.

Went for a run early morning, dodged a bunch of cars, was yelled at by the cops about half-a-dozen times because aparently my usual route runs through “restricted areas.” Got glared at by a bunch of secret service men in dark suits. Went to breakfast. Passed John Hickenlooper on the way to breakfast. I blinked in astonishment, he smiled and continued walking on his way. Half expected to bump into Governor Ritter too but apparently I missed him by like 10 minutes.

I followed a horde of TV reporters in and checked in at the media table. Was quite impressed they actually gave me press creds. Went inside, found that pretty much all the good spots were taken, so went down to the guys with the TV cameras, chatted one up, and got invited to hang with them down on the ground floor. Had an amazing view for the speeches.

As for the speech itself, I’ve found two youtube vids of it. It was all about the economy, so I understood most of it, though probably not in as much detail as I should. I suppose that’s why I’m in Principles of Economics.

Here’s the first video. It was made by a student, I think, who was up on the bleachers on the right-hand side of the court.

And the second video, actually provided by BarackObama.com:

Of course, now that it’s over it’s hard to concentrate on something as trite as school. I think it’s all the adrenaline or something.