Report from PoliGeek House
| By Susan the Neon Nurse - Feb 17th, 2009 at 4:26 pm EST |
| Also listed in: CO. Community Leaders | Southeast Colorado Progressives |
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Categories: Economic Fairness & Security, Effective & Ethical Government, Budget Priorities
Categories: Economic Fairness & Security, Effective & Ethical Government, Budget Priorities
Before he left for the bus to school this morning, MrMike woke me to remind me that Obama was going to be in Denver today. He was almost as excited about it as if he was going to be there himself.
When I (eventually) got up and turned on my computer, I checked Twitter, as I always do. One of the first things I noticed was @DenverChannel (7, The Denver Channel) tweeting that @speakercarroll (Colorado's Speaker of the House, Terrance Carroll) was livetweeting from the museum. So I jumped on to add him to my Following list.
DenverChannel also mentioned they had a live feed going at their site. For some reason, a live feed fascinates me like bubblewrap fascinates our cat Sandy. Not just because it comes in more reliably than regular TV on a day when the wind is blowing 40-50 mph. Yes, like today. But there is something about sitting here in my personal home spot with LIVE unfiltered camera feed RIGHT HERE on my personal screen that makes my inner geek squee uncontrollably. I almost feel like I could go outside and find a flying car parked in my driveway!
Not that I would flive it on a windy day like today.
So I sat here gawking and marveling at the shots of Air Force One (?) on the ground at Buckley, and the motorcade rolling off across the flat prairie like a modern wagon train. When they cut over to them getting onto Colorado Blvd near the I-70 exchange, I trilled to The Clone how amazing it was that the Prez and his crew were driving on the SAME STREETS I myself have driven on many, many times. I recognized the scenery, see?
OK, I'll try to calm down.
Of course there were a lot of speeches once it started. The text of those are posted all over already, so you can easily find them if you want to. I'll just hit some highlights.
MrMike will be very happy when I tell him one of the things VP Biden emphasized most was various kinds of rail improvements he hopes we will see come from the stimulus bill.
When it was finally Obama's turn to speak, he thanked all the Colorado pols. I thought it was funny when he said, "Mark Udall -- he's not here, but give him a big round of applause anyway."
Obama has good comedy instincts. He said it was nice to be back in Denver and deadpanned, "I was here last summer. We had a good time." The crowd didn't seem to be sure whether that was a joke or not. Obama had paused a little, as if waiting, but when there was no strong response he just smoothly moved on and got into his speech.
It probably won't get the play it deserves, for something that I think is pretty ground-breaking in terms of how We the People can interact with government, but Obama said we can expect to be able to hold our elected officials accountable at all levels by seeing exactly where all this money will be going, through the new link at Recovery.gov. I for one am bookmarking it. We'll see.
Again using the miracle of COMPUTERS!YAY! I watched the actual signing up close and personal. Obama wrote with one, picked up another from a tray, and grinned at the cameras, saying something about using ten pens. And he did. I'm kind of curious how that works. Does he just write a few letters with each one, or what? Must Google.
Afterwards we got to see him and Joe work the crowd a bit. I recognized Betsy Markey, our CD4 Congresswoman, and Gov. Bill Ritter, and maybe Jared Polis if that was him standing beside Betsy. There were several others I glimpsed that I think might know, but my doubt proves I am really not THAT much of a player in the big political picture.
OK, I have to get back to work trying to stimulate our personal economy now. These books won't wrap and mail themselves.
When I (eventually) got up and turned on my computer, I checked Twitter, as I always do. One of the first things I noticed was @DenverChannel (7, The Denver Channel) tweeting that @speakercarroll (Colorado's Speaker of the House, Terrance Carroll) was livetweeting from the museum. So I jumped on to add him to my Following list.
DenverChannel also mentioned they had a live feed going at their site. For some reason, a live feed fascinates me like bubblewrap fascinates our cat Sandy. Not just because it comes in more reliably than regular TV on a day when the wind is blowing 40-50 mph. Yes, like today. But there is something about sitting here in my personal home spot with LIVE unfiltered camera feed RIGHT HERE on my personal screen that makes my inner geek squee uncontrollably. I almost feel like I could go outside and find a flying car parked in my driveway!
Not that I would flive it on a windy day like today.
So I sat here gawking and marveling at the shots of Air Force One (?) on the ground at Buckley, and the motorcade rolling off across the flat prairie like a modern wagon train. When they cut over to them getting onto Colorado Blvd near the I-70 exchange, I trilled to The Clone how amazing it was that the Prez and his crew were driving on the SAME STREETS I myself have driven on many, many times. I recognized the scenery, see?
OK, I'll try to calm down.
Of course there were a lot of speeches once it started. The text of those are posted all over already, so you can easily find them if you want to. I'll just hit some highlights.
MrMike will be very happy when I tell him one of the things VP Biden emphasized most was various kinds of rail improvements he hopes we will see come from the stimulus bill.
When it was finally Obama's turn to speak, he thanked all the Colorado pols. I thought it was funny when he said, "Mark Udall -- he's not here, but give him a big round of applause anyway."
Obama has good comedy instincts. He said it was nice to be back in Denver and deadpanned, "I was here last summer. We had a good time." The crowd didn't seem to be sure whether that was a joke or not. Obama had paused a little, as if waiting, but when there was no strong response he just smoothly moved on and got into his speech.
It probably won't get the play it deserves, for something that I think is pretty ground-breaking in terms of how We the People can interact with government, but Obama said we can expect to be able to hold our elected officials accountable at all levels by seeing exactly where all this money will be going, through the new link at Recovery.gov. I for one am bookmarking it. We'll see.
Again using the miracle of COMPUTERS!YAY! I watched the actual signing up close and personal. Obama wrote with one, picked up another from a tray, and grinned at the cameras, saying something about using ten pens. And he did. I'm kind of curious how that works. Does he just write a few letters with each one, or what? Must Google.
Afterwards we got to see him and Joe work the crowd a bit. I recognized Betsy Markey, our CD4 Congresswoman, and Gov. Bill Ritter, and maybe Jared Polis if that was him standing beside Betsy. There were several others I glimpsed that I think might know, but my doubt proves I am really not THAT much of a player in the big political picture.
OK, I have to get back to work trying to stimulate our personal economy now. These books won't wrap and mail themselves.
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