The President's address, and the response

All through Gov. Jindal's response, Julie kept saying, "Who is this guy reminding me of?" Luckily for us, many others solved the puzzle for us, and minutes after the speech there was a picture of Kenneth, the page on 30 Rock, at the top of Talking Points Memo.

verslaaft

You know what's bad? When I find myself checking my own blog to see if anything new has been posted...

Just to change something, I replaced the Inauguration Watch fromthe Washington Post (there hasn't been anything to watch for weeks) with the "Obama Meter" keeping track of promises kept, compromised, and broken. I only have about two days left on my trial version of video editing software, and then I'll have to switch or buy. It's been hard to find the motivation to spend the endless hours at it now that no one is looking for it.

Owen on the air--follow up

He was great, don't you think? And I don’t think I’m just being a proud papa when I point out that his comeback to the “soylent green” comment was especially good!

Owen on the radio

Owen H-D provided some live coverage of the Inauguration for the Northampton radio station WHMP when Bill Dwight, host of the creatively named “Bill Dwight Show,” called him on his cell phone. Bill is a big guy in local radio, but that’s mostly just because he’s a big guy… ba-dum bump. He's also a man of substance and talent, and since he knows just about everyone and everyone he knows thinks of him as “my friend Bill,” he gets some very funny and interesting guests on his show. Rachel Maddow has even tagged “her friend Bill” to fill in for her on Air America.
Now, having said some nice things about him, I hope Bill won’t mind that I’ve cut almost all of him and his show out of the clip below and left only the parts where my son is mentioned or is on. Truth is, I really enjoyed listening to Bill’s openng reflection on the Inauguration. I listened to it more than a week after the event, and it brought me right back—from 400 miles away, he did a pretty good job expressing the feelings we were sharing with a few million others in DC.
I encourage you to follow this link to the Bill Dwight Show and look for the 1/20/09 podcast on the right side (click on the triangle pointing right to play the show, or on the sergeant’s stripes to download it as an mp3). In the meantime, the clip below has a sort of choppy lead-in to the parts with Owen. Enjoy.

The Google Effect

Because the video that goes with the post "Reminiscing - Getting There" is tagged with the words "New York City," and "inauguration," the videos that YouTube recommends along the bottom when it ends include a very cute one of some guys in Harlem dancing on the sidewalk to the Barack Obama song. The song goes on and on, and nothing changes, so if you're tempted to watch a little don't feel like you need to watch it all.

Favorite Moments 3

One half of a cell phone converstation, 7:30 am: "What are we doing? We're watching the sun come up on a New Day!

Someone Else's Helicopter Moment

A neighbor tells me a story of a friend of hers who wasn't doing too well, but told his hospice attendent that he wanted to stick around for the Inauguration, but that he'd probably die after that. When the helicopter carrying Mr. Bush away came on the TV he raised a fist and said, "Mission accomplished." The next day he made good on his prediction and passed away.

Weird Moment

After the ceremony was over, and we joined the crowd flowing westward, the jumbotrons showed bland announcements about the exits on 7th St being closed, etc. but the sound was still on and the Mall was filled with a loud and unpleasant roaring. It went from loud to very loud when we were near a speaker tower. With the crowd opened up, the breeze could reach us and it was cold and it swirled the sheets of newspaper folks had been sitting on and the plastic wrappers from the chemical hand warmers around our feet. Joining thousands of others we hunched our shoulders and walked stiffly, (after standing so long, Julie's feet hurt a lot every time she put one down) silenced by this ominous drone. Apparently the microphone was following the new President as he escorted the ex-President to his helicopter, and I suppose we had guessed at this because when the sound lessened we knew to turn toward the Capital and watch the Marine Corp helicopter appear over it and head slowly up the length of the Mall. I don't remember there being too much crowd reaction... no one threw their shoes at it. We were glad that the ugly noise was gone, though.

Favorite Moments 2

When the man standing next to us suddenly turned and started shaking everyone's hand saying, "Thank you. Thank you for sharing history with me."