A Presidential Day

Drew has shown great interest in his government class this semester. Kudos to his teacher who has succeeded engaging the nerd in current events and getting him excited about politics. Big, honking kudos! (This from the mother with a political science degree and a former job in the governor's office. Big, honking kudos indeed!)

So when the opportunity to see President Obama presented itself I knew my nerd would be excited to go even if it meant missing his favorite government class. We had 24 hours notice so Drew was able to clear it by Mr. Kudos-Carrying-Teacher who gave him the requisite fist bump and said something like "awesome," or another teenager approved phrase, before giving him instructions that he would need to brief the class on the experience upon his return. And with this endorsement and a healthy dose of excitement we set off to see the President yesterday morning.

We arrived at the University of Maryland around 7am and started walking to find the end of the line. And walking. And walking. And walking. At the end of the line we started taking pictures. Here is Drew's idea of passing the time in line:

Yep. Nose in a book. That's my boy! But within 90 minutes, roughly 8:45am, they had opened the doors and were starting to get people in the arena. We were almost there!

(Notice the jackets in mid-September? It was drizzling and a chilly 65 degrees. Umbrellas were not permitted in the arena so we dug out the raincoats and made the best of the weather.)

Here we are after getting through security and finding a seat:

From our seats on the front row of the upper deck we could clearly see the stage, the crowd, the press, and all the goings on in the arena. Drew was psyched! And notice the absence of things like headsets, clipboards, multiple cell phones and stress surrounding me? This is the first Presidential event at Maryland that I attended as a regular Joe Shmoe and not as the coordinator behind the scenes. It was nice being able to share the event with Drew for a change. Now if I could only get the red eye reduction feature to work on the camera! Hrumpf.

Red eyes or not, we had a great time. President Obama appeared on stage at 11:35am -- are you doing the math yet? we arrived at 7am in order to see the President at 11:35am, which means 4 and a half hours of waiting ... looooooong morning! -- and Drew declared the wait "so worth it." He was quite enthralled by the activity in the arena, the excitement in the crowd, and the fact that he was getting to see POTUS in person. The speech itself was good, dynamic, and full of audience participation whether or not it was planned. One dude was escorted out of the arena after shouting things at the President and another woman received an "I love you too" after loudly professing her love of the dude in the white shirt and red tie seen here at the podium:

What's that? Can't see him very well? Ah. Then check out these photos taken by people other than us. And here is the entire speech in case you haven't heard it before.

The speech ended at 12:15pm and we had a lovely chat with our seat neighbors. The guy was funny. He is a computer science major at Maryland and had a wickedly wry sense of humor. At one point the crowd was chanting "U.S.A." like we were at the Olympics or something. He looked up from his textbook and said, "Oh good. I was beginning to wonder where we were." (Oh crud. It loses something in translation. It was really funny at the time. Or maybe I was just bored and anything sounded funny right about then.) And on our way out of the seating bowl we joined the crowd at the windows to watch the motorcade depart:

Ta da! Drew got to see the gamut of Presidential movement yesterday. From crowd control, long lines, hecklers, security, the guy who puts the seal on the podium, the introduction of the state delegation, the speech itself, the crush of the press pool, enough flash bulbs to feel like you're at a concert, and then the motorcade. What a day. He left for school this morning still on Cloud 9 and

hoping to see his super cool Mr. Kudos-Carrying-Teacher to let him know all about the day. That's my boy!