History in the making....

Two days of being downtown for all the DNC madness has caught up with me.

I have a political hangover.

Monday, Todd and I went downtown to see what all the talk was about and it was surprisingly uneventful. The only pictures we took we of the multitudes of cops in riot gear. Cops on bikes. Cops on motorcycles. Klingon cops. Cops cops cops! With all the money and time spent on security, it would almost be a shame if something DIDN'T happen. Not that I want something to happen. There have been plenty of protestor arrests so whatever.

The most exciting thing to come of Monday night happened while sitting at Chili's at 16th & Champa. Just enjoying our two-for-one margs and beers and chowing on chips and salsa and along comes James Carville! No security, no entourage, no briefcase, not even DNC lanyards. Just Carville in his sport coat and shiny red Asics. Woo hoo! HE cemented himself in my mind as "coolest old guy alive" when someone yelled "Oh my god! James Carville!" and he responded with a fist in the air and a solid "YEAH!" and kept on walkin'. He was on a mission to get somewhere, which I found amusing.

Monday was supposed to be the only day we went downtown, but with public transit so cheap and accessible and history being made 2 miles from our house, we couldn't keep ourselves away.

So we went again last night. There were substantially more crazies out than on Monday, but last night was also Bill Clinton's speech and Joe Biden's (woo hoo!) acceptance speech, so crazies in droves was to be expected. Right when we stepped off the bus, we saw a band of people walking down 16th Street Mall shouting "Jesus is my gay friend! He can be yours too!" complete with signage. The statement made no sense to me and wasn't protesting anything so we were all kind of curious what their point was. I dunno.

Then there was the chick selling Obama action figures (which Kelly went back to buy later) whom our friend, Steph, took a photo of earlier this week. We gave her Steph's blog address so she could check herself out...she was pretty excited that someone blogged her haha!

There was a TON of Obama / DNC schwag to be had last night, but all of it was wickedly overpriced. $15 for an Obama/Biden car magnet?!? Sure I want one, but I don't really want to drop that much on a friggin' magnet. Oh well. I do still have my BARACK THE VOTE t-shirt which will be fun to wear to work, I'm sure. :o) Gabe saw some dudes selling light-up DNC t-shirts that he so wanted to buy, but they were $30. No way!

We made our way to Chili's for 2-for-1 margs and beers and some chips and queso while we watched Biden's acceptance speech, which was very very good and inspiring. We were all clapping and hootin' and hollerin' during the speech, which was just fun! At one point, Heather started chanting "Hillary! Hillary!" and a guy sitting next to our table leaned over and kindly said, "Get over it, honey." to which we all fell apart laughing. I think the end of Biden's speech was my favorite when his wife, Jill, came up on stage to congratulate him and tell him she had a surprise for him. He said, "What?" and that's when Obama walked out on stage and all of Denver erupted in cheers and "woo!"-ing and Biden had a look of glorious shock on his face...we were all dying laughing!

Oh and by the way, Obama was (is?) staying at the Westin downtown so we marched over there and actually got pictures of his motorcade! It was so cool! There were a bazillion demostrators outside the hotel with bullhorns and what not so we stayed pretty far away from that, lest we get arrested when Obama came out the hotel (just kidding...it was all pretty chill), but oh my damn it was so cool seeing a motorcade like that! There were at least a dozen vehicles hauling it over to the Pepsi Center so who knows which car he was in, but it was rad nonetheless.

Heather and I watched "roll call" on TV yesterday and both got shivery and teary when Hillary suggested that the entirety of the democratic votes go to Obama and to stop wasting time, nominate their candidate and get going on this! It was so exciting! Obama's mother was in the audience and she was a mess of tears. I guess until I saw that, I never put in perspective the fact that Barack Obama is somebody's KID...I mean, how many people's kids get to run for and/or BE President?! Not many. I can't even begin to imagine what she's feeling.

So now I have political hangover and am a bit sad that the Pepsi Center is all de-DNC'd. I'm jealous that some of our friends are going to be at the speech tonight. Megan and I are having "girls night" while we watch her husband be at the speech so that should be a good time.

History in the making, folks!