Tuesday, August 26, 2008

My brush with greatness!

I text'd "OMG!" to my friends so many times last night that one finally text'd back and said, "You've got to calm down! It's only Day 1!"

Of course that's easy for her to say...she's in Texas!

After sitting in the Blogger Lounge for a while, my new-found friend came back from an interview he was doing for his blog and started showing me close up video of Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter, Bill Richardson, and Howard Dean! I had to get out of there!

That's when he informed me I could walk through the "do not enter--staff only" door in our Blogger Lounge, talk to the guy in the blue shirt, and get a pass to get on the floor for 30 minutes at a time.

I jumped at the chance and we hurried down to the "belly" of Pepsi.

On our way, we happened upon Dan Rather. Though he didn't seem too eager to take pictures with people, I snapped this shot and then had Brian snap a shot of me standing behind him. I'll have to get it from him later.

Once on the floor, the energy was amazing!

And then we ran into John Kerry! (Actually, it would be more accurate to say we were smashed beside him. The crowd in the small aisle around him was so packed...and I was sandwiched in the middle...trying to breathe. But I got some great shots of him!)


We took a break and went back to the Blogger Lounge so we could hopefully time our 30-minute passes just right so that we could see Michelle speak.
After some anxious waiting and getting our timing just right, we ended up on the floor right after the Michelle Obama video started. We saw her brother speak and then absorbed the energy as "Michelle" signs were passed out and the noise level rose. Absolutely amazing!!

And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, we packed up and left the Pepsi Center...and as we were walking outside, we ran into John Lewis!!!!! ...my absolutely FAVORITE Civil Rights hero! I was so awe-struck, I couldn't even remember his name! But, I did have enough sense about me to drop my stuff, run up to him, and ask for a picture. He was just as kind in person and very composed as I explained to him that he was my all-time hero.

Wow. What a night! Can it get any better??

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What FUN!!!

kids said...

Janet,

I finally am reading this... What an amazing time you had up in Denver! I'm glad now that you didn't come see us~ it would have been very anti-climactic~ ;-) How did you get the press pass?

Tami

Janet Morrison-Lane said...

Yes, I was going to try to go visit Mandy and another friend of mine in Ft. Collins. I'm so glad that didn't work out. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the week!

I double post my blogs at Everydaycitizen.com. She worked tirelessly to get about 10 of us blogger passes. At this convention, bloggers actually got better access than many of the media. We had access to floor passes for 30 minutes at a time...we could get in to almost anything just by flashing our press pass. It was the coolest thing ever! It makes me think about journalism. I'm sure it's a hectic job, but it was fun being a faux journalist for the week. :)