Some of you may know I’m in DC this week because my mom’s Christmas present for Cory and I were two tickets to the big show!  We’ll be front and center to see Obama give his first speech as our 44th president, attend the official American Indian Inaugural Ball afterwards, and tour the nation’s capital for six full days.

Absolutely. Amazing.

I’ve decided to try and post a regular journal of the pictures, videos and stories each day…starting with yesterday:

Day 1, Jan. 16th: Flight to DC

I left for the airport around 6:00 AM, and once on the plane fell promptly asleep all the way to the next stop.  When I woke up to transfer flights in Denver I completely forgot that I had two carry-on bags (my laptop, and my suit for the inaugural ball) and it only occurred to me after arriving in D.C. that I had left my clothes bag onboard my first flight. Doh!  I’ll update this journal on Sunday with the status of the missing garment bag, but needless to say for now I’m trying to figure out if I’ll need to rent a suit for Tuesday!

The weather was absolutely glacial when we arrived and the temperature was below zero with windchill.  It was D.C.’s coldest day in ~12 years, and immediately made me worry about standing outside for hours on inauguration day. Of course whatever the weather is going to be, it will be worth it. I just don’t want my hands to be shaking too hard so the video of this historic event comes out all right!

Day 2, Jan. 17th: A Special Tour of the White House

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You might be saying to yourself, “I thought that all tours of the White House were closed to the public for the last few weeks and won’t allow people in again for another month?”…well my friend, you would be correct.  However, my brother knows the assistant director of the White House grounds faculty and arranged for us to be one of (if not the) very last people to tour the White House during the Bush administration.   I can’t go into the details of this “lottery ticket winner” story right now because I’m exhausted, but I can say that this special three hour tour included quite a few places that are rarely if ever scene by the public…like the presidential bowling alley! You can see some of the pictures for yourself here (I’ll add titles and descriptions later as well).

My favorite has to be the one of my brother with his Obama shirt in front of Bush’s going away present.  Cory and I were in the White House carpentry room and noticed a folded flag encased in glass with another spot for an empty flag above it. Our friend told us that the flag was the first one that had been flown and changed out on president Bush’s first day in office, and the empty spot is for the the flag that gets flown and changed out on his last day in office.  Now that is the change we’ve been waiting on for a long time!  Cory had the presence of mind to move his White House pass away from his shirt for the photo op to help capture the added symbolism of the moment! (here is the pic)  :D

p.s. There are a couple other great stories but I’ll have to come back and add them a little later.

Day 3, Jan. 18th: “We Are One”, The Obama Inaugural Celebration At The Lincoln Memorial

Cory and I showed up at the Lincoln Memorial around 2:00 only to find it had been closed for quite some time.  We made our way to the Washington Monument to watch the jumbotron with about 100,000 other people (right about here), but we could hear the rest of the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial and the echo of the live music from across the National Mall.  It was cold, and very crowded, but definitely an event I’ll remember for the rest of my life!  Here is the link to all my pics… mostly of my bro. and the crowd, but hopefully you get a sense of how cool it was to be there.  :)

p.s. If you missed seeing it on HBO (which was broadcast for free), here’s a link to some great pics on NPR’s website, and I’ll also post a link to download the full show on here at some point in the future.

Day 4, Jan. 19th: American Indian Museum and Crow Tribe Reception

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The day started with Mom standing in line for two hours with all the other people who were waiting to pick up tickets from their senator in the Hart building. It was the only time, and place, anybody with tickets could get them because they were not mailed to anyone in the nation, nor was anyone allowed to pick them up before Monday at 9:00 AM, and not any later than 2:00 (some up until 4:00). (If anyone cares, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies was in charge of this).

We got off the Metro and walked through the National Mall, which was packed with thousands of people,  to go to the Crow Tribe’s reception at the National Museum of the American Indian. The Crow Tribe’s reservation is the largest in Montana and was attended by Senator Max Baucus (sponsored by the Australian Company which is in partnership with the Crow Nation to develop “clean coal” –I know, I know– technology).  Some of you may have heard that Barack Obama was adopted by a Native American family during the primary season, that was the Black Eagle family of the Crow Tribe and gave Barack the indian name Awe Kooda bilaxpak Kuuxshish, which means “He who helps people throughout the land”. Barack had shared his political viewpoint of how the US government should interact with Native American tribes and at the end of his speech references that he will not break his promises to his brothers and sisters once in office. You can see the speach he gave on the Crow Reservation here.

We then took the metro to the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City to see the pow-wow for all tribal nations, sponsored by the American Indian Society of Washington D.C.  This was truly an incredible gathering of Native American tribes from all over the United States.  Afterwards, we got back on the Metro to go stay with some friends of my mother up on Capital Hill  so that we wouldn’t have to worry about the craziness of the subway in the morning.  I got there about 12:30 AM and had a little bit of a hard time sleeping thinking about the day ahead. :)

Day 5, Jan. 20th: Thousands of people with tickets to the Blue Zone didn’t get in… we were one of the last ones let through.

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We were up at 6:00 and in line to get into the Blue Zone (in front of the Reflection Pool, to the right) about 7:15.  The Blue Zone was completely mismanaged as lines broke down causing hundreds of people with tickets to the inauguration ceremony to not be allowed in.  I heard later that the generator broke down which caused the metal detectors to stop working, which helped the line slow to a crawl.  After two hours though, our point in line had gone quite literally five feet in two hours causing hundreds of people to start panicing about not getting in at all.

Long story short… we got in about three minutes before the official ceremony began and were one of the very last people allowed in before they closed the security checkpoints.  However, thousands of people with tickets were turned away at 12:00 when the ceremony started (you can read the Washington Post’s article about it here).

After waiting for hours and being almost certain that we weren’t going to make it in, Cory and I can say that we saw the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States of America “live”!   We videotaped the jumbotron 300 feet away, trying to see around a tree, but it was still absolutely incredible!  It was electric when the moment everyone had been waiting for finally came, and Barack gave one of, if not the, finest speaches he’s written to date.

After the ceremony, one of my favorite memories is of watching the Marine helicopter fly Bush away and the crowd burst into song, singing “Na na na na. Na na na na.  Hey hey hey…Goodbye!“  As we left the Capital Building along with thousands of other people we landed in the Pour House a few blocks away and instantly made about 30 new friends from all over the U.S.  Everyone was toasting and buying each other drinks….Peter from Boston bought me a Black Russian, so I bought Katie from Kansas a Guinness an hour later. LOL  There were quite a few TV’s everywhere, and every time Barack would come on everyone would stop their conversations and start clapping and whistleing.  So fun.

Finally, we went home, changed clothes and headed out for the American Indian Inaugural Ball. It was pretty neat to be around everyone dressed up in their finest duds; however, I made do with what I could because I never got my garment bag from Unite Airlines. Oh well. :)

What a day.  I’m speechless to say anything else, other than to add a newsworthy comment that I think was very telling of what was happening in D.C. this day… there were not a single major incident, nor arrest made, in the entire District of Columbia on January 20th, 2009.   It seems our nation’s capital was one, at least for one day.  :)

Here is a link to the pictures of the Inauguration on NPR’s website, the transcript of his speech on the NY Times, and the official video on YouTube posted by the White House.

Day 6, Jan. 21st: First full day of work for President Obama(!), and a much needed day of rest for me

(still updating)

Wow. How far we’ve come.  :)

Some other fun links:

The White House’s new website

Incredible pictures of the Inaugration from Boson.com

Picard’s response to Rick Warren

Get the __ out

Day 7, Jan. 22nd: Tour of D.C.