Veni, Vidi, Vici

When Julius Caesar announced to the Senate his victory over Pharnaces he shouted the immortal words "I came-I saw-I conquered".

Today we did. Today is the day we thought we would NEVER see. Collective sigh of relief

So...to give you the first hand account of the parts you didn't see on t.v.

5:45am I'm up. Eye rubbing, teeth brushing, shower taking and out the door to meet up at the Metro Station. Traffic suspiciously clear (but I also live inside the beltway).

7:15 am Park cars and meet up to take very chilly walk to station...even with 3 layers of clothes. Weather 20 degrees.7:45ish stand in a very long line to get into the station. Mood: pretty jovial considering it was the ass crack of morning. Lots of Obama fever! My coffee hasn't kicked in yet.



8:45ish after waiting on freezing outdoor Metro platform, get on train. Smart enough to get on at the end of the line in the last car and secure a seat for the whole ride. (In my best Homer Simpson voice) Woo hoo!

9:00am on for the ride. Train is stuffed. I know what Twinkie filling feels like. Knew I should've left earlier. Wouldn't have helped. Spend the next 45 mins telling people at every stop they can't get on. Thankful I am not motion sick because the trains are carrying so much weight they're leaning harder than D4L.


10am finally make it. shock and awe. the line...the ticket holder line... is about 1 mile long (no exageration). settle in for a wait.
10:30 still waiting (but moving). Have a nice chat with a family from New Orleans.

11 ish Now I heard they were supposed to shut the gates down at 11:30...gettting antsy. See ticket holders walking in my directions saying the gates are closed. Closed my ass! Not going anywhere until I get "official" word. Dumb dumbs who fell for that ploy get out of line. Time to move.


11:15 ish get pretty far up to where the ticket entrance is. Police hold us up for a few to let the crowds go forward. Mood still upbeat. I actually have a ok view from where I am standing. Cops are doing a good job...can't even hate on them cause I can't imagine how jacked up their job must be today. Spot cops putting up barricades out of the corner of my eye...crowd suddenly shoves me to the left and then an open space...I'm on the other side.

11:30 as close as I am going to get. Not great but not bad. Glad I'm tall...I'm on a little bit of a downhill but have just enough of a straight line of sight to see the jumbo tron.







12:00ish become a living witness to history.

After that it pretty much becomes a blur. We left shortly after all of the speeches (I caught about 2/3 of Obama's speech on my video camera...which is mostly shots of the backs of peoples heads but you get a REALLY good idea of what it was like to stand in the middle of it all). Took a nice walk back to a less crowded Metro station and rode home. It pretty much was a choice of seeing the oath or watching the parade (you pretty much had to be there super super early to be on the parade side and they only let 350K in then they shut it down)...So after a pretty breezy ride back I got here just in time to watch the parade from the comfort of my nice warm living room. Current temperature 30, but 16 with the wind chill. Was hoping that typing it all up would help my fingers defrost...not even a little...LOL. But was it worth it???

Hell YES!!!!

I have never met so many nice people. I have never seen my city so crowded. EVER. I still can't quite feel my fingers. My feet hurt from all the walking/slash standing I did. But I have a new president. My president. Our president. And I'm pretty damn happy.

PS I have some video that I will post on youtube and then embed. It's the swearing in and about 2/3 of the speech (it's a large file so I'll have to compress it). Meanwhile I am going to go recoup.

Item #121 CHECK.